You are the children of Yahweh your God. You shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead.
Not to cut oneself or make gashes in one's flesh for the dead
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
לֹא תִתְגֹּדְדוּ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
שהזהירנו מעשות שרט לנפש בבשרנו כאשר יעשו עובדי ע"ז. והוא אמרו יתעלה לא תתגודדו. וכבר נכפלה האזהרה מזה באמרו ושרט לנפש לא תתנו וגו'. וכבר התבאר בגמרא יבמות (דף י"ג:) כי גופיה דקרא לא תתגודדו לא תעשו חבורה, ושם נאמר גם כן לא תתגודדו מיבעי ליה לגופיה דאמר רחמנא לא תעשו חבורה על מת. ובגמרא מכות (דף כ"א) אמרו שריטה וגדידה אחת היא. ושם התבאר המתגודד על המת בין ביד בין בכלי חייב ועל ע"ז בכלי חייב ביד פטור כמו שבא בפירוש בנבואה ויתגודדו כמשפטם בחרבות. והנה אמרו שבכלל זה האזהרה מחלוק דתי העיר במנהגם וחלוק הקבוצים ואמרו לא תתגודדו לא תעשו אגודות אגודות, אבל גופיה דקרא הנה הוא כמו שבארנו לא תעשו חבורה על מת, וזהו כמו דרש. וכן אמרו סנהדרין (דף ק"י) המחזיק במחלוקת עובר בלאו שנאמר ולא יהיה כקרח וכעדתו, הוא גם כן על צד הדרש אמנם גופיה דקרא הוא להפחיד. ולפי מה שבארו החכמים הנה הוא שלילה לא אזהרה כי הם בארו שענין זה המאמר הוא שהאל יתעלה מגיד כי מי שיחלוק ויעורר על הכהונה במה שיבא מן הזמן לא יענש במה שנענש קרח ואמנם יהיה כאשר דבר ה' ביד משה לו, רוצה לומר הצרעת, כאמרו למשה הבא נא ידך בחיקך, וכמו שהתבאר בעזיהו המלך. ואשוב אל כונת המצוה ואומר כי התבארו משפטי מצוה זו בסוף מכות והעובר על לאו זה לוקה. (ראה אנכי, שם):
That He prohibited us from making a laceration for the dead in our flesh, like the idol worshippers do. And this is His, may He be exalted, saying, "you shall not gash yourselves (titgodedu)" (Deuteronomy 14:1). And the prohibition about this was already repeated with His saying, "You shall not make any lacerations in your flesh for the dead" (Leviticus 19:28). And it has already been explained in the Gemara, Yevamot (Yevamot 13b), that the essence of the verse, "you shall not gash yourselves," is, you shall not make a wound. And there it also says, "'You shall not gash yourselves,' is required for itself, as [the Torah] is saying, 'Do not make a wound for a corpse." And in the Gemara, Makkot (Makkot 21a), they said, "A laceration and a gash are the same." And there it is explained [that] one who makes a gash for a corpse is liable whether it was [done] with the hand or with a tool; but for idolatry, one is liable with a tool, but by hand, one is exempt - as appears explicitly in prophecy, "and they gashed themselves according to their practice with knives" (I Kings 18:28). And they have already said (Yevamot 13b) that included in this is the prohibition of disunity in the religious practices of a city and division [into] groups. And they said, "'You shall not titgodedu' - you shall not make agudot, agudot (many groups)." But the essence of the verse is as we explained - do not make a wound for a corpse - whereas this is like a homily (drash). And likewise that which they said in Sanhedrin (Sanhedrin 110a) - "One who maintains a disagreement transgresses a negative commandment, as it is stated, 'and not be like Korach and his congregation' (Number 17:5)" - is also from a homiletic angle. However the essence of [that] verse is [simply] to deter [from this]. And according to what the Sages explained, it is surely a negation, not a prohibition. For they explained that the content of this statement is that God, may He be exalted, is saying that one who will disagree and challenge the priesthood at some future time will not be punished with that which Korach was punished. Indeed he will be [punished], "Like the Lord spoke through Moshe to him" - meaning, tzaraat - as that which He said to Moshe, "Place your hand in your bosom," (Exodus 4:6) and as is made clear with King Uzziah (II Chronicles 26). And I will [now] return to the [primary] intention of the commandment and say that the regulations of this commandment have already been explained at the end of Makkot and that one who transgresses this negative commandment is lashed. (See Parashat Re'eh; 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 Binding
- Reform Kept as an ethical principle
- 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 divine mourning self-laceration: El scores his cheeks and chin and makes gashes on his chest and forearm in grief over the death of Baal — a Canaanite mythological depiction of ritual self-laceration as mourning expression Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast KTU 1.5 VI 11-25 (El's mourning sequence over Baal's death) Smith and Pitard, The Ugaritic Baal Cycle, vol. 2 (Brill, 2009); cf. Dietrich, Loretz, Sanmartín, KTU 3rd ed. (2013)
- ugaritic texts El descends from his throne, rolls in the dust, slashes his cheeks, chin, chest, and forearm in grief over Baal's death — the paradigmatic Canaanite mythological attestation of ritual self-laceration as a mourning gesture that the Deuteronomic prohibition lo titgodedu directly targets 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 self-laceration as a mourning practice under threat of corporal punishment; while modern law may restrict self-harm in some contexts, penalizing culturally embedded grief rituals involving one's own body with flogging conflicts with bodily-autonomy norms that treat decisions about one's own person as outside the proper scope of criminal punishment.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
The commandment imposes 39 lashes per gash for ritual mourning self-laceration; no contemporary criminal code treats private mourning practices as offenses warranting corporal punishment, making the prescribed sanction wholly incompatible with modern penal frameworks.
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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 individuals for mourning-related ritual self-injury constitutes corporal punishment 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 self-laceration is textually operative but practically suspended.