Discipleship: a way of life

Does the Messiah's skin colour matter?

Clifford Denton addresses common misunderstandings about Torah.

In the last article we considered the subject of halakhah. Now let us consider Torah, on which halakhah is founded. These are Hebrew words, which will need some fresh investigation by many Christians, especially since some confusion has entered our Christian experience because of translation of these key words into other languages.

Our English Bible translations use the word ‘law’ where the Hebrew reads ‘Torah’ in the Old Testament. The New Testament manuscripts came to us in Greek rather than the Hebrew language. The word nomos is used rather than Torah or halakhah, again resulting in the word ‘law’ in English translations. This adds to our difficulty in re-thinking the relationship between Torah and halakhah because of the connotations of the word law in our lives and culture today.

This problem is increased because of the way Judaism has put the concept of halakhah into legalistic terms, further leading to many Christians rejecting serious studies of both Torah and halakhah, seeing law and grace as mutually exclusive.

We must look into the heart of God’s intent, and beyond legalism of either a Jewish or a Christian kind, to discover God’s purpose for all the family of faith. That is why we first of all, in our previous article, established that the Hebraic lifestyle was always intended to be a walk with God – the true interpretation of halakhah.

So now let’s put Torah into right relationship with this walk with God.

We must look beyond both Jewish and Christian legalism, to the heart of God’s intent for Torah and halakhah.

Compiling the Torah

It is instructive to consider the historical development of the Bible. The first five books of the Bible are called the Books of Moses. Before Moses’ time, oral tradition was the means of transmitting what was later to become the written word, recorded by Moses.

Enoch, Noah, Abraham and others learned to listen to God and walk with him. Then, when Israel was to become a nation within their own land, God caused Moses to record what is now the first five books of the Bible. This contains relevant earlier history, an account of the wilderness journey from Egypt to the Promised Land (itself a walk with God) and also the instruction that God gave by which Israel was to live. This included the Ten Commandments and a wide variety of requirements by which God’s chosen people should live as a nation, incorporating also the yearly cycle of Feasts of the Lord and the Sabbath Day.

The record of Moses came to be known as Torah. This word does not mean ‘law’. It means ‘teaching’ or ‘instruction’, drawing on the entire content of the first five Books of the Bible. God’s purpose was not to cause law to replace the foundational principle of walking with him in personal and corporate relationship.

Considered as God’s teaching programme, Torah was to be in balance with halakhah. This was the approach to be made in families, where children were to be taught by example and through parental guidance (Deut 6) and for the entire nation, for whom elders were appointed to interpret Torah on the walk of faith (Ex 18).

The Writings and the Prophets

Torah became Israel’s Bible, as it were. Other written records were compiled later, including the history of the nation, the Psalms and the Proverbs, which together were grouped as Ketuvim, the Writings. The Writings came out of a nation that was seeking to live in relation to God and to interpret his teaching as the foundation of that relationship.

When Israel fell away from God, their fall could be assessed by how far they had departed from Torah. The Prophets came along to point Israel back to God through reference to Torah. The third set of written material thus emerged which was called Neveeim, the Hebrew for ‘Prophets’.

The record of Moses came to be known as ‘Torah’, but this does not mean ‘law’.

Thus emerged the priority for the Hebrew Bible. With Torah (the five Books of Moses) at the foundation, Neveeim and Ketuvim were compiled with it, to make what comes to us as TaNaK, or the Tanakh (Old Testament).

Torah: Lost in Translation?

The true meaning and significance of Torah must be untangled from the concepts of English ‘law’ and Greek nomos if we are to re-connect with our Hebraic heritage. The key is in the Hebraic background of teaching, expressed as well as translators could in Greek, English and other languages.

The Greek nomos has shades of meaning that fit this original Hebraic background, but the English ‘law’ can easily be misinterpreted in our day, when it is connected with crime and punishment so readily. Yet, ‘law’ does also imply rules to bring safety and structure to the life of a community, and if we re-connect the concept with education we are not completely divorced from the original intent of the scriptures.

With Torah, interpretation was always necessary. Generation after generation of Israel’s elders and teachers, including rabbis in the Jewish tradition, helped the community of Israel to interpret Torah into a way of life. The call was not to make individual believers dependent on them, but to help them to be dependent on God. It is this link between Torah and halakhah that is so important.

This applies to the Christian world as much as it does to the Jewish world. Indeed, if we re-connect more firmly to the continuity from Old to New Covenant days, both Jews and Christians have the same objective – a walk with God as disciples, learning all that God wants to teach us.

Torah must be untangled from the concepts of English ‘law’ and Greek nomos and re-connected to our Hebraic heritage.

Yeshua Upholds Torah

During his Sermon on the Mount, Yeshua (Jesus) said that he had come to rightly interpret Torah (Matt 5:17). He confronted the religious teachers of the day for their controlling traditions and wrong interpretations (Matt 23). Moses’ seat, referenced in Matthew 23:2, was the seat in the synagogue set aside for a teacher to bring interpretations of the Torah.

Seen through these eyes, we see that much of the ministry of Yeshua was concerned with establishing the true foundations of halakhah through correctly interpreting Torah. He attacked dry ritual and challenged the attitude towards the Feasts and Sabbath (e.g. Mark 2:27-28). He showed that Torah was given by God to strengthen relationships between mankind and God and between men, women and children within Israel’s community (Matt 22:37-40) – the priority being for how we walk out our life in this world whilst also walking with God – halakhah.

Ritual Halakhah

By contrast to the true purpose of Torah, Jewish halakhah has become a form of legal interpretation of 613 dos and don’ts that have been identified in the written Torah.

Many of these commands, taken in a literal sense, are strengthened to give a margin of error so that the actual law will not be broken. This is called a fence around the Torah. However righteous the fence around Torah might seem, it carries with it the potential of robbing a person of their walk with God. Torah is deeper than this and more spiritual in application.

Further, if Torah is separated from the life and sacrificial death of Yeshua it will also lose its true purpose, because only through faith in Yeshua can one achieve the relationship with God that was always the goal of Torah.

Jesus’ ministry was concerned with establishing the true foundations of halakhah through correctly interpreting Torah.

Christians can also be found guilty of falling short of the purpose of what the Bible teaches, as Paul’s letter to the Galatians pointed out. On the one hand there is the possibility of misunderstanding Torah as law in the legal sense and so missing the true purpose of God’s teaching. Many Christians have thereby detached themselves from serious study of the heart intent of Torah foundations, misinterpreting Galatians 3:13. Yeshua (Jesus) took away the curse of Torah (the ‘law’) in that he took the punishment for sin away on the Cross for those who believe. He did not take away Torah itself.

On the other hand, in seeking to restore Torah observance, some Christians have taken a legalistic route, similar to that found in Jewish halakhah.

In Light of the New Covenant

Our challenge, therefore, in re-connecting with the Hebraic background to the Christian faith, is to be serious students of the entire Bible, re-establishing Torah foundations in New Covenant terms, helping one another secure a walk of faith in relationship with one another and with God and not being so legalistic as to spoil that walk, whilst learning together how to let our freedom in Messiah be submitted to the will of the Holy Spirit.

It must be said that the evidence is that it is far easier to slip into legalistic interpretations of Torah, leading to bondage to ritual more than freedom to walk with the Lord – something that takes a lifetime to learn in reality.

Take Psalm 119 as an illustration of where to start. Picture the author carefully constructing his psalm to express his delight in Torah. The psalm has 22 sections, each linked to one of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Each of the eight verses of a section commences with a word beginning with that letter, aleph, beit, gimmel and so on.

The number eight in Scripture represents new beginnings, possibly new life, so this symbolism is wound into the construction of the psalm. Perhaps there are other symbols too, along with the emphasis on the alphabet.

Our challenge is to re-establish Torah foundations in New Covenant terms, helping one another secure a walk of faith in relationship with God, while not slipping into legalism.

Considering all this, we realise that the psalmist took great care in expressing his love of Torah. Every letter of every word was to express his love of God and recognition of the power of Torah to transform, protect and guide a person.

This same inspiration can be carried over to New Covenant love of God’s teaching. Do we love God’s teaching through his Holy Spirit in such a way that we respond to it with the same heart as the psalmist? How many Christians have seen it that way? Torah was always spiritual and with the gift of the Holy Spirit to write it on our hearts, we are in a privileged position to live a Torah lifestyle - free of bondage, free to learn, discovering how heart manifestations of Torah principles are intended to guide and strengthen our individual and corporate walks with God.

Next time: Some illustrations from Torah

Did Jesus follow or reject the oral law? David Bivin concludes his assessment of the Jewishness of Jesus.

Last week we began to look at how Jesus not only lived as an observant Jew but was readily recognised as such by his contemporaries; discovering evidence for this in Jesus's upbringing, the acceptance of Jesus as a 'rabbi' by those around him, his relationship with his disciples and his method of teaching and preaching.

Attitude to the Oral Law

Jesus also appears to have adhered to the oral law in his attitude towards such practices as sacrifices, fasting, almsgiving, tithing and blessings. Notice, for example, how he gave tacit approval to the offering of sacrifices in Matthew 5:23-24: “If you are offering your sacrifice at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your sacrifice there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your sacrifice.”

Jesus also commanded the lepers whom he healed to perform the ceremony for their cleansing prescribed in the Bible. This ceremony included the offering of sacrifices as well as ritual immersion. He told the ten lepers to show themselves to the priest and specifically charged another leper, “Show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifice Moses commanded” (Matt 8:4).

Fasting

Jesus also took for granted that his disciples would fast when he commanded them to “put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who Is unseen” (Matt 6:17).

Jesus was accused of not living the ascetic life of John the Baptist, which might give one the impression that he did not fast a great deal. However, if he were practising what he preached about the concealment of fasting, those who accused him would not have known whether he did so or not. Certainly, Jesus could not have criticised those who made a show of their fasting if he himself did not fast.

In recounting the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, he criticised the Pharisee, not because he fasted twice a week, but because of his overweening pride.

Jesus appears to have adhered to the oral law in his attitude towards such practices as sacrifices and fasting.

It is also inconceivable that Jesus did not fast on the Day of Atonement each year throughout his life 'to afflict his soul.’ This was interpreted by the rabbis to mean a total fast (abstinence from both food and drink) of approximately 25 hours. Scripture specifies exclusion from the community as the penalty for anyone who did not afflict his soul on that day (Lev 23:29), and states that anyone who did any work on that special occasion would be “destroyed by God” (Lev 23:30).

It should also be noted that after his baptism, at the beginning of his public ministry, Jesus fasted for 40 days (Matt 4:2). So Jesus was one who fasted.

Giving and Tithing

In the same section of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus criticised the hypocrites who only fasted that they might be seen by men, Jesus also criticised those who made a public display of giving to the poor.

He must have been a generous giver himself. We can assume this because Jesus taught that one should lay up treasure in Heaven rather than on earth, and that if one's eye were 'bad' (that is, if one were stingy), “his whole body will be full of darkness” (Matt 6:19-23). Again, “When you give to the needy” said Jesus (Matt 6:2), not 'if you give to the needy'.

Jesus assumed that his disciples were almsgivers, and one may confidently assume that the Master was as well, even without there being any specific New Testament example of such action.

Any discussion of almsgiving raises the related issue of tithing, and since tithing is as much a biblical commandment as giving to the needy, there should be no question but that Jesus both tithed and gave to the poor.

Jesus assumed that his disciples were almsgivers, and one may confidently assume that the Master was as well.

Some Christians maintain that Jesus criticised the Pharisees for being so pedantic as to tithe even the spices and herbs in their gardens, and consequently they therefore assume that Jesus opposed such tithing (Matt 23:23). This is an error resulting from a faulty reading of the text. It is similar to the misunderstanding some people have that money is the root of all evil. What Scripture states, however, is that it is “the love of money” that is “a root of all kinds of evil” (1 Tim 6:10).

Jesus did not pronounce his woes upon the scribes and Pharisees for tithing mint, dill and cummin, but rather for keeping only such 'lighter' or less serious commandments, whilst failing to observe the 'heavier' or more important ones.

In the written law, the commandment is that one should tithe only on grain, oil and wine. But the rabbis (at the time of Jesus and just before), ruled that anything used for food had to be tithed.

Jesus, when speaking of this tithing of the herbs in the garden, says that it should not be neglected (Matt 23:23). His statement leaves no doubt about how Jesus felt about tithing, and more importantly, how he felt about the observation of the commandments as they were interpreted by the rabbis.

Saying of Blessings

A few verses previously, in Matthew 23:3, Jesus explicitly instructed his disciples with regard to their attitude towards the scribes and Pharisees concerning the keeping of the oral law: “You must obey them and do everything they tell you.” The sole scriptural basis for the many blessings that an observant Jew still says daily is Deuteronomy 8:10: “When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.” Literally, the text says, “And you shall eat, and you shall be full, and you shall bless.”

The sages found in this verse justification for saying a blessing before the meal as well as after; and on many other – indeed almost all - occasions. The general rule is that anything that a man enjoys requires a blessing.

There is a blessing to be said before a public reading from the Torah, and another at the completion of the reading; a blessing after immersing oneself in a mikveh and a blessing upon seeing a great scholar.

There is an obligation to bless God for calamity and misfortune, as well as for prosperity and good fortune. For rain and for good news one says, “Blessed is he who is good and who gives good.” For bad news the form is, “Blessed is he who is the true judge.”

Jesus did not criticise the scribes and Pharisees for tithing, but for keeping such 'lighter' commandments whilst failing to observe more important ones.

There is evidence that Jesus adhered to the ruling of the oral law in his use of various blessings. In conformity with the rabbis' interpretation, Jesus not only recited a blessing after meals but also said the blessing before meals. This blessing is:

Baruch atah Adonai eloheynu, melech haolam, ha-motzi lechem meen ha-aretz ('Blessed art Thou O Lord our God, King of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth').

If you learn that blessing, you can bless the Lord for each meal the way Jesus did!

Blessing the Food or Blessing God?

It is recorded that at the last Passover meal observed by the Lord and his disciples in Jerusalem, Jesus “took bread and blessed and broke and gave to his disciples” (Matt 26:26). Since in the Greek text there is no direct object following the verbs 'blessed,' 'broke' and 'gave', English translators have usually felt it necessary to supply the word 'it' after each of these verbs.

English readers therefore receive the impression that Jesus not only divided and distributed the bread, but blessed it as well. But this is simply a misunderstanding of the Hebraic and Jewish connotations of the word 'bless'.

Because of this recurring 'blessed, broke and gave the bread' in the gospels, it is a common Christian misunderstanding that Jesus actually blessed the bread. But in a Hebraic setting one does not bless things, one blesses God who provides the things. The blessing that was said in Jesus' time before one ate was praise and thanksgiving to God who so wondrously provides food for his children.

Even in his supernatural, resurrected body, Jesus, when eating with the two disciples in Emmaus (Luke 24:30), did not neglect the required blessing before the meal.

We might note at this point that it is a similar mistake to assume that Jesus multiplied the loaves and the fishes by blessing them (Matt 6:41). What Jesus did was simply to bless God before the beginning of the meal. The miracle was not a result of the blessing, for food did not multiply on other occasions when Jesus gave thanks for the provision of food.

Even in his supernatural, resurrected body, Jesus did not neglect the required blessing before the meal.

The matter of blessing before eating may be a good example of how the Western Gentile Christian's lack of knowledge of Jewish customs has led to a misunderstanding of precisely what Jesus did. In this case it has led to the development of the Christian practice of 'saying grace before meals' in which we 'bless the food', rather than give thanks to God for it, and which as such, has no foundation either in Jewish culture or in Jesus's own practice and teaching.

It is also an example of how a Jewish book, written for Jews, can create confusion for later, non-Jewish readers. Luke made it clearer for his Greek-speaking readers when he referred to Paul's practice in Acts 27:35: “He took some bread and gave thanks to God in front of them all. Then he broke it and began to eat.”

Did Jesus Wear Tzitziyot and Tefillin?

The New Testament makes it clear that Jesus, like all observant Jews of the 1^st Century, wore tzitziyot, which is the Hebrew word for the tassels or fringes that hung from the four corners of the outer garment or robe of a Jew at that time. This is commanded in Numbers 15:37-41 and Deuteronomy 22:12.

That Jesus wore these tzitziyot is illustrated by the story in Matthew 9:20 of the woman who had suffered from a haemorrhage for 12 years and who was healed when she came up to Jesus and touched 'the fringe of his garment.' The Greek word kraspedou, translated as 'hem,' 'border,' or 'edge' in English translations of the New Testament, is the word used for the tzitziyot.

There is no explicit evidence offered in the gospels that Jesus also wore tefillin on his forehead and right arm. Called 'phylacteries' in the Bible (Matt 23:5), these are the two leather boxes which each contain four passages of Scripture inscribed on tiny parchment scrolls. These boxes are bound by leather straps, one on the forehead and one on the arm. The arm box contains a single parchment on which all four passages are written, while the head box is divided into four compartments, each of which contains a parchment with one of the four Scripture passages written on it.

Wearing these phylacteries was the rabbinic way of observing the commandment in Deuteronomy 6:8 to bind the words of the Lord as a sign on their hands (the correct translation is 'arm'), and on their foreheads. It might be argued, of course, that this is metaphorical language and that one is not meant to literally bind all or part of God's word to a person's arm or forehead.

Jesus, like all observant Jews of the time, wore tzitziyot, the tassels that hung from the four corners of the outer garment.

Nevertheless, Jews living in the time of Jesus viewed the wearing of tefillin as a biblical commandment and they were part of ordinary Jewish dress. Putting on the tefillin only at the time of prayer, as is practised by Orthodox Judaism today, is a later custom. In Jesus's time they were worn throughout the day and removed only for work or when entering a place which was ritually unclean. Tefillin dating from the 1^st Century have been found in the caves near Qumran on the shores of the Dead Sea, and are almost identical to those worn by Orthodox Jews today.

In Matthew 23:5 Jesus criticised some of the Pharisees because “They make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long”. But rather than criticising the wearing of tefillin and tzitziyot, Jesus was condemning the religious hypocrisy that led to an exaggerated size being worn that would be obvious to others.

While Jesus condemned such ostentation, we have no reason to believe that he did not himself wear them. Had Jesus himself not worn phylacteries, as well as having the fringes on his garment, he surely would have been attacked on that count by the religious leaders of the day.

Rediscovering Our Hebraic Roots

In general, one gains the impression from the gospels that Jesus dutifully adhered to the practices of observant Jews of his day and that his attitude towards these practices was guided by the interpretations of the rabbis as expressed in the oral law.

During my research I have come to see that Jesus was a Jewish rabbi or, if we do not want to use the word 'rabbi' (since it was not a title in those days) we can say that he was a Jewish teacher.

Large sections of the Christian Church find this difficult to accept and to understand, and their difficulty illustrates how dim is our recollection of the Jewish origins of our faith, and to what extent we have been assimilated into the pagan culture that surrounds us.

One wonders what kind of dynamic organism the Church might have been throughout the ages had she clung more closely to her Hebraic roots, rather than embracing and becoming amalgamated with the pagan Hellenistic philosophy that persists to a very great extent in the Church up to this present day.

What kind of dynamic organism the Church might have been throughout the ages had she clung more closely to her Hebraic roots!

The Church’s only hope, of course, is to see Jesus, but this time to see him and know him personally as he really is: an observant Jew, a Jewish rabbi, the Jewish Messiah of God and - one might add - God himself, Immanuel.

The Gentile Church must become Hebraic in its thinking and approach to understanding the New Testament and should purge itself of the pagan influences of 19 centuries. May we who are members of Christ's Body but who are not of Jewish parentage rid ourselves of the arrogance of which Paul warned the Roman Christians:

Do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you…Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. (Rom 11:18-20)

First published in Prophecy Today, Vol 9 No 5.