A quick bonus Torah thought.  A Christian friend asked me this question:

This is an amazing question.  It is a question from a place of CURIOSITY and not judgment.

Over the past three years, I have written extensively about this – and for newer followers, it may not be easy to find, so I want to address this question here.

The word Torah ACTUALLY means “instruction.”  If you want to REALLY dig into it, you can read a lot here.  Chabad has a great library of knowledge of these questions that I have found super helpful.  But I wanted to write this from a perspective that doesn’t argue with Christianity, but instead uses the framework provided.  If you understand the Torah from a Jewish perspective, and don’t care to see how it is synthesized within Christianity, feel free to skip to today’s Torah thoughts on Parsha Lekh Lekha.

In a nutshell. I believe the Torah is the “instruction” for spiritual freedom and liberation.  If you’ve been following my writing, almost all of it skews this direction. Almost like “waking up” spiritually.  The Torah guides us on how to get in touch with our TRUE identity – our soul – our Neshama.

If one reads the “New” Testament, it would seem that this is what Jesus came to earth teach. He was trying to tell the Pharisees that they had taken these Torah instructions on freedom and liberation and turned it around to be a burden and a way to oppress. The “instructions” which are FULL of grace, mercy, and justice had become a tool of oppression.  Jesus seemed to understand the Torah was NOT the law – but it was a way to build a relationship with Hashem.  And I think what Christians struggle with my blog most is that I am demonstrating the Torah, even without Jesus, is a means for Spiritual Liberation and Freedom.

When Jesus said “I am the way, the truth, and the life” what he MAY have been saying was he was SHOWING people the way to truth and life – and it WAS the Torah. The instructions.

There is life in the Torah. There is truth in the Torah.  But there is no judgment – other than what we as humans use the Torah to Judge.

Jesus seemed to come to remind people that the Torah was freedom and not prison.

I often ask my Christian friends – “Did Jesus come to start a new religion?”  And this confounds MANY of them.  They know; if they say “no he did not” my next question will be “then why does the ‘church’ look so different than the religion Jesus was speaking to?  Because the early church WAS a sect of Judaism.  The New Testament clearly indicates this.  The sect of Judaism was called “the Way.”

If the answer to the question is “yes, Jesus came to start a new religion” then our reads of the New Testament are very different.  Jesus was a Jew. There is no question about this.  And if he came to start a new religion, you’d have to consider he was a self hating Jew because there was nothing wrong with the Torah.

Jesus even said in the book of Matthew, Chapter 5 (i’ll use the King James Version here):

¹⁸ For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

¹⁹ Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

This word “law” is the word for Torah. Jot and tittle refer to Hebrew letters.

It also confounds my Christian friends about what it means to “fulfill the law” when they say Jesus came to “fulfil the law.” It makes a TON more sense to say “he came to fulfill the instructions” to show people how to live Torah lives.

Verse 19 would seem to indicate Jesus teaching how important these instructions were.  So much so, a person’s status in heaven would be impacted.  There is “great” and “least” in heaven.  But there was no mention of going to hell if you didn’t do this. Again, sounds like FREEDOM to me.

I could write a lot more about this – but I really want to point out something that is hard for my Christian friends to accept. The modern church is not founded upon Jesus. Jesus is NOT the center of the church.  A dude called Constantine is.

Before I give you a quick church history lesson that you can dig into more on your own – I just want to share my experiences talking to my Christian friends.  They talk a LOT about freedom.  We can have AMAZING conversations about Scriptures. (Which, by the way? When Paul wrote in 2 Timothy “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” – he was NOT talking about the new testament as it had not been written yet.  He was talking about the Torah).

Where Christian friends and I tend to struggle is around the second Nicene creed.  Try to discuss ANYTHING regarding the creed? There is no openness.

Constantine and the council of Nicaea is why “instructions” became “laws.”  They created the creed for the specific purpose for oppression and control of the people, and it was steeped in Anti-Semitism.  The goal of the council was to bring together the non-Jewish leaders of the followers of Jesus to create a new standard by which Jews could no longer follow or enter into the church.  And it gave Constantine and this “new” church all the authority at the time.

The “instructions” became codified as “law” and “mitzvahs” became “commandments.”  This is the beginning (Genesis) of where the Church went off track.

Ok. Enough Church history. I want to get back to Jewish perspective (which there is a lot) on the Torah.

For me, the “commandments” that my Christian friends talk about are actually considered “Mitzvahs” in Judaism. I’ve written about the Mitzvah’s before, and we move forward and hear about humanities descent into Egypt (slavery) and their Exodus to freedom and liberation, we are going to read about the Mitzvahs – these (in my opinion) are better translated as “opportunities to connect with Hashem.”

The mitzvahs weren’t a burden or obligation for the most part; unless you were a priest and needed to be “ritually pure” so you could do the work of the tabernacle or temple.  The “commandments” weren’t ever meant to be “do this or you are going to hell” (in my opinion) – they were more along the lines of “you want to get closer to your own soul (Neshama) and Hashem? Do a mitzvah!”

What is the purpose of the Torah?

The Torah exists to connect us with our souls. There is a LOT of focus on the exodus. The reason for this is our souls are “trapped” and enslaved inside our bodies. And they desire to live free. What is the purpose of this freedom? To love. To be loved. To be love.

I believe love is freedom and liberation. This is the Torah.

It’s not oppressive. Any read of my blogs about the Torah will demonstrate that. The Torah helps us fall deeper in love with ourselves – and who we were created to be. And to show us our purpose – to create and co-create out of love, for love. Our Soul is our purpose.

These are my thoughts.  What are yours?