Let My People Know

"The mitzvot are know as the 248 organs of the King"

 

Sacrifice is essentially an uplifting, a going up by offering or raising.

Work or worship too is sacrifice, whether by prayer or mitzvah, and thereby a consecration of things, providing them with a certain holiness.

Reality is not destroyed, it is enhanced; one fills it with light.

If the first movement is that of offering up, of consuming the sacrifice, the second movement is the opposite, to illumine and consecrate.

This corresponds to the two movements of the beating of the heart, regulating the flow of the blood up and back from the heart to the various organs of the body.

The mitzvot are known as the 248 organs of the King, and each mitzvah relates to a specific organ.

Therefore a mitzvah without a corresponding "intention" in the body is without soul.

Which is the reason for the statement that the blood is the soul.
 
And every organ has its life blood or soul, which has to flow "upward," returning to its source.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
 
From The Long Shorter Way by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz