CHAPTER V
TORAH
A. Torah Incognita
1. Christian Theology’s Greatest Deficiency
I have given an entire chapter to the question of how Messianic Judaism is to relate to the Torah because I am certain that the lack of a correct, clear and relatively complete Messianic Jewish or Gentile Christian theology of the Law is not only a major impediment to Christian’s understanding of their own faith, but also the greatest barrier to Jewish people receiving the Gospel. Even though many Jews do not observe Torah, often neither knowing nor caring about it, I stand by this statement, because attachment to the Torah is rooted deep in the Jewish people’s memory, where it affects attitudes unconsciously.
While ultimately the issue becomes who Yeshua is – Messiah, Son of the Living God, final Atonement, Lord of our lives – the Church’s problem here is mainly one of communication, in expressing the truth in ways that relate to Jewish world-views. But the Church hardly knows what to make of the Torah or how to fit it together with the New Testament. And if the Church doesn’t know then don’t expect the Jews to figure it out for them! I believe that Christianity has gone far astray in it’s dealings with the subject and that the most urgent task of theology today is to get right it’s view of the Law.
Christianity organizes systematic theology by subjects it considers important. Thus topics like the Holy Spirit and the Person and work of the Messiah take a healthy amount of space in any Christian systematic theology. Judaism too organizes it’s theological thinking into categories reflecting it’s concerns, and as we noted earlier it’s three main topics are God, Israel (that is, the Jewish people) and Torah.
Comparing Jewish and Christian theology, one finds that both devote much attention to God and the people of God (in one case the Jews in the other the Church). It is all the more striking, therefore, to notice how much Jewish thought and how little Christian theology addresses the topic of Torah – generally rendered in English as “Law” although the meaning of the Hebrew word is “teaching”. As a rough measure I checked the subject index of Augustus Strong’s Systematic Theology and found under “Law” 28 pages out of a total of 1,056 (less that 3%) In Louis Berkhof’s Systematic Theology there are 3 pages out of 745 (less than 1/2 %). And in Lewis Sperry Chafer’s 7 volume work of the same title, there are only 7 out of 2,607 pages (less than 1/4%). On the other hand, Isidor Epstein’s The Faith of Judaism has 57 pages on Torah out of 386 (15%), Solomon Schechter’s Aspects of Rabbinic Theology has 69 out of 343 pages (20%) and Louis Jacob’s A Jewish Theology 73 pages out of 331 (22%) (these three authors are Orthodox, Conservative and Reform respectively). One is forced to the conclusion that the topic interests Jews and not Christians.
And that is unfortunate for the Christians. It means, first , that most Christians have an overly simplistic understanding of what the Law is all about; and, second, that Christianity has almost nothing relevant to say to Jews about one of the three most important issues of their faith. In short, Torah is the great unexplored territory the terra incognita of Christian theology.
The main reason for this is that Christian theology, with the anti-Jewish bias it incorporated in it’s early centuries, misunderstood Sha’ul [Paul] and concluded that the Torah is no longer in force. This is not the Jewish Gospel nor is it the true Gospel. It is time for Christians to understand the truth about the Law.
Christian theologians in the last 30 years have made a beginning.1 Messianic Jews should now move to the front lines and spearhead this process.
2. Nomos in the New Testament
A good starting place would be a thorough study of the Greek word “nomos” (“Law”, “Torah”) and it’s derivatives as used in the New Testament. Unfortunately there is not space in this book to undertake it , since the word and it’s cognates appear some 200 times. The sampling which follows is intended to whet the appetite and encourage further investigation.
a. Romans 10:4 – Did The Messiah End The Law?
Consider Romans 10:4 which states – in a typical but wrong translation – “For Christ ends the law and brings righteousness for everyone who has faith.” Like this translator, most theologians understand this verse to say that Yeshua terminated the Torah. But the Greek word translated “ends” is telos from which English gets the word “teleology” defined in Webster’s Third International Dictionary as “The philosophical study of the evidences of design in nature;...the fact or the character of being directed toward an end or being shaped by a purpose – used of...nature...conceived as determined...by the design of a divine providence...” The normal meaning of telos in Greek – which is also it’s meaning here – is “goal, purpose, consummation,” not “termination.” The Messiah did not and does not bring the Torah to an end. Rather, attention to and faith in the Messiah is the goal and purpose towards which the Torah aims, the logical consequence, result and consummation of observing the Torah out of genuine faith, as opposed to trying to observe it out of legalism. This, not the termination of Torah is Sha’ul’s point, as can be seen from the context, Romans 9:30 – 10:11.2
b. “Under the Law” and “Works of the Law.”
Much of Christian theology about the Torah is based on a misunderstanding of two Greek expressions which Sha’ul invented. The first is “upo nomon”; it appears 10 times in Romans, 1 Corinthians and Galatians and it is usually rendered “under the law.” The other is “erga nomou” found with minor variations 10 times in Romans and Galatians, translated “works of the law.”
Whatever Sha’ul is trying to communicate by these expressions, one thing is clear: Sha’ul regards them negatively: being “under the law” is bad and “works of the law” are bad. Christian theology usually takes the first to mean “within the framework of observing the Torah” and the second, “acts of obedience to the Torah.” This understanding is wrong. Sha’ul does not consider it bad to live within the framework of Torah nor is it bad to obey it; on the contrary, he writes that the Torah is holy, just and good” (Rom.7:12).
C.E.B.Cranfield has shed light on these two phrases; his first essay on the subject appeared in 1964,3 and he summarized it in his masterly commentary on Romans.4 There he writes:
“…the Greek language of Paul’s day possessed no word-group corresponding to our “legalism,” “legalist” and “legalistic.” This means that he lacked a convenient terminology for expressing a vital distinction, and so was seriously hampered in the work of clarifying the Christian position with regard to the law. In view of this, we should always, we think, be ready to reckon with the possibility that Pauline statements, which at first sight seem to disparage the law, were really directed not against the law itself but against that misunderstanding and misuse of it for which we now have a convenient terminology. In this very difficult terrain Paul was pioneering.”5
If Cranfield is right, as I believe he is, we should approach Sha’ul with the same pioneering spirit. We should understand “erga nomou” not as “works of the law” but as “legalistic observance of particular Torah commands.” Likewise, we should take “upo nomon” to mean not “under the law” but “in subjection to the system that results from perverting Torah into legalism.” This is how the phrase is rendered in the Jewish New Testament.
The expression “in subjection” is important because the context of “upo nomon” always conveys an element of oppressiveness. Sha’ul is very clear about this, as can be seen from 1Cor.9:20, where, after saying that for those without Torah he became as one without Torah, he stressed that he himself was not without Torah but ennomos Christou, “en-lawed” or “en-Torahed” of Messiah. He used a different term “ennomos” in place of “upo nomon” to distinguish his oppression-free relationship with the Torah, now that he is united with the Messiah, from the sense of being burdened which he noticed in people (probably Gentiles!6) who, instead of “en-lawing” themselves to God’s holy, just and good Torah, subjected themselves to a legalistic perversion of it.
If the above renderings of “upo nomon” and “erga nomou” were used in the twenty passages where these phrases occur, I believe it would change Christian theology of Torah for the better.
c. Galatians 3:10-13; - Redeemed from the curse of the law?
Galatians 3:10-13 presents a number of stumblingblocks in most translations. As an example, here is the New American Standard Bible’s rendering, which strikes me as neither better nor worse than most:
“[10] For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse for it is written “Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the Law, to perform them” [11] Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, “The righteous man shall live by faith.” [12] However, the Law is not of faith; on the contrary, “He who practices them shall live by them.” [13] Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law , having become a curse for us – for it is written “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree””
These verses appear as follows in the Jewish New Testament:
“[10] For everyone who depends on legalistic observance of Torah commands [erga nomou] lives under a curse, since it is written “Cursed is everyone who does not keep on doing everything that is written in the scroll of the Torah [Deut.27:26] [11] Now it is evident that no one comes to be declared righteous by God through legalism [nomos], since “The person who is righteous will attain life by trusting and being faithful.” [Hab.2:4] [12] Furthermore, legalism, [nomos] is not based on trusting and being faithful, but on a misuse of the text which says “Anyone who does these things will attain life through them.” [Lev.18:5] [13] The Messiah redeemed us from the curse pronounced in the Torah [nomos] by becoming cursed on our behalf; for the Tanakh says, “Everyone who hangs from a stake comes under a curse.” [Deut.21:22-23]”
“The curse of the Law” is not the curse of having to live within the framework of Torah, for the Torah itself is good. Nor is it the curse of being required to obey the Torah but lacking the power to do so – this would be a kind of “Catch 22” unworthy of God, although there are theologies which teach that this is exactly the case. Rather it is “the curse pronounced in the Torah” (v.13; see v.10) for disobeying it. Sha’ul’s point is that the curse falls on people who are actually trying to obey the Torah if their efforts are grounded in legalism (vv. 11a , 12.) For Sha’ul such a legalistic approach is already disobedience; for the Tanakh itself requires genuine obedience to emerge from faith (11b). There is not space here to prove that this is the case or to deal with other controversies raised by the above rendering of these four verses; my Jewish New Testament Commentary addresses these matters.
d. Messianic Jews [Hebrews] 8:6 – The New Covenant has been given as Torah.
One of the most surprising discoveries I made in the course of preparing the Jewish New Testament is that the New Covenant itself has actually been given as Torah – as much as, and in exactly the same sense that, what Moses received on Mount Sinai was given as Torah. The verse which hides this extremely well kept secret is Messianic Jews [Hebrews] 8:6, which reads, in a typical translation:
“But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry which is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.”
The passage would seem poor ore for my mining efforts. But upon examining the Greek text I noticed that the phrase “is enacted on” renders the word nenomothetetai, a compound of our friend nomos (“Law” “Torah”) with the common verb tithemi (“to put, place”). If the subject matter to a group of Messianic Jews were, say, Greek law or the Roman senate, it would be appropriate to translate this word as “enacted, established, legislated.” that is, “put” or “placed as law.”
But in this letter to these Messianic Jews, the word nomos which appears 14 times, always means Torah specifically, never legislation in general. Moreover, the only other appearance of nenomothetetai in the New Testament is a few verses back at 7:11, where it can only refer to the giving of the Torah at Sinai (the related word nomothesia, “giving of the Torah” at Rom.9:4 is equally unambiguous). Therefore the Jewish New Testament renders Messianic Jews 8:6:
“But now the work Yeshua has been given to do is far superior to theirs, just as the covenant he mediates is better. For this covenant has been given as Torah on the basis of better promises.”
So the New Covenant has been “given as Torah,” which implies that Torah still exists and is to be observed in the present age – by all Jews and by all Gentiles, as we shall see. However, precisely what is demanded of “all Jews” and “all Gentiles” is not quite so obvious. We will address this question in a limited way, but comprehensive treatment is beyond the scope of this book.
3. The Gospel With An Ended Law Is No Gospel At All
The statement has been made (though I’m not saying I agree) that of the three items mentioned earlier as most important on the Jewish theological agenda, Reform Jews focus mainly on “God,” the Conservatives on “Israel,” and the Orthodox on “Torah.” Reform and non-religious Jews disagree with the Orthodox and conservative over whether the Torah is binding forever, while Conservative Jews deny the exclusive claim of Orthodoxy to determine specific applications of what they agree is the eternal Torah. Nevertheless, although Orthodox Jews constitute only 15-20% of the Jewish population in Israel and less in the United States, their view of Torah as eternal has found a very deep place in the heart of the Jewish people; so that the non-Orthodox find themselves in the role of upstarts trying to dislodge a clever, experienced and self confident ruler.
Now if Christianity comes into such an environment with the message that the Torah is no longer in force, the line of communication with Orthodox Judaism is simply cut. There is no longer anything to discuss. Moreover, if I am correct about the role of the Orthodox Jewish View of Torah in the Jewish mentality, then even the non-religious Jew “knows” at some level, whether correctly or not, that Orthodoxy is right. In fact there are non-religious Jews who, although not religious themselves, regard the Orthodox as the preservers of the Jewish nation.
Thus if Christianity cannot address the issue of Torah properly, and seriously, it has nothing to say to the Jewish people. Individual Jews may be won away to Christianity, across the wide gap between the Jewish people and the Church (look back at figure 5E); but the central concern of Orthodox Judaism itself is dismissed, perhaps with a casual and cavalier citation of Rom.6:14 – “For we are not under Law but under Grace.” In my opinion this shallow, sterile way of thinking has gone on too long in the Church, and it serves no purpose but the adversary’s!
Moreover, this way of thinking is not only shallow but perverse! Yeshua said very plainly in the theme sentence of the Sermon on the Mount, “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law...; I did not come to abolish, but plerosai “to fill.” We learned earlier that Yeshua’s “filling” here means making clear the full and proper sense of the Torah; and we pointed out that even if pleroo meant “fulfilment” it could not be twisted to mean “abolition” in contradiction of what he had said three words earlier. This seems so clear that it is hard for me to understand how Christian theology has even dared to propose the idea that the Torah is no more. I myself believe that it came about because of ant-Jewish bias infused into the Gentile Church in it’s early centuries;8 this bias is now so pervasive and difficult to root out that even Christians without any personal anti-Semitism whatever are unavoidably affected by it.
The remedy is to reassess the theology of Torah. I am convinced it will be found that the Torah continues in force. When I say this I am not making a “concession to Judaism” as some Christian critics might suppose. Nor am I somehow expressing anti-Torah theology in hypocritical, deceptive and confusing pro-Torah language, an accusation I could expect from a few non-Messianic Jews. Rather, I am stating as clearly as I can what I believe the New Testament teaches. It will prove to be neither a concession nor a confusion, but a challenge – to both Jews and Christians.
For a key element of the New Covenant, both as promised by Jeremiah and as cited in the Letter to a group of Messianic Jews [“To the Hebrews”] is that the Torah is written on people’s hearts (Jer.31:30-34, Messianic Jews 8:9-12). It takes unacceptable theological legerdemain to conclude that when God writes the Torah on people’s hearts he changes it to something other than the Torah!
But if Messianic Jews and Messianic gentiles acknowledge the ongoingness of the Torah, then the question arises, “Just what does the Torah require, now that Yeshua the Messiah has inaugurated the New Covenant?” “What is the New Covenant halakhah?9” And this is already a Jewish question, and, as we will see, an essential element of the Gospel.
For there is a tradition within Judaism which says that when the Messiah comes he will explain the difficult questions of Torah. Another tradition says he will change the Torah. Yeshua the Messiah has already come; some things he has explained – for example in the Sermon on the Mount – and other things have been changed, as we learn later in the chapter. (When he comes the second time he may give more explanations and make more changes?!) A Jew can cope with this kind of approach to Torah and the Christian will just have to get used to it.
B. The Torah Of The Messiah, A Tree Of Life
I give you good instruction; do not forsake my Torah. It is a tree of life to those who take hold of it, and those who hold fast to it are happy. It’s ways are ways of pleasantness and all it’s paths are peace.10
1. Should Messianic Jews Observe The Torah?
As we are saying here and there throughout this book, Jewish believers have an identity crisis, and it is not of their own making, it is not a psychological problem. Rather it is caused by historical developments over the last two thousand years for which they are not responsible.11 The identity crisis consists in how to put together and express the Jewish and Messianic elements in their own lives.
The question which resonates this conflict the loudest is: “Should Messianic Jews observe the Torah?” Most Jewish believers find themselves wrestling with it sooner or later; eventually it penetrates the consciousness even of those who have had no connection with religious Judaism. What happens in the present phase of Messianic Jewish history is that individual Messianic Jews or individual Messianic Jewish congregations work out their own ways of relating to the Torah, each doing what is right in his own eyes. But this approach reflects communal failure; and the way to deal with this failure is for the Messianic Jewish community as a whole to launch a concerted attack on the question. Not that there needs to be uniformity of opinion – the words of Beit-Hillel and of Beit-Shammai were both said to be the words of the living God – but that the issues need to be understood in depth.
Why is the issue crucial? Informed and committed Orthodox and Conservative Jews will immediately see why, for they consider obedience to Torah the central distinctive of Judaism. Since they probably believe that Christianity teaches Jews “to apostatize from Moses telling them not to have their sons circumcised and not to follow the traditions,”12 they are likely to consider it impossible for Messianic Judaism to be Jewish. (Some Orthodox Jews reject Conservative and Reform Judaism on the same ground.) Jews who define their Jewishness differently, emphasizing ethics and God’s unity (Reform) or identity with the Jewish people (some Conservative, Reconstructionist), may not find obedience to the Torah so crucial in delineating a position vis-à-vis Messianic Judaism. Christians who have a simplistic attitude that “faith is more important than works” may be insensitive to the glories and nuances of Torah as understood by those who uphold it; such Christians may therefore fail to deal with the matter of primary concern to a substantial percentage of Jews , and their Gospel of faith without Torah (which falls short of being the true gospel) will pass committed Orthodox Jews like a ship in the night, failing to make contact at all.
2. What Is Meant By “The Torah”?
Before deciding whether Messianic Jews should keep the Torah, we must ask what is meant by “the Torah.” Here are five possible answers:
Orthodox Judaism considers the Torah to be the body of teachings and legal rulings produced over three millennia by the Jewish people. It begins with the Five Books of Moses and continues with the rest of the Tanakh and the Oral Law, which the Orthodox say was revealed to Moses by God on Mount Sinai. The Oral Law is set forth in the Talmud, the Halakhic Midrashim, and the writings of later sages – the Savora’im, Pos’kim, Rishonim and Acharonim – in their codes and responsa.
Within this framework, depending on the context, the term Torah can mean: (1) the five books of Moses; (2) that plus the prophets and the writings, i.e. the Tanakh; (3) that plus the Oral Torah, which includes the Talmud and later legal writings; or (4) that plus all the religious teaching from the rabbis, including ethical and haggadic materials.
An overview of what Orthodox Jews consider legally binding may be found in the Shulchan Arukh, a comprehensive code written in the sixteenth century; this in turn, has been summarized in a book available in English, Solomon Ganzfried’s Code of Jewish Law.13 The Orthodox admit that the Law can adapt to changing circumstances, but in practice it adapts very slowly; there was greater flexibility centuries ago, before the Oral Law had been committed to writing. The Orthodox categorically deny that anyone outside of the stream of Orthodox Judaism has the authority to make rulings affecting the Law.
Conservative Jews hold generally to the overall framework of thought developed in Orthodoxy but differ on specific judgements, generally in the direction of adapting the Law to the needs of modern society and removing what they consider cruel, obstructive or meaningless aspects. Of course they disagree that only the Orthodox may make binding rulings.
Reform Judaism as opposed to the Orthodox and Conservative positions, generally holds that only the ethical commands are binding Law; the ceremonial and civil components are optional. Their position, curiously enough, is not very different from that of many Christians who consider the moral Law eternal and binding, but the Jewish ceremonies and rules of civil procedure abrogated by the New Testament.
Biblical Law, that is, the written Law, is what some Messianic Jews and certain groups of Christians believe should be followed; they consider the Oral Law not inspired and not binding. This is why Seventh Day Adventists are vegetarians – it’s their version of keeping kosher. There are Messianic Jews who say they keep “biblically kosher”. They don’t eat pork and shrimp but they do serve milk and meat at the same meal since that aspect of kashrut is not taught in the Bible. In Yeshua’s time the Sadducees held to a somewhat similar position, rejecting the Oral tradition of the Pharisees. In the eighth century C.E. the Karaites broke away from Rabbinic Judaism over the same issue.
My own view is that the Torah is eternal, and the New Testament has not abrogated it. But in it’s totality the Torah must be understood and interpreted in the light of what Yeshua the Messiah and the rest of the New Covenant Scriptures have said about it.
3. Should Messianic Jews Keep The Torah As Understood in Orthodox Judaism?
Since discussions of whether Messianic Jews should observe the Torah generate more heat than light when there is disagreement over what is meant by “the Torah,” we shall for the purpose of this section define Torah arbitrarily as what Orthodox Judaism understands it to be, so that we can progress to analysis. Here are five possible answers ranging the spectrum from Yes to No.
Absolute Yes. Messianic Jews should keep the Orthodox Jewish Law. This was the view of certain sects of the Church regarded as heretical, for example the second century Ebionites. One can find New Testament support for compulsory Law-keeping.
At Mattityahu [Matthew] 5:17-20 Yeshua says he did not come to abolish Torah and that anyone who disobeys it’s least commands and teaches others to do so will be counted least in the Kingdom of Heaven.14
When castigating the religious establishment for majoring on minors he does not denigrate any part of the Torah: “Woe to you hypocritical Torah-teachers [scribes] and P’rushim [Pharisees]! You pay your tithes of mint, dill and cumin; but you have neglected the weightier matters of the Torah – justice, mercy, trust. These are the things you should have attended to – without neglecting the others!”15 Without taking away from Yeshua’s emphasis on justice, mercy, and trust, we note that he adds the phrase “without neglecting the others,” in order to affirm that the less weightier matters are still in force.
At Mattityahu 23:2-3 he says “The Torah-teachers and the P’rushim sit in the seat of Moses,” meaning that they have authority to determine how to apply the Law in specific instances. “So,” he continues, “whatever they tell you, take care to do it.”
At Romans 7:12 Sha’ul [Paul] calls the Torah “holy, just and good.”
Nevertheless, it is unlikely that Yeshua’s remarks were meant to apply throughout history, especially in the light of Matt.16:19; 18:18-20, where he establishes his talmidim [disciples] as the fount of binding authority in interpreting the Torah16 And the fact that the Law is holy, just and good does not necessarily make it compulsory; moreover “Torah” at Rom.7:12 does not necessarily include the Oral Law.
I am unaware of any modern movement of Jewish believers in Yeshua which takes the position that Messianic Jews must keep the Orthodox Jewish Law or else lose their salvation.
It is desirable. It is desirable that Messianic Jews observe the Orthodox Jewish Law but not essential. Why desirable? Three reasons:
First, the Law (at least it’s biblical portions) was given by God to the Jewish people and never abrogated; it is God’s guide to godly behaviour and worthy of being followed. We are Jews so we will follow it.
Second, those who know Jewish history cannot be unaware that the Law has kept the Jewish people more than the Jewish people have kept the Law. It is God’s will that the Jewish people be preserved – we can know this only from the Jews’ astounding history of survival despite two thousand years of dispersion and persecution, but also from the Tanakh (e.g. Isa.49:6) and the New Testament (Rom.11). Therefore Messianic Jews should support one of the chief means God has used to preserve us.
Third, it is a way for a Messianic Jew to identify with his fellow Jews, some of whom may consider him excluded from the Jewish community. Here’s how it works: a Jewish believer says to a non-Messianic Jew, “I believe in Yeshua, and I’m still Jewish.” The response: “You say you’re Jewish, but tell me, do you keep kosher? Do you avoid driving on Shabbat?” A Messianic Jew who can answer in the affirmative supposedly removes a potential barrier to the Gospel, rendering both himself and the Gospel more credible. Some might support this approach with 1Cor.9:20, where the King James Version has, “And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews.” However, in the Jewish New Testament it is translated differently, bringing out that Sha’ul was not changing his behaviour as a chameleon changes colours, but empathising with, putting himself in the position of, the people with whom he was sharing the Gospel. (As we shall see, this third reason is a poor one.)
But then, why, if it is so “desirable” is the Law “not essential”? Because salvation, the proponents of this position would answer, is based on trust alone, on faith, on repentance from sin and turning to God through his Messiah Yeshua. The behaviour pleasing to God can be suggested in a written code, but if it is interpreted by the letter and not by the Holy Spirit, it will bring death not life.17 The only “essential” is to love God and one’s neighbour – with the proviso that love implies acts, not just feelings.
It is different Messianic Jews may keep the Jewish Law if they wish, or they may not. Whether Messianic Jews obey the Law is a matter of individual conscience, neither required nor forbidden. The New Testament, the Church and Christianity have nothing to say on the subject either way and should remain neutral. The guiding principles for the Church in such “adiaphora” (matters of indifference) are set forth in Rom.14 and 1Cor.8. The single proviso that proponents of this position might want to make explicit is that obedience to the Jewish Law does not count with God for salvation.
This stance is taken by many Christian denominations and by many Messianic Jews. It is more pro- Torah and is less inhibitive of Jewish identity within the Body than the remaining two stances, which have dominated the Church throughout most of it’s history. But is God satisfied to have his Torah ignored? Is it just a matter of indifference to him? Having given us a holy just and good Torah, whose ways are peace, does he leave it to our choice whether to obey it or not? Is this really what the New Testament teaches?
It is undesirable. It is undesirable for Messianic Jews to keep the Orthodox Jewish Law, but is not prohibited. Why undesirable? Because Messianic Jews should realize that they are now “free from the Law,” with it’s “deadness of letter” and are now “alive in the Spirit.” 2Cor.3; Rom.7-8 give plausible support to this position.
Then why “not prohibited”? Because the Jewish believer who wants to keep following the Jewish Law is to be thought of as “weak in the faith” in the sense of Rom.14:1-2, someone who is to be indulged until he grows strong enough to give up his “crutch of legalism.” This position is more often expressed as social pressure than articulated clearly. Jews who come to believe in Yeshua are made to feel they are outsiders in the Church if they continue – let alone begin – to follow Jewish customs alien to the Gentile majority.
Absolutely not. Messianic Jews should not observe the Orthodox Jewish Law, because if they do they will regard it, rather than trust in Yeshua, as their means of salvation. Texts to support this position are usually brought from Romans, Galatians and Hebrews. A key element here involves equation of Torah-observance with legalism an equation we disproved earlier.18
This attitude is present, consciously or unconsciously, in the Christian who tells a new Jewish believer (and it has happened), “Now that you’re a Christian, you’re free from the Law...have a ham sandwich!” – without realizing that “Gentilizing” a Jew violates the spirit of Gal.2:13-14 as much as Judaizing a Gentile. They consider Messianic Jews who keep Jewish customs to have “weak faith” in the sense of Rom.14:1-2 (even though the text speaks of Gentiles, not Jews), but they don’t obey Sha’ul’s caution in the verses following not to judge ones brother for observances done “unto the Lord.”
These five positions should be evaluated not only on the basis of their content, but also on the basis of the hidden agendas behind them. For the Church’s opposition to a Messianic Jew’s observing the Torah seems to be based on fear either that he might leave his Messianic faith altogether and return to non-Messianic Judaism,19 or that he might set up an elite of Law-keepers within the Body and thus “rebuild the middle wall of partition.”20
Similarly, why would Messianic Jews who do not consider the Oral Law divinely inspired favour keeping it, if not in the hope of bolstering their claim to still be Jewish? But any Messianic Jew who thinks that following Orthodox or Conservative Jewish version of the Torah will increase his credibility before non-Messianic Jews ought to disabuse himself of the idea at once. He will never be “Jewish enough” to prove that Yeshua is the Messiah, and there is a risk that he himself will become the issue rather than Yeshua. Furthermore, non-Messianic Jews who consider him no longer Jewish will not be convinced otherwise by his Law-keeping. Rather they will say, “You have left Judaism and it really doesn’t matter to us whether you keep the Law or not.” Or they will say, “You are keeping it only in order to deceive us, to have us fall prey to your wiles.”
Other non-Messianic Jews will not deny the Jewishness of a Jew who accepts Yeshua, but they will say that he is deluding himself, on the ground that the Law ipso facto precludes belief in Yeshua and the New Testament. And they will not allow that a Messianic Jew has authority to reinterpret the Law in a way that permits him such a belief.
However, this is precisely what needs to be done, so we now abandon the assumption that the Torah is what Orthodox Judaism (or any other form of non-Messianic Judaism) says it is. Instead, let us see what we Messianic Jews say it is.
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In order to turn the discussion in this new direction, I want to begin by saying that I think the question “Should Messianic Jews obey the Torah?” is not quite on target. I would rather re-phrase it, “Should all Jews and all Gentiles observe the Torah?” Revealing the end from the beginning, I say that the answer will be , “Yes!” But it will depend on answers to four subsidiary questions:
What, at this point in history, really is Torah?
Who has the right to determine what the Torah asks from us?
What is meant by “keeping” (“observing” “obeying”) the Torah?
What are the different responsibilities of Jews and of Gentiles?
In the rest of section B we will attempt to make progress in framing these issues, even though we cannot expect to resolve them. We shall examine the questions in turn.
4. The Torah Today Is The Torah Of The Messiah
We said that within traditional Judaism the word “Torah” can have four meanings: (1) The five books of Moses, (2) the Tanakh, (3) that plus the Oral Torah; and (4) all religious teaching from the rabbis. All of these meanings can be found in the New Testament. Some of the references are to Torah as understood by non-Messianic Judaism. Others are to Torah within the framework of New Testament truth. Specifically, in the New Testament, (1) Torah is to be understood as the Messiah understands it,21 (2) it includes the Messiah’s mitzvot,22 (3) it includes the New Testament itself,23 and (4) it names a new group of people as having authority to interpret the Torah.24 Besides such general principles arising from the “change of Torah”25 brought about by the Messiah, the New Testament contains actual diney-Torah (“legal decisions about the Torah”) concerning specific applications of the Law.26 The phrase in the New Testament which best encompasses all of these new elements is “the Torah of the Messiah.”27
Some Christian theologians seem to think that the Torah of the Messiah can be virtually divorced from it’s Jewish context. There are those who throw out the Jewish Torah, claiming that the only thing left of Torah after the New Testament gets through with it is love.28 The Torah is fulfilled by love, but this fact does not constitute a command to replace the wisdom God gave us in his Torah by a vague instruction to “love.” Others retain only the Ten Commandments, although theological gymnastics are required in dealing with the command to observe Shabbat. Others retain the moral aspects of the Torah but discard the ceremonial and civil as “for the Jews under the old dispensation and therefore not in force today.”
Since most theologians have been Gentile Christians, and Gentiles are not Jews, they have had little incentive to grapple with the enormous number of detailed issues raised by taking Torah seriously. Messianic Jews cannot afford to be so cavalier. We will not only fail in our goal of bringing the Gospel to our people but we will be both proclaiming and living “another Gospel”29 if we do not interact on an intellectually serious level with the specifics of Torah as religious Judaism understands it. “Free from the Law” is head-in-the-sand.
What the Torah is, in Jewish thought, is intimately connected with who has the right to say what it is; so we will deal with both together in the next section.
5. Who Has The Right To Determine What Is Torah?
Traditional Judaism is based not only on the Old Testament, but on the Oral Law. Within Judaism, the Oral Law, which corresponds more or less to what the New Testament calls “the tradition of the elders,”30 is supposed to have been given to Moses at Sinai along with the written Law. The written Law was, of course, made part of the Hebrew Bible; but the Oral Law was not committed to writing until the Mishna compilers began their work in the second century C.E. Of the Oral Law, the Mishna says:
“Moses received the Torah from Sinai and handed it down to Joshua, and Joshua to the elders [the judges or other early leaders], and the elders to the prophets, and the prophets handed it down to the men of the Great Assembly [120 leaders who returned from exile with Ezra].”31
The common Christian idea that Judaism became “degenerate” because human tradition was added to God’s Law is mistaken. The five books of Moses have rightly been called the constitution of the Jewish nation, but a nation needs more than a constitution. There could never have been a time when tradition of some sort was not a necessary adjunct to the written Torah – for the written Torah simply does not contain all the laws and customs needed to run a nation.
For this there is evidence in the Pentateuch. Moses wrote in Deut.12:21 that the people of Israel could slaughter animals “as I have commanded you,” but no commands concerning how to slaughter are found anywhere in the written Torah. Something external is implied – legislation, tradition, an oral Torah. God could announce his will from heaven whenever uncertainty arises, but this is not his normal means of guidance either in the Old Testament or the New. Nothing in the Bible suggests that God opposes accumulating knowledge and experience or creating guidelines and rules. It is only when these are misused that they become wrong. Yeshua did not object to “tradition” as such when he criticized the P’rushim, but to “your” tradition: “By your tradition you make null and void the word of God!” – and he gave a specific example of what he meant.32
For traditional Judaism the scriptural basis for an authoritative system of Torah interpretation is Deut. 17:8-12, which says that Israel is to consult and obey the priest or judge “who is in office in those days.” This is made the ground for the entire system of rabbi-created law – which is understood not as being created anew but derived from what Moses received at Sinai and handed down to the elders. As Saul Kaatz a German Jewish scholar explained it,
“Every interpretation of the Torah given by a universally recognised authority is regarded as divine and given on Sinai, in the sense that it is taken as the original divinely willed (gottgewollte) interpretation of the text; for the omniscient and all-wise God included in his revealed Torah every shade of meaning which divinely inspired interpretation thereafter discovered...Therefore, every interpretation is called derash, “searching” for what God has originally put there...Every interpretation given by the scholars of the Talmud, Moses had received on Mount Sinai, for he had received the Torah, and the interpretation was contained in it, not mechanically, but organically, as the fruit of the tree was contained in the seed from which the tree had grown...”33
The New Testament sets up a different system of authority, although there is a question of whether it is entirely independent of the older system. At Mattityahu [Matthew] 18:18-20, after Yeshua has given authority to congregation leaders to excommunicate rebels, we read:
“Yes! I tell you [disciples] that whatever you bind [that is, prohibit] on earth will be bound in Heaven, and whatever you loose [permit] on earth will be loosed in Heaven. To repeat, I tell you, that if two of you here on earth agree about anything people ask, it will be for them from my Father in Heaven. For wherever two or three are assembled in my name I am there with them.”34
The last sentence is commonly regarded as assurance that Yeshua is present with believers when they pray – I have heard it said that a Messianic minyan35 consists of “two or three” assembled in Yeshua’s name plus Yeshua himself, who is “there with them.” That is true but not on the basis of that verse. Yeshua here is speaking to people who have authority to regulate Messianic communal life (see the preceding three verses). He says that they – and presumably subsequent leaders – have the right to establish halakhah, because the terms “bind” and “loose” were used in first-century Judaism to mean “prohibit” and “permit.” Yeshua is teaching that when an issue is brought formally before a panel of two or three Messianic Community leaders, and they render a halakhic decision here on earth, they can be assured that the authority of God stands behind them.
The battle-lines are thus clearly drawn. Traditional Judaism claims that the rabbis determine the halakhah. The New Testament transfers this authority to Yeshua’s disciples, and, according to Mattityahu 28:20 to believers in positions of leadership afterwards. The Roman Catholic Church uses this passage and Mattityahu 16:19 to establish the Petrine succession of the Pope and the authority of it’s hierarchy. Protestants, in reaction, have virtually deprived these verses of their plain meaning and import. Messianic Jews should understand them as an enormously significant grant of authority but must determine the form and pattern of use of the authority based on a Jewish understanding of the text.
In the State of Israel today there is a conflict which is described as being over the issue of “Who is a Jew?” but actually it is over “Who is a rabbi?” The Orthodox in Israel refuse to acknowledge as valid the conversions of Gentiles to Judaism made by Conservative and Reform Rabbis, even when these conversions are done according to the procedures laid down in the Orthodox halakhah. If this is so, imagine how much greater will be the conflict when there begin to be Messianic Jewish halakhic authorities who presume to issue diney-Torah (halakhic judgements). Till now Messianic Jews have steered clear of such a conflict, not out of fear but by default, because of the mistaken theological view that halakhah is irrelevant to New Testament living. That era is about to pass away. When Messianic Jews (and perhaps informed Messianic Gentiles) begin to deal with Torah in a Jewish way, issuing decisions based on the authority granted by Yeshua but ignored until now, the proclamation of the Gospel will have entered a new era.
But how will these decisions affect the lives of believers? Or will they at all? That is our next question.
6. What Is The Role Of Halakhah? Or: Why The Oral Law Was Oral. Or: What Does It Mean To “Observe” The Torah?
As I said, halakhah means “the way to walk”, and it can refer broadly to the whole system of how to live within the framework of Torah, or to a specific rule meant to guide behaviour in a particular situation. It was only when the Jewish Nation was being dispersed throughout the world and there was no longer a Temple to unite the people that the rabbis realized it would be necessary to write down the Oral Law containing the halakhot.
Many of them had misgivings about doing this and not without reason. So long as the Oral Law remained oral, judgements tended to be more spontaneous, decision making more flexible,, more responsive to the needs of a given situation. It was easier to consider changes in social life without feeling hidebound to precedents established centuries earlier when conditions were different. But when case law began to be written down, there were disadvantages as well as advantages. It was no longer necessary to re-invent the wheel, but sometimes the available wheels didn’t fit the new vehicles.
And this is precisely the criticism the revisionist branches of Judaism make of Orthodox Judaism today. For example, the Bible itself says that a Jew is not to light a fire on Shabbat. The rabbis have interpreted this to mean that a Jew is prohibited from operating an elevator on Shabbat, because when he presses the elevator button, the elevator is activated by a spark of electricity, a fire. But if a “Shabbat elevator” is provided which automatically goes up and down all day stopping on each floor, an Orthodox Jew is permitted to enter when it stops at his floor and leave when it gets to where he wants to go , because he is not himself lighting a fire on Shabbat (or even causing one to be lit).
The majority of Jews, even those who understand the above logic, think that something is peculiar about a system that produces this rule, that such a rule neither enhances human spirituality nor expresses God’s will. There is a halakhic principle that a halakhah unacceptable to the majority is not valid, but Orthodox Judaism does not see fit to apply it to themselves (they say a ruling must be unacceptable to the majority of halakhically knowledgeable Orthodox Jews to be invalid.)
Most Jews in a spirit of pluralism, certainly would not prohibit Orthodox Jews from obeying their own rules, but they would not care to have them imposed on themselves against their will. In my judgement this attitude is less due to rebellion against the authority of the Rabbis than to a gut sense that Orthodoxy for centuries has failed to deal satisfactorily with the realities of life. In the Diaspora this conflict between the Orthodox and the majority of Jews makes no headlines because the Orthodox Jews do not wield political power. But in Israel it has produced a full-scale kulturkampf between religious and non-religious Jews, a conflict in which Messianic Jews are not at present involved – except for being convinced that if both the religious and non-religious Jews would put their trust in Yeshua the Messiah the kulturkampf would end.
When the Oral Torah was truly oral, not fixed as it has been since the compiling of the Talmud, there was more room for flexibility. Conservative Judaism tries – albeit in a very limited way, since it’s rule making bodies are controlled by it’s right wing – to modernize certain halakhot. A well known example is the rule concerning the agunah the woman whose husband has disappeared and whose whereabouts is unknown. According to Orthodox halakhah the woman cannot get a divorce because the husband is not there to write her a get,36 nor can she be regarded as a widow since there is no definite evidence that the husband has died. Therefore she cannot remarry. This can cause great hardship – a young agunah who never learns the fate of her husband must stay single all her life. Conservative Judaism has developed a different halakhah which allows remarriage under certain conditions and thus alleviates the hardship.37
All of this is by way of background to considering what the role of halakhah might be in the light of the New Covenant. According to the New Testament, every believer has in him the Spirit of God.38 It is written that the letter kills but the Spirit makes alive.39 It does not say that the Torah kills for the Torah is holy, just and good. It does say that love fulfills the Torah, which I see as another way of saying that obedience to the Torah by the Spirit makes the Torah come alive.
It is clear that people need guidance in ethical behaviour. But Christian ethics tends to float above specific rules to a Platonic world of general principles. This can be seen in the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who led an ethical life (even unto death at the hands of the Nazis) but whose books on ethics tended to soar into spiritual realms – inspiring, but far from the brass tacks. Messianic halakhah can provide specific guidance for those who seek it. It can provide a basis for discussion, for probing in the direction of finding godly solutions to ethical questions, as well as for ceremonial situations, helping to establish cultural norms – norms not hard-and-fast rules! A balance must be struck between heavyhandedly imposing halakhic decisions on the believing community and carelessly failing to give adequate guidance, with the result that each must fend for himself.
So we have our answer: “observing” the Torah of the Messiah means accepting the guidance of the New Testament halakhah for our lives, while remaining sensitive to the Holy Spirit. Whether the Spirit wants us to obey the rule or to break it will be decided within a communal congregational framework in which our respected leaders and colleagues help us determine the mind of the Messiah, which “we” – as a community, not each individual – have.40
7. Torah For Gentiles?
Because Gentiles are included in the New Covenant, they are subject to New Covenant Torah, the Torah of the Messiah. Since Torah itself is a medium through which God expresses his grace toward his people, it is not surprising that if through Yeshua God has poured out his grace equally on Gentiles and Jews (this is the main point of Romans 1-11), he has also made requirements of Gentiles as well as of Jews (some of them are detailed in Romans 12-15).
What God initially requires of Gentiles who accept Yeshua as Messiah is spoken of in Traditional Judaism as the Noachide Laws, which the Encyclopaedia Judaica says are:
“the seven laws considered by rabbinic tradition as the minimal moral duties enjoined by the Bible on all men (Talmud, Sanhedrin 56-60; Maimonides: Mishneh Torah, Yad Chazakah, Melakhim, 8:10, 10:12). Jews are obligated to observe the whole Torah, while every non-Jew is a “son of the covenant of Noah” (see Genesis 9), and he who accepts it’s obligations is a ger-toshav (“resident stranger” or “semi-convert”) see Talmud, Avodah Zarah 64b; Maimonidies, op. cit., 8:10). Maimonides equates the “righteous man (hasid) of the [Gentile] nations” who has a share in the world to come even without becoming a Jew with the Gentile who keeps these laws. Such a man is entitled to full material support from the Jewish community...and to the highest earthly honours...The seven Noachide Laws as traditionally enumerated are: the prohibitions of idolatry, blasphemy, bloodshed, sexual sins, theft, and eating from a living animal, as well as the injunction to establish a legal system (Tosefta tractate Avodah Zarah 8:4; Sanhedrin 56a). Except for the last, all are negative, and the last itself is usually interpreted as commanding the enforcement of the others (Maimonidies, op. cit., (:1). They are derived exegetically from divine demands addressed to Adam (Gen.2:16) and Noah (see Midrash Rabbah on Gen.34; Sanhedrin 59b) i.e. the progenitors of all mankind, and are thus regarded as universal...Noachides may also freely choose to practice certain other Jewish commandments (Maimonides, op. cit., 10:9-10). Jews are obligated to establish the Noachide Code wherever they can. (ibid., 8:10). Maimonides held that Noachides must not only accept “the seven laws” on their own merit, but they must accept them as divinely revealed. This follows from the thesis that all ethics are not ultimately neutral but require a theological framework...Views differ as to whether the ultimate stage of humanity will comprise both Judaism and Noachidism, or whether Noachidism is the only penultimate level before the universalization of all the Torah (see Jerusalem Talmud , Avodah Zarah 2:1)...”41
Many commentators have noted the resemblance between the Noachide Laws and the requirements placed on Gentile Christians in Acts 15:20. The Jerusalem Council, a kind of Messianic Sanhedrin, was convened to determine under what conditions Gentile believers were to be accepted into the Messianic Community (that is, into the Church). It was decided that they need not convert to Judaism but should initially observe four mitzvot – “to abstain from things polluted by idols, from fornication, from what is strangled and from blood.”
This teaches us that the elements of Torah which apply to Gentiles under the New Covenant are not the same as those which apply to Jews. (The Jerusalem Council made no change whatever in the Torah as it applies to Jews, so that a number of years later there could still be in Jerusalem “tens of thousands” of Messianic Jews who were “zealots for the Torah.”42) It should not surprize us if New Covenant Torah specifies different commandments for Jews and Gentiles. First, the Five Books of Moses have commands which apply to some groups but not to others – to the king but not to his subjects, to cohanim (“priests”) but not to other Jews, to men but not to women. Second, the New testament too has different commands for different categories of people for example, men and women, husbands and wives, parents and children, slaves and masters, leaders and followers, widows as distinct from other women.43
However, Acts 15 also teaches that although Gentiles were required to observe only four laws upon entering the Messianic Community, they were permitted to learn as much about Judaism as they wished44 and presumably to observe as many Jewish Laws and customs as they wished. This feature too corresponds to Noachidism. The only proviso added in the New Covenant (in Galatians) is that Gentiles should not suppose that their self-Judaizing will earn them “salvation points” with God.
Moreover it should not be thought that the only requirement the New Covenant makes of Gentiles is to obey these four commands. On the contrary, there are hundreds of commands in the New Testament meant as much for Gentiles as for Jews. Nor should it be thought that the New Covenant does away with moral, ceremonial, civil or any other category of Law. There are New Testament commands for Jews and Gentiles in all of these categories. To give but a few examples, Romans 13:1-7 and Acts 5:29 touch on civil obedience and disobedience, Mattityahu [Matthew] 28:19 and 1Corinthians 11:17-34 deal with matters of ceremony, 1Corinthians 5:1-6:7; 14:26-40; 2Corinthians 2:5-11 and Mattityahu 18:15-17 deal with order in the Messianic Community, and there are so many moral, ethical, and spiritual commands that there is no need to cite them (1,050 commands of all kinds according to one enumeration).45
We conclude that under the New Covenant the Torah remains in force and is as much for Gentiles as for Jews, although the specific requirements for Gentiles differ from those for Jews. We will now examine some implications of this in greater detail.
C. Halakhic Issues In Messianic Judaism
1. Introduction
A Messianic Jew who realizes that the Torah is still in force under the New Covenant ought to be full of questions. How is the Torah to be applied? What is the halakhah under the New Covenant? What ought to be done, and what ought not to be done in particular situations?
One can imagine creating a body of New Testament case law much like the Talmud, the Codes and Responsa of Judaism. It would take into consideration Jewish halakhah, which has, after all, dealt with nearly every sector of human existence; yet everything would have to be re-examined in the light of New Covenant Truth. It would be created by both Jewish and Gentile scholars and judges familiar with the Bible and halakhic process with the prime text on which to base such a procedure being Mattityahu 18:18-20.46
But what good would it do? Who would listen to it? Who would obey it? Is anyone demanding it? Who needs it? Who cares? Are we not guided in all things by the Holy Spirit? Do we require a set of rules or guidelines? Does the New Testament even allow taking a halakhic approach?
Well – that’s how the discussion begins. We will pursue it a short distance in the remainder of this chapter; there is no finishing it. We will ask a few of the questions and try to think about them. Nothing here is meant to be taken as a “ruling” on any subject, since no one has authorized me to make rulings.
2. New Testament Halakhot
One of the questions raised in the preceding section was: Does the New Testament allow taking a halakhic approach? The only possible answer to this is: Yes, because the New Testament itself actually states a number of diney-Torah (specific judgements as to how to apply the Torah) or halakhot (applications of Law), and these are generally arrived at by thoroughly rabbinic ways of thinking. Here are four instances:
a. Yochanan [John] 7:22-23.
In this passage Yeshua presents a din-Torah that the mitzvah of healing takes precedence over that of refraining from work on Shabbat. In making this decision as to which of the conflicting laws holds in a particular situation, he was doing much the same thing as did the rabbis who developed the Oral Torah. In fact, Yeshua referred in this passage to a well-known such decision which can be found in the Talmud, tractate Shabbat, pages 128a ff.
The rabbis were confronted with the conflict between law against working on Shabbat and the commandment that a man should circumcise his son on the eighth day of his life. Th conflict arises from the fact that cutting and carrying the tools required to perform a b’rit-milah (circumcision) through a public domain are kinds of work forbidden by the rabbis on Shabbat. They decided that if the eighth day falls on Shabbat, one does the necessary work and circumcises the boy; but if the circumcision must take place after the eighth day, say for health reasons, it may not be done on Shabbat in violation of the work prohibitions; one waits till a week day.
Yeshua in defending his ruling used what Judaism calls a kal v’homer (“light and heavy”) argument, known in philosophy as reasoning a fortiori (“from greater strength”). It’s essence is in the phrase “how much more...!” Yeshua’s point at Yochanan 7:23 is: “You permit breaking Shabbat in order to observe the mitzvah of circumcision; how much more important it is to heal a person’s whole body, so you should permit breaking Shabbat for that too!”
b. Galatians 2:11-14.
Sha’ul [Paul] pronounced an important halakhah at Galatians 2:11-14. It too is a decision as to how to proceed when two valid principles conflict, but in this case the conflict was between an Old Testament command and a New Covenant necessity. His conclusion was not, as some suppose, that the Jewish dietary laws no longer apply, but that Jewish believers’ observance of kashrut (Jewish dietary laws) must not be allowed to impede their fellowship with Gentile believers. Communion in the Messiah is more important than eating kosher. But when a Jewish believer’s eating kosher does not break such fellowship, then nothing in Galatians 2:11-14 can be construed to imply that the Jewish dietary laws should not be observed.
c. Mark 7:1-23
While on the subject of kashrut we will look at two other passages commonly cited to prove it’s abolition and show that this is not their purpose. Mark 7:1-23 is concerned not with kashrut but with ritual washing before meals (n’tilat-yadayim), a practice observed in traditional Judaism today.47 Therefore when Yeshua “declared all foods clean”48 he was not declaring treif (“unclean”) foods kosher , but saying that kosher food is not rendered ritually unclean when hands not ritually washed touch it. Although in our age it is hard for anyone not an Orthodox Jew to think intelligently about ritual impurity, it’s importance in Yeshua’s time can be roughly measured by the fact that one of the six major divisions of the Talmud (Tohorot, “Purities”) is almost entirely devoted to this subject.
However, the important halakhah for us to note has nothing to do with eating. In this passage Yeshua does not give zero weight to the “tradition of the elders”, as do many Christians. Rather, what he does insist on is that human traditions should not be used to make “null and void the word of God.” This is a key halakhic ruling by the Messiah himself which can guide us in creating New Testament halakhah today. It says we must keep our priorities straight: only God’s word commands absolute obedience. Our halakhot may be useful, suggestive, edifying, valuable as guidance, but they are still only “traditions of men” hence fallible and less important. The Messiah’s halakhah contrasts with the prevailing view in Orthodox Judaism, which, being descended directly from the Pharisaic position Yeshua criticized, can punish violation of a rabbinic ruling more severely than violation of a biblical precept.
d. Acts 10:9-17,28.
Kefa [Peter] had a vision in which three times he saw treif animals being lowered from heaven in a sheet and heard a voice telling him to “kill and eat.” Unlike those interpreters who instantly assume the passage teaches that Jews need not eat kosher food any more, Kefa spent some time “puzzling over the meaning of the vision.” Only when he arrived at Cornelius’ home did he get the pieces of the puzzle put together, so that he could state, “God has shown me not to call any person unclean”. The vision was about people not food. It did not teach Kefa – who had always eaten kosher – to change his eating habits, but to accept Gentiles equally with Jews as candidates for salvation.
For it must be remembered that the sheet lowered from heaven contained all kinds of animals, wild beasts, reptiles and birds; yet I know of no Bible interpreters who insist that eagles, vultures, owls, bats, weasels, mice, lizards, crocodiles, chameleons, snakes, spiders and bugs must now be considered edible. God specifies in Leviticus 11 what Jews are to regard as "food." Even if there were a secondary message in this vision about eating, it would not totally overthrow the dietary laws but would state the same rule we found above in Galatians 2:11-14, that preserving fellowship between Jewish and Gentile believers might at times supersede observance of kashrut.49
3. Other Materials To Draw On In Creating New Covenant Halakhah
What might Messianic Jewish halakhists wish to consult as they prepare for their task? We have just seen that the New Testament is one such source, and it should go without saying that the Tanakh (Old Testament) is another. In addition to the Bible, Messianic Jewish hal