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תורה

Torah is a Hebrew word that means "instruction" and refers to God's instructions or commandments given to His people. It most commonly refers to the five books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) - in Greek it was known as the Pentateuch "five books". In scroll form it is referred to as the Sefer Torah, but in bound book form it is called the Humash "five". Sometimes it is called "the law of Moses" or just "Moses" but understood to be "the law from God given through Moses to His people". It is also symbolized by the five fingers of the hamsa. It can also include the Nebyaim "prophets" and the Ketuvim "writings" which altogether form the acronym TaNaK (Torah, Nebyaim, Ketuvim) since they all contain instruction either directly or indirectly.

"Blessed is the man who does not walk in the company of the ungodly, nor takes his stand on the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the mockers. But whose delight is in the Torah of יהוה and in His Torah he meditates day and night." - Psalm 1:1-2

How Many Commandments Are There in the Torah?

Since the days of the Talmud the individual mitzvot "commandments" of the Torah were added up to 613 by some and although technically disputed, it has come to represent the whole Torah. This number is somewhat symbolic as it is difficult to put an exact number of commandments as some can be broken down into smaller elements which implies a larger number, or reduced to a subset by not counting those given for one certain time, place or individual. Theoretically, there are virtually no limits since the Torah is like the beginning of a fractal. The Torah establishes the foundation, a template for a pattern which can reach every depth of our spiritual needs. 

This may seem like an impossible list to remember and keep. To put it into perspective, compare it to how most nations have at least 1000 laws governing roads and traffic alone. Some of these commandments you are already submitted to and are common to many societies, for example, concerning theft or murder. But the world's societies do not acknowledge nor follow all of God's commandments - only His people. Once you are grounded in the fundamentals of Torah its principles become like second nature and your pattern of thinking will automatically lean you toward the right way.

Let's say that we start with 613 commandments, and one wishes to know which ones must he keep in mind and action. We can begin by eliminating the ones that do not normally apply to him; those that apply to women and priests, judges and kings. If he is not a farmer nor a slave owner, then put those aside as well. The actual number of commandments that applies to the average person is quite manageable. The most important concepts are encapsulated in the ten commandments. The actual word in the Torah for these ten is not mitzvot "commandments" but rather debarim "words/concepts" as virtually all the other commandments can be related to these ten - therefore these ten represent all the other commandments.

These are the ten from Deuteronomy 5:6-21

1. I am יהוה your God, who brought you out of Egypt, from the place of slavery. Do not have any other gods before Me.

2. Do not represent such gods by a statue or picture of anything in the heaven above, on the earth below, or in the water below the land. Do not bow down to such gods and do not worship them. I, יהוה your God, am a god who demands exclusive worship. Where My enemies are concerned, I remember the sins of the fathers for their descendants for three and four generations. But to those who love Me, and keep My commandments, I show love for thousands of generations.

3. Do not take the name of יהוה your God in vain. God will not allow the person who takes His name in vain to go unpunished.

4. Observe the Sabbath to keep it holy, as יהוה your God commanded you. You can work during the six weekdays, and do all your tasks, but the seventh day is the Sabbath to יהוה your God, so do not do anything that constitutes work. This includes you, your son, your daughter, your male and female slave, your ox, your donkey, your other animals, and the stranger who is in your gates. Your male and female slaves will then be able to rest just as you do. You must remember that you were slaves in Egypt, when יהוה your God brought you out with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. It is for this reason that יהוה your God has commanded you to keep the Sabbath.

5. Honour your father and mother as יהוה your God commanded you. You will then live long and have it well on the land that יהוה your God is giving you.

6. Do not commit murder. 

7. Do not commit adultery.

8. Do not steal.

9. Do not testify falsely against your neighbour.

10. Do not covet your neighbour's wife. Do not covet your neighbour's house, his field, his male or female slave, his ox, his donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbour.

The greatest rabbis taught that the whole Torah based upon two principles, the commandments that pertain to our relationship with God, and those that pertain to our relationship with our neighbours, our community.

"Teacher, which commandment is greatest in the law? Then Yëshuå said to him, That, YOU SHOULD LOVE יהוה YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR BREATH, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND. This commandment is the greatest and the first. And the second is like it. That you should love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments hang the Torah and the prophets." - Matthew 22:36-40

The commandments of the Torah could also be divided according to the sentence of their violation, some of which prescribe death and some which do not. Or they could be divided into thethe negatives (the do nots) and the positives (the dos). Yet another system places each commandment into one of three different categories, the laws, (those which have a moral obviousness), the testimonies, (those which testify or glorify God), and the statutes, (those which do not have an obvious reason). Sometimes the Torah's commandments are simply divided into those of the moral code and those of the priestly code. A completely different type of ordering considers which commandment takes precedence over another when a conflict arises or life is in danger. And there are three whose violation can never be justified, namely; murder, idolatry and perverse sexual relations (for it is better to lie with the tongue than to murder with it). You may have also heard the phrases "written Torah" contrasted with the "oral Torah" which will be explained later.

The Torah scroll is written on parchment by highly trained scribes called sopherim. Every Hebrew letter is meticulously copied one at a time from an older scroll. This way the Torah is carefully preserved with virtually no alterations after thousands of years. It is kept in a protective wooden or metal case called an Aron which is cloaked and adorned with silver latches, breastplates and crowns. It is then kept in a cabinet called an Aron Qodesh or Heykhal in the synagogue behind a curtain. Retired scrolls can never be destroyed but must be stored or buried.

Commandments Concerning the Torah

"Listen, Israel, יהוה  is our God, יהוה alone. Love יהוה your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. These words which I am commanding you today must remain on your heart. Teach them to your children and speak of them when you are at home, when traveling on the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind these words as a sign on your hand, and let them be an emblem in the center of your head. Also write them on the door-posts of your houses and gates." - Deuteronomy 6:4-9

"What nation is so great that they have such righteous rules and laws, like this entire Torah that I am presenting before you today? Only take heed and watch yourself very carefully, so that you do not forget the things that your eyes saw. Do not let this memory leave your hearts, all the days of your lives. Teach your children and children's children about the day you stood before יהוה your God at Horeb." - Deuteronomy 4:8-10

"There shall be one Torah for both for the native-born Israelite and for the stranger who joins you." - Exodus 12:49

"Hidden things may pertain to יהוה our God, but that which has been revealed applies to us and our children forever. We must therefore keep all the words of this Torah." - Deuteronomy 29:28

Can I Keep it? What if I don't?

"All this will happen when you obey יהוה your God, keeping all His commandments and decrees, as they are written in this book of the Torah, and when you return to יהוה your God with all your heart and soul. This mandate that I am prescribing to you today is not too mysterious or remote from you. It is not in heaven, so that you should say, 'Who shall go up to heaven and bring it to us so that we can hear it and keep it?' It is something that is very close to you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can keep it. See! Today I have set before you a free choice between life and good on one side, and death and evil on the other. I have commanded you today to love יהוה your God, to walk in His paths, and to keep His commandments, decrees and laws. You will then survive and flourish, and יהוה your God will bless you in the land that you are about to occupy. But if your heart turns aside and you do not listen, you will be led astray to bow down to foreign gods and worship them. I am warning you today, that if you do that you will be utterly exterminated. You will not last very long in the land which you are crossing the Jordan and coming to occupy. I call heaven and earth as witnesses! Before you I have placed life and death, the blessing and the curse. You must choose life, so that you and your descendants will survive. You must thus make the choice to love יהוה your God, to obey Him, and to attach yourself to Him. This is your sole means of survival and long life when you dwell in the land that God swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, promising that He would give it to them." - Deuteronomy 30:10-20

"Cursed is he who does not uphold and keep this entire Torah. All the people shall say, Amen." - Deuteronomy 27:26

What Yeshua the Messiah Says About the Torah

"And someone came near, and said to him, Most important teacher, what is the most important thing I must do so that I may have life forever? He then said to him, Why do you appeal to me as the most important? There is none most important except for one, God. If then you want to enter into life, keep the commandments." - Matthew 19:16-17

"Do not suppose that I have come to end the law or the prophets, I have come not to end, but rather to fulfill. For I am telling you the truth, that unless heaven and earth are erased, then not one yud or one mark will be erased, unless all that happens. Therefore, anyone who breaks even one of the little commandments, and teaches people in the same way, he will be declared a little piece cut off, in the kingdom of heaven. But everyone who does and teaches them, will be declared great in the kingdom of heaven. For I am telling you, that unless your righteousness exceeds beyond that of the scholars and the Prisha, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven." - Matthew 5:17-20

"Here is the hope of the righteous, that they keep the commandments of God and the faith of Yeshua." - Revelation 14:12

What About Paul?

"But glory, honour and peace will be to all who do good, first for the Jews and then for the heathens. For there is no respect of persons with God. For those who have sinned without the knowledge of the law will also die without the law, and those who have sinned with the knowledge of the law will be judge by the law, because it is not the hearers of the law that are righteous, but the doers of the law who are righteous. For this reason non-Jews who did not have knowledge of the law, but naturally did keep the law, who although they did not have the law, have a law for themselves and they show the work of the law as it is written on their hearts and their conscience testifies about them, while their own reasonings correct or defend each other on the day when God jusges the secrets of men according to my message that comes from Yeshua the anointed one." - Romans 2:10-16

"Therefore, do we make the law of no effect by faith? May it not be so! Rather we uphold the law!" - Romans 3:31

"What are we saying then? Is the law sin? May it never be! For I did not know what sin was except through the law. For I had not known the wrongness of coveting except that the law said, DO NOT COVET." - Romans 7:7

"Thus the Torah is eminent and the commandments are eminent and right and good." - Romans 7:12

"For we know that the law is spiritual..." - Romans 7:14

"For carnal mentality is death, but spiritual mentality is life and peace, since carnal mentality is hostile towards God for it is not submitted to the law of God because it is not capable and those who are carnal are not able to please God. ...For if you live by what is carnal you will die and if spiritually you will put to death the habits of the body, and you will have life." - Romans 8:6-8, 13

"Now maintain those things which you have learned and were certain of since you know from whom you learned them, and that from your childhood you were taught the eminent scriptures, which are able to make you wise for life in the faith of Yeshua the anointed one. Every scripture that was written through the Spirit is profitable for teaching and for reproof and for correction and for instruction concerning righteousness so that a man of God may be mature and complete to do every good work." - 2 Timothy 3:14-17

Paul's message was demonstrate that achieving total righteousness for the sinner can only be accomplished by continuing in keeping the commandments combined with faith in Yeshua. When Paul states that no one can be righteous by keeping the law, he means that if one has willfully violated the law no amount of future perfection in keeping the law alone will remove that stain, considering that virtually all of us have such stains, only with the addition of the righteousness and perfection of the messiah can we attain total righteousness for ourselves. It is not possible to have one without the other.

"From now on there is no condemnation for those who are in Yeshua the anointed, who do not walk according to the flesh. For the law of the Spirit of life that is in Yeshua the anointed one has freed you from the law of sin and of death. For since the law was weak through the frailty of the flesh, God sent his Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin, because of sin, to condemn sin in the flesh, so that the righteousness of the law would be completed in us, who do not walk carnally but spiritually." - Romans 8:1-4

What about Peter, James, John?

"For it would have been better for them to have never known the way of righteousness, than, after they having known it, to turn away from the eminent commandments presented to them." - 2 Peter 2:21

"For whoever keeps the whole law, and yet offends just one commandment, he is guilty of all of it. For he that said, Do not commit adultery, also said, Do not murder. Now if you do not commit adultery, but murder, you have become a breaker of the law." - James 2:10-11

"All who believe that Yeshua is the anointed one, are born of God, and all who have love for the children, also have love for He Whom they were born from. And by this we know that we have love for the children of God, when we have love for God and we fulfill His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not difficult, because all who are born of God have overcome the world, and this is our advantage that overcomes the world, our faith." - 1 John 5:2-4

Who is the Torah for?

"And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of יהוה, and to the house of the God of Yaqub; and He will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in His paths: for the Torah shall go forth of Zion, and the word of יהוה from Jerusalem." - Micah 4:2

"I יהוה have called you in righteousness, and will hold your hand, and will keep you, and give you for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; ...Sing unto יהוה a new song, and His praise from the ends of the earth, you who live by the sea, and all who are within; the isles, and the inhabitants thereof. ...And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do for them, and not forsake them. They shall be converted back, they shall be greatly ashamed, that trust in graven images, that say to the molten images, You are our gods. ...יהוה is well pleased for His righteousness' sake; He will increase the knowledge of the Torah, and make it honourable." - Isaiah 42:6,10,16-17,21

"And the ends of the earth shall remember and convert to יהוה and all the families of the nations shall worship before You. For the kingdom is יהוה's and He is the governor among the nations." - Psalm 22:27-28

"That Your way may be known upon earth, Your saving health among all nations. Let the people praise You, O God; let all the people praise You. O let the nations be glad and sing for joy: for you shall judge the people righteously, and govern the nations upon earth. Selah. Let the people praise You, O God; let all the people praise You. Then shall the earth yield her increase; and God, even our own God, shall bless us. God shall bless us; and all the ends of the earth shall fear him." - Psalm 67:2-7

"For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same My Name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered to My Name, and a pure offering: for My Name shall be great among the heathen, says יהוה of myriads." - Malachi 1:11

"I will give you as a light to the Gentiles, that you may be My salvation to the ends of the earth." - Isaiah 49:6

"Look, the darkness shall cover the earth, and complete darkness the people, but יהוה shall arise upon you, and His glory shall be seen upon you. And the Gentiles shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. Lift up your eyes round about, and see. They all gather themselves together, they come to you. Your sons shall come from afar, and your daughters shall be nursed at thy side. Then you shall see, and flow together, and your heart shall fear, and be enlarged; because the abundance of the sea shall be converted to you, the hordes of the Gentiles shall come to you." - Isaiah 60:3-5

"Sing to יהוה, all the earth; present His salvation from day to day." - 1 Chronicles 16:23

"Therefore, go disciple all nations and immerse them in the name of the Father and the son, and the Spirit of Eminence. And teach them to guard all that I have commanded you, and look, I myself am with you all the days until the end of the age. Æmïyn" - Matthew 28:19-20

"Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to them who are under the law: so that every mouth may be shut, and all the world may become guilty before God." - Romans 3:19

First Things First

A Jew must refrain from teaching much of the Torah to a heathen until they abandon their idols and gods and come to accept the truth of the one God of Israel. This can be compared to starter dough which leavens the whole lump, or a  a strong tower built upon a foundation of mud, or a drop of poison that contaminates a pure cup of water so that it the whole cup becomes deadly. Likewise, applying the truths of Torah under a false or perverse notion of God, or to another god, corrupts all truth into a lie, and diverts all praise away from the one true God and Creator. Good is changed into evil. The person becomes weakened and is cut off from the source of power and life. We already see too much of this in the world today. Therefore learn the first of the commandments.

"יהוה is our God, יהוה alone." - Deuteronomy 6:4

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