mitzvah

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Hebrew מצווה‎ (mitsvá, “commandment”).

Noun

mitzvah (plural mitzvahs or mitzvoth)

  1. (Judaism) Any of the 613 commandments of Jewish law
    • 1988 September 2, Florence Hamlish Levinsohn, “A Special Connection With God”, in Chicago Reader‎:
      She called Penansky regularly to remind her to observe the mitzvahs.
  2. (Judaism) An act of kindness, a good deed.
    • 2013, Thomas Pynchon, Bleeding Edge, Vintage 2014, p. 17:
      ‘You heard about them pulling my license. That was indirectly Joel. Who, without meaning to, did me such a mitzvah.’

Translations

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