All that the Lord has Spoken

Having journeyed from Rephidim, they entered the wilderness of Sinai and encamped in the wilderness. Israel encamped there in front of the mountain, and Moses went up to God. The Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, "Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob and declare to the children of Israel: 'You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to Me. Now then, if you will obey Me faithfully and keep My covenant, you shall be My treasured possession among all the peoples. Indeed, all the earth is Mine, but you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words that you shall speak to the children of Israel." Moses came and summoned the elders of the people and put before them all that the Lord had commanded him. All the people answered as one, saying, "All that the Lord has spoken we will do!" And Moses brought back the people's words to the Lord. -Exodus 19:2-8 (JPS Tanakh )

This is the moment when the Children of Israel agreed to obey all of the commandments of God, God's Torah, as a single people. While modern Judaism considers the Torah to be comprised of 613 specific positive and negative commandments, in a recent article on my congregation's blog, I published information indicating that, in the modern era and particularly in the diaspora (anywhere outside of Israel), observant Jews can only obey roughly 200 of the mitzvot, and even that number may be a bit of a stretch. Now let's consider a different perspective.

“‘Everyone who is native-born must do these things in this way when they present a food offering as an aroma pleasing to the LORD. For the generations to come, whenever a foreigner or anyone else living among you presents a food offering as an aroma pleasing to the LORD, they must do exactly as you do. The community is to have the same rules for you and for the foreigner residing among you; this is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. You and the foreigner shall be the same before the LORD: The same laws and regulations will apply both to you and to the foreigner residing among you.’” -Numbers 15:13-16

I've already stated in Who Belongs to the Covenant why I don't believe this or other, similar passages in the Torah, can be used to justify Gentile obligation to the entire body of commandments assigned to the Children of Israel at Sinai, but it's such passages as this from the Bible that many non-Jews in the Messianic movement use to justify the "One Law" or "One Torah" theology stating that both Jews and Gentiles who are Messianic have an identical obligation to the mitzvot.

I want to approach the issue of Gentile Torah obedience (compliance, subservience) from another direction. Having already established that no one can obey all of the 613 commandments today, I want to ask the Gentiles (and perhaps some of the Jews) in the Messianic movement a question. What do you do to obey your "obligation" to the Torah? Put another way, what does obeying the commandments actually mean in a practical, day-to-day sense?

There's another reason why we can't obey all of the 613 commandments today. They aren't all contained in the Five Books of Moses. Wait. Let me explain.

Each and every one of the 613 commandments or mitzvot is based on a specific verse or verses in the Five Books of Moses (I'm saying it this way because "Torah" can mean so much more than just Genesis through Deuteronomy). However, how they are interpreted and understood isn't always plain in the written Torah, and operationalizing the commandments may need a little help. That's where other meanings of the term "Torah" come in.

In a previous article on this blog called What Did Jesus Change: Ritual, I provided what I hope is a simple and straightforward way to understand the Jewish perspective on what "Torah" means. Based on a class my wife took at the local Chabad, the term "Torah" falls into three general categories: Written and Oral, Derived, and Legislated. Each of these explanations was previously published in my "ritual" blog post and I'm repeating them here.

The Written and Oral Torah

Torah can be considered both written and oral. Remember, Moses was on Sinai with God for 40 days and nights, so they must have talked about something. Actually, the oral law makes a certain amount of sense, once you realize that many of the commandments in the written Torah don't explain how to obey them (just how does one wear fringes on the four corners of a garment?). In that, the oral law modifies the written law so that it is "operationalized", describing the mechanics of how to perform the various commandments.

Derived Torah

After the written and oral Torah, there are the derived rulings, which is like how the U.S. Supreme Court interprets the U.S. Constitution. Originally, the Sanhedrin, in the days of Moses, was charged with interpreting the Torah for people, particularly in disputes, clarifying its meaning in difficult to understand situations. Also, over time, laws have to be understood in the light of new technological and social changes. For instance, laws previously passed in our country that addressed telegraph and telephone communications, some over a century old, have to be reinterpreted in light of the Internet.

Let's apply this to the Torah. When the laws dictating proper behavior on the Shabbat were first codified, automobiles and microwave ovens didn't exist. Once they were invented and put in popular use, the Shabbat laws had to be interpreted to render a judgment relative to whether or not these devices could be used lawfully on Shabbat. The directive to not drive on the Shabbat (at least in the Orthodox community) was derived from the original Shabbat commandments based on not igniting a flame on the Sabbath.

Legislated Torah

After this come legislated rulings. These can actually be local customs and can differ between, say the Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews. For instance, among the Ashkenazi, it is prohibited to eat or possess rice and beans during the Passover season as they are considered "leaven". You might wonder why, since these items are never used to leaven bread, but in centuries past, these food items were sometimes mixed with flour. It wasn't always easy to tell which ones were and which were not mixed with flour, so the Beit Din (Rabbinic Court) ruled that all rice and beans were to be considered leaven in order to resolve the conflict. Although the original problem has probably long since vanished, the ruling is still binding.

From an observant Jew's point of view, all of this is "Torah". That is, all of this is binding and Jews are obligated to live a lifestyle taking each and every one of these rulings into account. I'm not saying that every Jew on earth obeys every individual commandment and mitzvot recorded, and even "observant Jews" don't obey the mitzvot in the same way, but these are the rulings and teachings that make up a lived Jewish experience.

Do you do all of this? Have you studied the Babylonian Talmud with a learned Rabbi in a recognized and accredited Yeshiva? Do you buy your meats from a kosher butcher and eat (for example) glatt kosher?

No? You don't? Why not?

Oh. Because the rulings of the Rabbis were made up and/or only apply to Jews and they aren't binding on Gentiles who are grafted in to Israel through the blood of Yeshua (Jesus).

If that's so, how can you (Gentile Messianic) say that you are obligated to the Torah and keep all of the Torah mitzvot identically with your Jewish brothers and sisters?

Don't you hate tough questions?

OK, perspective time. I'm not necessarily saying that obeying all of the mitzvot in robot-like fashion will be a benefit to you in your walk of holiness. Certainly, if you don't "buy into" the Jewish definition of "Torah", then keeping glatt kosher, refusing to drive on the Shabbat and walking to shul instead, and having men and women sit separately during worship isn't going to do you any good and it won't make you feel any closer to God. You'll just be "legalistic".

And yet for a world of observant Jewish people, these and many more such behaviors define their worship of and devotion to God. If Judaism and Christianity hadn't experienced its schism in the early centuries of the common era, how do you know that Gentile believers wouldn't (assuming you are of a One Law/One Torah perspective) be observing all of the written, oral, derived, and legislated Torah, just as many observant Jews do today?

Yet aren't you (we) Gentile Messianics "picking and choosing" which commandments to obey and which to disregard based on your (our) own preferences? I've heard some non-Jewish Messianics criticize "the Church" for doing the exact same thing. Is this getting to be at all sobering for anyone out there?

All that said, there are a few things to consider. For instance, we don't really know for sure all of the little details about how non-Jews are to implement obedience to God. If we did, it wouldn't be such a hot topic in Messianic Judaism and I wouldn't be writing this blog post. We only "believe" we know based on this opinion or that opinion. It all depends on who you follow and who you choose to trust as a leader or teacher.

When I took a good hard look at what Yeshua taught in the Book of Matthew and applied it to the Matthew 28:18-20 mandate, I came up with these conclusions. I'm not saying they make up the entirety of Gentile obligation to God, but they're a good place to start.

This morning, Rabbi Harav Yitzchak Ginsburgh said this on twitter:

For true peace on earth there must be one religion for all mankind. That religion is Judaism: 613 commandments for Jews and 7 for non-Jews.

Given that it's only about two weeks until Christmas ("Peace on earth, good will to all men"), it isn't very difficult to understand why Rabbi Ginsburgh posted this comment. I note it here because it's the first time I've heard anyone in Judaism say that there should only be one religion: Judaism, and that it should be applied to everyone on earth (with the vast majority of people obeying the Seven Noahide Laws).

I want to invoke a much older authority to add a bit of illumination.

“A gentile once came to convert to Judaism, on the condition that he could learn the whole Torah while standing on one foot. He approached Shammai, who rejected him, so he went to Hillel, who taught him: "’That which you dislike don't do to your fellow: That’s the basis of Torah. The rest is commentary; go study!" -Shabbos 31

This very famous passage from the Talmud tells a story of the great Jewish scholar and teacher Hillel, who lived in the late 1st century B.C.E. into the 1st decade of the Common Era, and whose lifetime overlapped that of Yeshua (Jesus). Here, Hillel seems to be conducting the fastest Gentile to Jewish conversion in the history of Judaism short of Ruth's statement to Naomi (Ruth 1:16). But what really happened?

I'm not prepared to analyze all of the nuances of this event, but notice what Hillel said was the core of the Jewish understanding of Torah: That which you dislike don't do to your fellow. This is a negative expression of the following:

And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself...' -Matthew 22:39 (quoting Leviticus 19:18)

Hillel was a scrupulous teacher of halachah and ritual obedience and would hardly have disregarded the mitzvot of Sinai in favor of such a reductionist view of the Torah and yet, he's saying something here that we all need to understand. He's saying, in my opinion, if you cannot grasp the "obedience" of loving your neighbor and not doing any harm to him, will keeping the entire body of mitzvot including loving God mean anything to you?

If you expanded Hillel's statement just a bit, wouldn't it sound something like this?

There's much more I could say on this topic and I probably will in time, but I want you folks reading this article, especially those of you who are Gentiles in the Messianic movement, to stop and take a moment to question your assumptions. This entire blog was created for the purpose of questioning and testing assumptions. Unlike many pundits on the web and particularly in the Messianic blogosphere, I can't claim to be infallible, a perfect interpreter of the Bible, or some sort of "prophet". Like I wrote in the profile section of this blog, "I'm just one person searching for the light on the path and trying to understand my relationship with God".

Maybe some of this will help us all understand who we are in God.

Comments?

What Did Jesus Teach About the Torah, Part 3?

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. -Matthew 28:19-20

This is the eleventh part of my series on what Yeshua (Jesus) taught his Jewish disciples to teach the newly minted Gentile disciples to obey. It is also the third part of my series that specifically focuses on what Yeshua taught about the Torah (the Law) that can be applied to non-Jewish disciples. Before continuing, let's review the summary for Part 2 of What Jesus Teaches About the Torah:

In a nutshell, Yeshua taught that the Torah commandment to not murder includes not denigrating another person. "Do not commit adultery" is not just a matter of refraining from extramarital sex, but a prohibition of even looking at another woman with lustful desire and intent. Although Torah allows divorce, no married couple should remove the bond between them created by God except under the most serious circumstances. It is better to take no oath at all than to take an oath before God and then fail to complete it. Even if you are in the right to sue another, consider the consequences before proceeding. Loving those who love you is easy. Loving someone who doesn't love you is from God.

While each of these commandments has their source in the Torah of Moses, Yeshua brings the correct and original understanding of each of these statements to his Jewish disciples and, through the Matthew 28 directive, to the Gentile disciples; to us. However, there's a problem.

In my previous conversations with Messianic Jewish adherents to Bilateral Ecclesiology, Divine Invitation (as defined by First Fruits of Zion or FFOZ), and to others aligned with the specific teachings of organizations such as the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations (UMJC), the only standard they believe is valid for Torah observance by Gentile disciples of Yeshua is found in Acts 15, in what we now call "the Jerusalem Letter". Let's take a look at it.

We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul - men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell. -Acts 15:24-29

This letter seems to have been written in response to a situation described by Paul in his Galatians letter. Here's a small sample:

Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth? That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. "A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough." I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion will pay the penalty, whoever he may be. Brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves! -Galatians 5:2-12

Paul appears to be describing a group of Messianic Jews who were struggling with the idea that Gentiles could enter the community of Messianic faith and become disciples and worshipers of the One God without actually converting to Judaism (circumcision is the shorthand Paul is using to describe conversion). If Gentiles were being instructed that they could only become disciples by becoming Jews, it would completely undo everything Yeshua had done and taught, according to Paul. Yet, it was understandable that many of the Jewish disciples of Yeshua would have a tendency to not want Gentiles to share the status of full disciples with them.

In that place and time, Jews generally believed that any sort of contact with a Gentile would make a Jew unclean. Even being in a Gentile's house would be like touching a corpse. There were already many Gentile God-fearers worshiping in Jewish synagogues (see Acts 17 for examples of God-fearers worshiping with Jews in Thessalonica, Berea, and Athens), but their status would not have been as equals before God among the Jews, even though Gentiles too were created in the image of God.

Peter was only convinced to visit the home of the Roman God-fearer Cornelius after having a vision on a rooftop where God explained to him that Gentiles were in fact not unclean (see Acts 10:9-22). The following shows what a total shock it was for Jewish believers to witness Gentiles also being accepted as Messianic disciples and receiving the Spirit:

While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God. -Acts 10:44-46

Witnessing Gentiles being accepted as disciples of the Jewish Messiah and actually receiving the Holy Spirit just as the Jewish disciples did in Acts 2, was a completely mind-blowing experience for many of the Jewish disciples who witnessed the event. Imagine how difficult it was for the hundreds or thousands of Jewish Messianic disciples of that time to believe that Gentiles could receive the Spirit, since they had not seen this event with their own eyes. Were they willing to take Peter's and Paul's word for it? Were they be willing to take the Jerusalem Council's word for it?

Some of them obviously were not willing, hence Paul's comments to the Galatians and the necessity of the Jerusalem letter. But let's get back to the problem.

While Acts 16:4-5 describes the response of the Gentile believers to the delivery of the letter, given what Yeshua taught in Matthew 5:21-48 and the directive Yeshua gave to the Jewish disciples in Matthew 28:18-20, are we to believe that the conditions James and the Council wrote in their letter to the Gentile disciples were the only behavioral changes the Gentiles had to make? How could the Gentiles make sense of these directives if they didn't have access to the larger body of scriptures for context? Even assuming a different set of behavioral expectations for Jews and Gentiles in the synagogue and as believers, how could Gentiles understand this difference and why it exists if they didn't have access to the larger body of scriptures, and particularly to the teachings of the Messiah, to whom the Gentile believers were to be disciples and students?

Also remember this:

"It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. For Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath." -Acts 15:19-21

Somehow, the fact that the Torah of Moses was read in the synagogues on every Sabbath factored into the way the Council crafted their letter in response to the Jewish believers who had erroneously been attempting to get the Gentiles to convert to Judaism as a requirement of worshiping God.

Now remember that we're dealing with two general classes of Gentile disciples: those who had been God-fearers, had a familiarity with the synagogue, and had heard the Torah taught on Shabbat, and those who had just come out of pagan worship and hadn't a clue what was going on. The former population were already somewhat "on board" with having faith in God and they already loved the Jewish people. The latter population came to faith through hearing Paul or another Messianic emissary, but largely had no understanding of God, the Messiah, and Judaism, beyond what would have been common knowledge in the diaspora.

It must have been quite a shock when the Gentiles were originally told (erroneously) that they had to convert to Judaism and take on board the whole of Torah obedience and halacha; behaviors and concepts that were likely completely mysterious to them, confusing, and maybe even a little terrifying. Becoming a Gentile disciple of the Master would have seemed an overwhelming task for someone coming out of paganism if conversion to Judaism were a major requirement. How could they possible ramp up to speed in any reasonable amount of time and come to an understanding of all the commandments, equal to born Jews who had been hearing the Torah since childhood? You might not get any Gentile converts to the Messianic faith at all if they had to face that sort of chore. What to do?

In this context, the Jerusalem letter makes a great deal of sense. James could be saying, "Let's calm the Gentiles down". And to the Gentiles, the letter could say, "Don't worry, guys...you don't have to do everything all at once." But does the Jerusalem letter override what Yeshua said in Matthew 5 and Matthew 28? Of course not. If James (and interestingly enough, the Holy Spirit) had contradicted Yeshua's teachings, then the Apostolic Scriptures wouldn't be worth the paper they're printed on. So what do we do and how do we understand all this? The clue is here:

For Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath. -Acts 15:21

If Yeshua expected what he taught the Jewish disciples to obey to be transmitted to the Gentile disciples, then the Acts 15 letter cannot be the totality of what a Gentile disciples were to learn and obey. Based on my previous conclusions, Yeshua directly taught the correct interpretation of portions of the Torah, specifically from Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. The only way for the Gentile disciples to make sense of Yeshua's teachings and to put them in proper context, was for the Gentile disciples to be able to study the original portions of the Torah they were expected to understand and obey.

Conclusion: What do we learn about Yeshua's Torah teachings as connected to the Jerusalem letter to the Gentiles?

1. Yeshua taught the correct interpretation to a number of Torah commandments as seen in Matthew 5.
2. Yeshua specifically directed the Jewish disciples to teach the Gentile disciples to obey everything Yeshua taught, as seen in Matthew 28.
3. Some Messianic Jewish disciples were teaching the new Gentile disciples that the only way to become disciples of the Messiah was to convert to Judaism, as described in Paul's Galatians letter.
4. Paul and the Messianic authorities in Jerusalem correctly taught that Gentiles do not have to convert to Judaism in order to be Messianic disciples.
5. In order to calm the Gentile disciples down and to tell them that they did not have to take on board a totally Jewish obedience to the Torah, a letter was sent out as recorded in Acts 15.
6. Acts 16 shows how the letter was well received among the Gentiles.
7. Matthew 5 and 28 and Acts 15:21, as well as Acts 17:10-15, show that Gentiles were expected to learn, understand, and obey at least some of the Torah commandments outside the direct context of the Jerusalem letter.

There's no way around it. The Acts 15 letter cannot be the total and absolute limit of a Gentile disciple's behavioral compliance to God. At least some portions of the Torah of Moses must be included for the Gentiles to even make sense of who the Messiah is and what righteous living really means as an expectation of God.

Notice though, so far, I haven't presented one line of evidence that could support the idea that Gentiles are supposed to wear tzitzit, pray with teffilin, or to keep the totality of the 613 commandments (or at least that portion that's possible to keep outside of Israel and without a Priesthood or a Temple) as understood in rabbinic Judaism. So far, what I've found (but I'm not done, yet) is that, according to the teachings of Yeshua and the Jewish disciples, Gentiles, when they have become Messianic disciples, are required to change their behaviors based on more than just the Acts 15 letter. However, the Gentiles do not necessarily have to obey each and every Torah commandment exactly as a born Jew is required (and in fact, we see that Gentile conversion to Judaism in order to become a disciple is not only not required, but severely frowned upon).

We're getting rather deep into this topic, and so far, not many folks have been responding, although Judah Gabriel has started his own blog post to comment on this portion of my study. My conclusions aren't precisely lining up with either the understanding of the One Law/One Torah congregations nor the teachings of the Messianic Jewish adherents to Bilateral Ecclesiology (as defined by Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations or UMJC) or Divine Invitation (as defined by First Fruits of Zion or FFOZ).

I want to assure you that I'm not expending all this time and energy just to be disrespectful and offensive to people who don't share my exact viewpoint, so please don't take what I'm writing as some sort of slap in the face. I really am trying to make sense of what the Bible is saying to Gentiles without "drinking the Kool-Aid", so to speak, of any particular group's theology. Once married to a theology, having an objective viewpoint can be something of a challenge. If I can present this information while standing even a little bit outside my own assumptions, then perhaps I, and everyone else reading my blogs, can learn something new.

Needless to say, to be continued.