MessianicMusings.com

In a recent column in the Jerusalem Post, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach wrote the following:

The news, therefore, that a leading rabbinical court in Israel refused to allow into Judaism a Chabad-educated conversion candidate because he believed the Rebbe is the Messiah is deeply troubling and constitutes an act of serious contempt for a non-Jew who has made sacrifices to ally himself with the Jewish people. Comparing this with a Jew-for-Jesus wishing to convert is preposterous, given that Jews-for-Jesus believe in the divinity of Christ (which no one in Chabad would ever assert about the Rebbe) as well as the irrelevance of the Torah to modern times.

As a member of the Yeshua messianic movement, I would respectfully submit that Rabbi Boteach is not completely correct in his assessment that those who look to Yeshua as the promised messiah subscribe to the idea that the Torah is irrelevant to modern times. In fact, among the Yeshua messianic movement, it is our insistence in the very relevance of Torah, even today, that sets us apart from mainstream Christianity.

Prior to becoming messianic, the last two Christian churches I attended were almost exclusively “grace-based,” which in practice means that, when push came to shove, attendees of those churches tended to believe that as long as they were “covered by the blood of Jesus,” anything goes because it’s all forgiven anyway. “Grace covers all” was the watchword, and I increasingly found myself ill at ease with such a viewpoint.

Why would Adonai offer up the Ten Commandments, and indeed the whole of the Torah, if it were only “culturally relevant to the time and culture of Moshe, but ready to be cast aside upon the appearance of Yeshua in human history.” Even the teachings of Rabbi Shaul (Paul) indicated a deeper struggle against violating the standards of Torah than is found in modern, grace-based churches. Faith in Yeshua as messiah without a conviction in the relevance of Torah to modern times is like a faith on diet pills; it will always be found wanting.

The revelation I found in the Yeshua messianic movement is not relabeled, warmed-over Christianity with a dash of Judaism for flavor. On the contrary, it is an equal balance. Yes, we have a messiah whose grace covers our human failings and inability to live up to Adonai’s perfect standard for human behavior and, far too often, our failure to even live up to His minimum standard, set forth in Torah.

While such forgiveness is precious, it did not come cheaply and it must be remembered above all that Yeshua was not a revolutionary starting a new religion. Yeshua the messiah was a faithful Jew who lived blamelessly the standards set by Torah; if anyone wishes to emulate Yeshua, the Torah is the only place to go to discover how he lived righteously before Adonai, and therefore the Torah - the written Torah, at least - is more relevant in the life of a Yeshua messianic than any other document they could possibly read.

While rabbinic Jews and Yeshua messianic believers do part ways on some areas of interpretation and conviction, the relevance of Torah to modern times is not one of them. That said, I certainly look forward to a new season of Shalom In the Home and Rabbi Boteach’s new book, The Broken American Male and How to Fix Him.

The teaching I’ve been sharing here recently, originating with my rabbi, Stan Farr, that Torah is G-d’s minimum standard - the point at which we fall short - should not be considered new or revolutionary to careful students of Torah and the teachings of messiah Yeshua. Whether young or old, healthy or in need of Medicare insurance, this is a teaching anyone can understand if they simply read what G-d’s Word has to say.

Let’s look at a relevant passage:

For I tell you that unless your righteousness is far greater than that of the Torah-teachers and P’rushim, you will certainly not enter the Kingdom of Heaven! You have heard that our fathers were told, ‘Do not murder,’ and that anyone who commits murder will be subject to judgment. But I tell you that anyone who nurses anger against his brother will be subject to judgment; that whoever calls his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing!’ will be brought before the Sanhedrin; that whoever says, ‘Fool!’ incurs the penalty of burning in the fire of Gei-Hinnom!
Matthew 5:20-22 (CJB / Stern)

Does this not make it clear that the Torah is but a minimum standard compared to G-d’s perfect standard of righteousness? Here, Yeshua references a simple commandment: You shall not murder. Does this mean that as long as we do not murder, we are living to G-d’s perfect standard of righteousness?

There are all manner of things, short of murder, that one can indulge in and steer clear of the letter of this commandment. One can sneer, despise, hate, plot against, assault, batter, disrespect and more - all without crossing the line into murder. Murder is the point at which we fail even G-d’s minimum standard, but a person who does not murder but indulges all that I have just named here is certainly not a master over their anger, are they?

That is Yeshua’s point. It is not merely rhetorical, to make a point, that Yeshua says that even saying, “Fool!” will put one in danger of the fires of hell. It is a real and serious communication by our messiah, from Adonai’s mouth to our ears. Yeshua is our perfect mediator between Adonai and us; we must listen to him and not write off such a serious message as hyperbole to make a point.

Our call is to love one another. Anything short of that is short of Adonai’s perfect standard for righteousness. The Torah, through valuable beyond words, is merely where the compromise between Adonai and us as to what the least we could do and still be within his favor is defined.

The feast of Sukkot is the week-long observance that caps the Jewish fall festival season that Adonai established as an eternal covenant and observance for all who fear the G-d of Abraham, Issac and Jacob. It points also to the return of messiah Yeshua and the period of rest we all will enter after the final judgment is complete.

So what will eternity with Yeshua be like? Will we sit around trading golf cart parts and working the back nine at Augusta National?

Well, we really don’t know that, but what we do know is that this is not a concept that initiated with first-century messianic followers of Yeshua.

As RabbiYeshua.com writes:

The Talmud (Rosh Hashanah 31a) contains another tradition that relates to our discussion. The Sages noted that in Psalm 90:4, Moses stated that ‘one thousand years’ in God’s sight ‘is as yesterday when it has passed.’ That is, one-thousand years is like a day. So they speculated that, just as God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, the world would endure in its present condition for six-thousand years. This would be followed by one-thousand years of rest (Sanhedrin 97a-b.) This ‘rest’ was typified by the weekly Sabbath, an idea also found in Hebrews chapters 3 and 4. The idea of a thousand-year day is affirmed by the Apostle Peter:

But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. (2 Peter 3:8)

That is why the tent is built; that is why it is tradition during Sukkot to sleep out in such tents; because when Yeshua returns and calls us to this thousand-year banquet, we do not want to be like the foolish brides of the parable, who did not trim their wicks, missed the coming of the bridegroom, and were now allowed in late to the celebration.

Or, in simpler terms: the day of the kingdom of heaven is not merely near, it is NOW. And Sukkot is a reminder of that truth.