Accepting Torah and Rejecting Paul of Tarsus

Introduction

Paul of Tarsus laid the foundations for the classic Christian mistrust of Torah. He taught that the Torah could not ‘save’ us (i.e. get us into heaven), only belief in Christ could; that there was an unbridgeable gap between humanity and God, and that Torah could not do anything to bridge that gap; and that Torah could not show us any way of cleansing our souls of the blemish of our sins – only faith in the death of Christ could.

What most people don’t realise, is that the premises of these concepts are alien to the religion of ancient Israel. They are however common to the pagan mystery religions of the ancient Mediterranean region. Of course, Paul’s Gentile audience could not have known this; they were unfamiliar with Jewish concepts, and so they lapped up everything he lied to them about. Paul’s Believers puzzled over why we Jews wouldn’t accept Paul’s message – after all, ‘Christ’ was supposedly the fulfilment of everything Jewish. Truth was, in his promises, ‘Christ’ was built in the very image and likeness of a pagan god, and nothing like the God of Israel.

To Jews, ‘being saved’ literally means that – from physical, psychological or very present spiritual dangers; it has no connotations for the afterlife. To Jews, there is no other-worldly, mystically unbridgeable gap between God and humanity – only that God is an immortal, all-powerful Spirit, and we are mortals with limited spiritual reach. And to Jews, although sin can injure and blemish our souls which needs healing, and though our sins also have psychological and social effects, with real-world consequences, it doesn’t alter the essence of our souls so much that it prevents God from loving us – nothing can stop God from loving us, or from reconciling us to God. Otherwise Paul taught a god with limited powers!

Paul of Tarsus was the most cunning deceiver that history has ever encountered – from the beginning, this is how Followers of the Way have historically viewed him – the Deceiver. The beliefs outlined above are the cleverest brainwashing techniques that religion has ever taken on board. They are designed to lure the unknowing, the unsuspecting, and grip them so that they can never leave.

Torah, on the other hand, is something that God calls the human soul to, something the human soul chooses. There is no deception involved.

How do we get close to a God we cannot see?

To understand what Torah is, you have to understand how other contemporary religions approached their gods. You see, pagan gods could be seen, you didn’t have to experience them ‘in your heart’, you could see and touch their statues. The revolution of Abraham and of Moses, was that they were teaching a God who could not be touched or seen.

In the time of Moses, many people would have said, “So how do we know God is there? How do we ‘touch’ God? How do we experience God if we can’t see God?”

When Moses ascended Mount Sinai, the Israelites made a golden calf to worship. They still couldn’t leave behind the old ways of thinking; they had to have a god they could see and touch, useless though it was. They believed that something they could see would help them, much more than something they couldn’t see.

There had to be a way of impressing the Hebrew psyche that their God existed, even though they could not see YHVH. Even the mishkan – the sacred tent of meeting, or Tabernacle – was erected to show the Israelites that God was with them. It was much like leaving a jacket over the back of a chair. There was no one around you could see, but the jacket showed that its owner was somewhere there. In the same way, the mishkan showed Israel that God was around – somewhere.

This is the reason for all the cult and ritual. It wasn’t to atone for sin (so said all the prophets; repentance, prayer and good works would do just as well – so preparing us to be cleansed and healed by the fire of God’s Glory). No. The cult and ritual were designed to give Jews a sense of the Presence of a God they could not see.

And not only the ritual. Torah gave Israel a code of ethics, values and ideals to live by, which would also have the same effect. If Israelite society lived by these values, people would see that, and thus be able to experience the tangible and real-world effects of God’s Presence in the midst of humanity.

“There is none like YHVH among the pagan gods!”

So sang the Israelites when they were saved from the Egyptians after crossing the Sea of Reeds. There was indeed none like YHVH. The pagan gods had no moral dimension to them; they fornicated amongst themselves, they ended human life on a whim, and they demanded only appeasement; no moral action as we would understand it was required. They also experienced pain, passion, hurt and suffering – just like human beings.

On the other hand, the qualities and personality of YHVH were a revolution. YHVH demanded righteous behaviour; that we should act with justice and kind regard for one another. Moral, just action was the other side of the coin for Jews to experience God.

Torah – a code of Piety and Justice

To the modern mind, the world is divided into the religious and the secular. The ancient Jewish mind saw no such division. Everything was the realm of religion – the realm of God. The only division was between piety – that which dealt directly with our relationship with God; and justice, that which dealt with our relationship with each other.

You can see this division in the so-called Ten ‘Commandments’ (more correctly, the Ten Proclamations [Decrees or Edicts]). As everyone knows, they were written on two tablets, with each tablet being identical – one copy for God, and one copy for Israel, both to be stored for safekeeping inside the Ark. On the front of both tablets were inscribed the decrees relating to piety (having no other gods, not making graven images, not bowing down to them, not using God’s name falsely, keeping the Sabbath day holy). On the reverse of both tablets were inscribed the decrees concerning justice (honouring our parents, not murdering, not committing adultery, not stealing, not giving false testimony, not coveting our neighbour’s property, and not coveting our neighbour’s wife).

Even the most famous prayer of all time – the Abbun d’bishmayya – the ‘Our Father’, is divided into these two classic divisions, the first half dealing with God and heavenly concerns, and the second half with earthly, bodily concerns.

Approaching God through Torah

The Hebrew word ‘Torah’, commonly translated as ‘Law’, actually means ‘Instruction’ or ‘Teaching’. When we follow someone’s teaching, we inevitably get a sense of the Teacher themselves. So it is in the case of Torah. Torah was meant and designed to mould the Jewish heart and soul, and by the doing of it, we would develop a sense of God, and thereby draw near to God.

Christians say, “We will believe”, Jews say, “We will do”. In fact, this is exactly what the Israelites said. Before Moses went up Mount Sinai, the Israelites said, “All that YHVH has spoken we will do” (Exodus 19:8)

I recall a middle-aged Jewish woman who did not believe in God. Actually she said that she found it difficult to believe in God, even though she very much wanted to. Yet she still said the prayers, did the ritual, performed the mitzvot (commandments). So I asked her why she still did these things, even though she couldn’t ‘feel’ God. She replied, “I do these things, because I hope one day to get a sense of what God is.” This is another reason for the customs and traditions of Torah – to give to those who might not inherently be able to sense God (eg natural agnostics) the ability to experience God’s real-world presence through the customs and traditions of our faith.

The purpose of Torah

There is wisdom and purpose in Torah, if you approach Torah in the right way, and with the right mindset. Torah was intended, not only for the individual practice of faith, but also to act as the constitution of a nation – Israel.

Below are the main reasons why the rules and commandments in Torah exist. I am not saying that Israelite and Jewish society was ever like this, because we are only human beings after all. However, these are the ideals behind the rules of Torah (I know lists can be boring, but please read them all, because they are all important).

These are the underlying purposes of Torah:

1. to enable the individual to live a holy life, in order to enable Israelites to experience the blessings of the Glory of God, without being harmed by the great power of God’s Glory
2. to act as a visible representation of an otherwise invisible and intangible God, by following a culture which is practically and visually distinctive
3. to build a society that acts as a vehicle for exemplifying YHVH’s ethical values and ideals, so that other nations can see them in practice, and be encouraged to follow them too (thus spreading the Kingdom of God, without requiring other nations to observe Torah)
4. to protect the poorest and most vulnerable in Israelite society, by making helping them an obligation, and by putting laws in place which give them rights
5. to ensure that Israelite society has adequate provision for its poorest, so that no one is driven to live in abject poverty; and to give people a realisation that one’s wealth belongs to God, and so can legitimately be disposed of by God, thus ensuring that no one is obscenely rich (intended to keep the gap between rich and poor at a manageable level)
6. to ensure that the wealthy and those in power do not treat their citizens like disposable commodities
7. to set up laws which teach us the ethics of government, as well as laws which make unjust and oppressive government more difficult
8. to make certain ethics and morals into obligations, in case there are sociopathic individuals who would rather not follow them, and would instead prefer to exploit society for their own benefit
9. to enable those who are inherently unable to experience the presence of God (e.g. ‘natural agnostics’) to experience God through the ethical society that God desires to create with Torah, and also through the cultural traditions proposed by Torah
10. to ensure that the rulers or kings of Israel do not exploit their people or become authoritarian (because by becoming authoritarian, the rulers of Israel bring the reputation of the God of Israel into disrepute – not only with their fellow Israelites, but also in the eyes of the Nations)
11. to protect the majority of Torah-observant Israelites from the abuses of those in Israelite society who might wish to exploit them
12. to ensure that the Israelite religion and faith endure forever, and that the people of Israel never go extinct, but last forever

The commandments of Torah

Commandments are precepts or principles – a set of instructions – that we are required to do to experience God. I would like to set out just some of them for you, to give you a taste of what Torah is like.

ON GOD

• that we should have no other gods besides YHVH (Ex 20:3, Deut 5:7)
• that we should acknowledge only YHVH (Deut 6:4)
• that we should obey only YHVH (Deut 13:5)
• that we should serve only YHVH (Ex 23:25, Deut 6:13, Deut 10:20, Deut 11:13-15)
• that we should love YHVH (Deut 6:5, Deut 11:13-15)
• that we should try to imitate YHVH in God’s ways (Deut 19:9, Deut 28:9)
• that we should not belittle or curse God (Ex 22:27)

If you read these commandments in the Hebrew, many of them specifically refer to YHVH (Messianic Jews please note, NOT ‘Jesus’). We are not to have any other gods besides YHVH, and we are to acknowledge only YHVH in our worship. The above commandments have no place for praying to ‘Jesus Christ’; we are to revere YHVH alone.

ON KINDNESS AND MERCY

• that we should respect the aged (Lev 19:32)
• that we should not ignore someone when their life is in danger (Lev 19:16)
• that we should not wrong others (Lev 25:17)
• that we should not say bad things about people (Lev 19:16)
• that we should not seek revenge (Lev 19:18)
• that we should love one another (Lev 19:18)

All these precepts, which come from the book of Leviticus, were designed to give us a sense of specialness and sanctity. They give us a sense that, when we do our best to fulfil them, we are imitating our God.

ON THE POOR

• we should not deliberately cause hardship to widows or orphans (Ex 22:21)
• we should leave the gleanings of our fields for the benefit of the poor (Lev 19:9-10, 23:22)
• we should lend to the poor and needy, and not refuse them charity (Deut 15:11, Deut 15:7)
• we should not lend at interest (Ex 22:24, Lev 25:37)

The poor are an enormous concern in the Torah; in most cultures of the time, they were a fact of life, and their hardship was of no concern to rulers. Yet Torah remembers the least of society, and tells us what we need to do for them to make their lives a little easier.

ON GENTILES

• that we should love resident foreigners within our land (Deut 10:19)
• that we should not wrong them (Ex 22:18)
• that we should not oppress them (Ex 22:18)
• that we should not restrict their movement (Deut 23:17)

I do not need to lay out the implications of these commandments. It’s obvious that they are not being followed today in Israel. Would there be peace if the Likud party were to follow Torah? And why don’t the Orthodox religious parties Likud is allied to remind them of Torah?

ON ANIMALS

• if an animal falls under a burden, we must help it to get up (Ex 23:5, Deut 22:4)
• if you see a wild mother-bird with its eggs or young, we should not take the mother (Deut 22:6)
• we should not make two different animals plough together (as the weaker animal will struggle) (Deut 22:10 

It was virtually unheard of in ancient times for any law to take animals into account, yet this is what Torah did. It also had concern for animals to be slaughtered for food, in that it stipulated the slaughter should be quick and painless. This was almost 3,500 years ago, two millennia before Buddhism and Jainism came onto the scene with their concern for animals.

Paul’s ulterior motives

From the above examples, we get a glimpse of how Torah is still relevant, how profound a heritage has been passed down to us, and why it is important for us to do our best to follow Torah. Torah is for our benefit and our wellbeing.

It was in Paul’s interests to get his followers to mistrust Torah. To do this, he had to invent a theology whereby deeds were worthless, and faith was the only thing that mattered. He had to invent an unbridgeable gap between God and humanity, one that only Christ could bridge through his death and resurrection; and he had to invent complicated beliefs to make sure that Christians would take no note of Torah, believing that ‘Christ’ was the completion and end of Torah. When we come to understand Torah, we realise how Paul deceived his gentile audience, and has sadly passed on through the generations a lie.

Conclusion

Torah was given to Israel to mould and create a special people that could carry a message of righteousness and justice to the whole of humanity. This was the mission that God gave to Israel. By damning Torah, Paul worked against the will of God.