“ ‘You shall not cut the hair on the sides of your head or clip off the edge of your beard.
Not to shave the temples of the head in the idolatrous fashion
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
לֹא תַקִּפוּ פְּאַת רֹאשְׁכֶם
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהירנו מהעביר שער הצדעים. והוא אמרו יתעלה לא תקיפו פאת ראשכם, והאזהרה מזה שלא נתדמה לעובדי ע"ז כי כן היו עושין כומרי ע"ז שהיו מגלחין שער הצדעים לבד, והיו צריכין שיבארו במסכת יבמות (דף ה') ואמרו הקפת כל הראש שמה הקפה כדי שלא יאמר כי תכלית מה שידמה הוא גלוח הצדעים והניח שאר שערם כמו שיעשו כומרי ע"ז אמנם כשיגלח הכל אין בזה דמיון בהם, הנה הודיענו שאינו מותר לגלח הצדעים בשום פנים לא ביחוד ולא עם הראש, וחייב מלקות על כל פאה מהם, והוא חייב שתים אם גלח כל ראשו. והראוי שלא נמנה זה שתי מצות ואע"פ שהוא חייב שתים לפי שאין בהם שתי לשונות תחת לאו אחד, כי הוא אילו אמר לא תקיפו פאת ראש מימין ופאת ראש משמאל ומצאנום חייב עליהם שתים אז היה אפשר לומר שימנו שתי מצות, אמנם בהיותו מלה אחת וענין אחד הנה הוא באמת מצוה אחת, ואע"פ שבא בפירוש שלאו זה כולל חלקים רבים מתחלקים מן הגוף ושהוא חייב על כל אחד ועל כל חלק מהם ביחוד לא יחייב זה שיהיו מצות רבות. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו בסוף מכות ואין הנשים חייבות בה. (קדושים תהיו, מדע הלכות ע"ז וחקות העכו"ם פי"ב):
He prohibited us from removing the hair of the temples. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "You shall not round off the corners of your head" (Leviticus 19:27). And this prohibition is so that we will not resemble the idol worshippers, since the idolatrous priests would do this - as they would only shave the hair of their temples. So they had to clarify in Tractate Yevamot (Yevamot 5a) and say, "Rounding the whole head is called rounding" - so that it not be said that the point of the resemblance is the shaving of the temples and the leaving of the rest of their hair, like the idolatrous priests do; whereas when one shaves it all, there is no resemblance to them. Behold it is informing us that it is not permissible to shave the temples in any case - not by themselves and not with the [rest of the] head. And he is liable for lashes for each one of them; so he is liable for two [sets of] lashes if he shaved his whole head. But it is appropriate that we not count this [as] two commandments, even though he is liable for two [sets]. For there are not two expressions belonging to one negative commandment. As if He had said, "You shall not round off the corner of the head on the right nor the corner of the head on the left," and we would have found them liable for two [sets], it would have then been possible to say that they be counted as two commandments. However in that it is one expression and the same content, behold it is truly one commandment. And even though it appears in the explanation that this negative commandment includes different, distinct parts of the body and that one is liable for each part separately, this does not require that they be multiple commandments. And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained at the end of Makkot. However women are not obligated in it. (See Parashat Kedoshim; Mishneh Torah, Foreign Worship and Customs of the Nations 12.)
Hebrew: Sefer HaMitzvot, Warsaw 1883 (public domain). English: Sefaria Edition, trans. Rabbi Francis Nataf, 2021 (CC0). Via Sefaria; translator’s footnotes omitted.
Literary form: a prohibition
Applicability
How the catalog describes where and when this commandment applies. These are independent descriptions, not a verdict on which laws still count.
- Recorded as practiced today
Classical halakhic consequences
The consequences the classical halakhah attaches to this commandment, grouped by who imposes them. Where a category has none recorded, that absence is itself meaningful.
Imposed by a court
- Lashes (malkot)
At the hands of Heaven
No divinely-imposed consequence is recorded.
Ritual remedy
No ritual remedy is recorded.
How the streams of Judaism treat this commandment
The streams of Judaism read the same commandment differently — an ongoing plurality, not a ranking. Each position below is reported as the catalog records it; none is presented as the correct one.
- Orthodox Binding
- Conservative As the catalog records it: non binding in practice
- Reform Not binding
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite Binding
24 of 613 commandments have been examined in depth so far — this one is queued.
Beside the older legal codes of its world
The commandment set beside the ancient Near-Eastern legal collections scholars compare it to — a descriptive comparison, not a claim of dependence.
- ugaritic texts On learning of Baal's death, El descends from his throne, rolls in the dust, and gashes/lacerates his skin (cheeks, arms, chest, back) as a ritualized mourning gesture; this attests Levantine mourning self-mutilation that most directly illuminates the adjacent laceration prohibition (Lev 19:28) and, by association, the broader body-modification cluster including the head-edge prohibition (19:27), which the Holiness Code polemically rejects Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast KTU 1.5 VI 11-25 (Baal Cycle, El's mourning for Baal) Smith and Pitard, The Ugaritic Baal Cycle, 2 vols (Brill, 1994, 2009); Pardee, Ritual and Cult at Ugarit (SBL, 2002)
Where this commandment meets modern human-rights frameworks
One modern normative lens, attributed to it — not GEBible’s assessment. Each row names the framework it measures against and the catalog’s own classification of the relation.
This framework catalogues tensions; it records agreement in only one of its entries. The near-total tension rate is the shape of the instrument, not a finding.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as a substantive tension.
The commandment prohibits a specific grooming practice (shaving the temples) applied to the bodies of male Israelites, constraining personal appearance choices through religious law backed by corporal sanction; post-Enlightenment bodily-autonomy norms hold that individuals have the right to determine their own appearance without state coercion.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
The commandment prescribes 39 lashes for a grooming choice that causes no harm to others; no contemporary criminal code treats personal hairstyle decisions as a criminal offense, let alone one warranting corporal punishment.
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Article 7
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
ICCPR Article 7 prohibits cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment; flogging an individual for shaving his temples constitutes corporal punishment that is categorically barred by this provision.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Rabbinic tradition holds that lash-jurisdiction lapsed with the dissolution of ordained Sanhedrin courts after 70 CE; the de jure corporal sanction for this grooming prohibition remains textually operative but has not been enforced for nearly two millennia.