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 make a bald spot between one's eyes for the dead
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וְלֹא־תָשִׂימוּ קָרְחָה בֵּין עֵינֵיכֶם לָמֵת
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהירנו מעשות קרחה בראש על המתים כמו שיעשו הסכלים. והוא אמרו יתעלה ולא תשימו קרחה. ונכפלה אזהרה זו בכהנים באמרו לא יקרחו קרחה וגו' להשלים הדין הזה, כי מאמרו בין עיניכם היינו יכולין לומר כי הקורח מן הראש [סמוך לפדחת] לבד יאסר, ולכן באר ואמר בראשם לחייב על הראש כבין עיניכם, ואילו אמר גם כן לא יקרחו קרחה בראשם היינו אומרים בין על המת בין שלא על המת, וכבר באר שם למת. וכל מי שיגלח שער ראשו בקרחה על מת לבד כגריס לוקה בין היה כהן או ישראל לוקה על כל קרחה וקרחה מלקות אחת, וכן כפל בכהנים ופאת זקנם לא יגלחו וגו'. אמנם בא להשלים דין מצוה זו כמו שהתבאר במכות (דף כ'). (ראה אנכי, מדע הלכות עבודה זרה וחקות העכו"ם פרק י"ב):
He prohibited us from making a bald spot on the head for the dead, as is done by the fools. And that is His saying, "nor make any baldness" (Deuteronomy 14:1). And this prohibition was repeated for the priest with His saying, "They shall not make baldness, etc." (Leviticus 21:5) - to round out this law: As from His saying, "between the eyes," we could have said that it would only be forbidden when one makes himself bald on his head near his forehead. And so He explained and said (in the other verse), "on their heads" - to make liable [for anywhere] on the head, like [he is for] between the eyes. Yet also if He [had only] said, "They shall not make baldness on their heads," we would have [then] said whether for the dead or not for the dead. So He already explained [in Deuteronomy], "for the dead." Thus anyone who makes a bald spot the size of a barley seed specifically for the dead is lashed. Whether he is an Israelite or a priest, he is lashed one [set of] lashes for each and every bald spot. And likewise that which He repeated with the priests - "neither shall they shave off the corner of their beard, etc." - certainly came to round out the law of the commandment, as is explained in Makkot (Makkot 21a). (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 As the catalog records it: binding (textually derived)
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 El gashes his skin and shaves/cuts his cheeks and beard as part of the mourning sequence for Baal's death — a Canaanite mythological depiction of self-disfigurement in mourning analogous to the qorchah and gedidah practices prohibited in Deut 14:1 Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast KTU 1.5 VI 11-22 (El's mourning for Baal) Smith and Pitard, The Ugaritic Baal Cycle, 2 vols. (Brill, 1994, 2009); cf. Wyatt, Religious Texts from Ugarit, 2nd ed. (2002)
- ugaritic texts El shaves/cuts his cheeks and beard and gashes his skin as a mourning gesture for Baal's death — the Canaanite mythological instance of the head-shaving (qorchah) and self-laceration complex that Deuteronomy 14:1 prohibits as incompatible with Israel's filial status before YHWH Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast KTU 1.5 VI 11-22 (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 making a bald spot as a mourning gesture under threat of corporal punishment, criminalizing a personal grooming act performed in grief; post-Enlightenment norms hold that individuals' decisions about their own bodies — including grief-related self-expression — are not appropriately subject to criminal sanction and corporal punishment.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
The commandment imposes 39 lashes for shaving or plucking one's hair as a mourning gesture; no contemporary criminal system treats personal hair-removal in grief contexts as a punishable offense 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; the imposition of lashes for mourning-related hair removal constitutes corporal punishment categorically prohibited 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 sanction for this prohibition is textually operative but practically suspended.