mitzvah

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Pronunciations

mitzvah (MIHTZ-vuh) listen
mitzvah (meetz-VAH) listen

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Definitions

  • n. A good deed.

  • n. A Jewish ritual commandment.

Example Sentences

  • "What a mitzvah it was for Sarah to help that elderly woman cross the street."

  • "Doing a mitzvah without feeling, and only because G-d told you to do it, is NOT AT ALL what we should be striving for." (source)

  • "On our kibbutz, we keep all the agricultural mitzvot laid down in the Torah." (Glinert)

  • "...and don't forget to call your aunt—it's a big mitzvah." (Glinert)

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Languages of Origin

  • Textual Hebrew

Etymology

  • TH מִצְוָה mitzvah 'commandment' > Y מ(י)צװה mitsve

      • Who Uses This

      • Jews: Jews of diverse religious backgrounds and organizational involvements
      • Non-Jews: (words that have spread outside of Jewish networks)

      Regions

      • North America
      • Great Britain
      • South Africa
      • Australia / New Zealand

      Dictionaries

      • The New Joys of Yiddish, by Leo Rosten and Lawrence Bush (New York, 2003[1968]).
      • Yiddish and English: A Century of Yiddish in America, by Sol Steinmetz (Tuscaloosa, 1986).
      • The JPS Dictionary of Jewish Words, by Joyce Eisenberg and Ellen Scolnic, (Philadelphia, 2001).
      • The Joys of Hebrew, by Lewis Glinert (New York, 1992).
      • Frumspeak: The First Dictionary of Yeshivish, by Chaim Weiser (Northvale, 1995).
      • Dictionary of Jewish Usage: A Popular Guide to the Use of Jewish Terms, by Sol Steinmetz (Lanham, MD, 2005).
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      Alternative Spellings

      mitzva, mitsvah, mitsve, mitsva, mitzve, mitsveh, mitzveh

Notes

  • plural: 'mitzvos' or 'mitzvot'

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