  The discussion then moves on to commandments that are contingent, insofar as they depend upon, or are limited to, a certain group (e.g. priests), an institution (e.g. temple sacrifices), gender specific (e.g. circumcision). This sifting allows Ibn Ezra, in chapter five, to get at those commandments that are absolute, “principles that do not depend upon a given time, a given place, or anything else.” These commandments, “planted in the heart”, were known by means of reason even before the giving of the Torah. Ibn Ezra himself thus inserts, at the heart of this very Jewish, and legalistic, treatise, the rational, humanistic outlook that marks his philosophy: the core demands of Judaism depend not upon revelation but upon innate human reason, and they are no different from the rules that must govern every human. 