Jesus said one has to keep all the commandments of the Written and Oral Law.
["Not one word of the Law of Moses will ever be nullified." "The Pharisees sit on Moses seat. so all they say to do one must do."]
I was never able to see in the actions or words that are recorded in the name of Jesus anything but a call to keep the holy Torah, and avoid hypocrites. There is nothing to indicate otherwise to me.
But it occurred to me a few day ago why Christians do not see things in this way?
It depends on your starting point. If you start with Paul and the Book of Hebrews, and then work backwards towards the four gospels, then you can see how Christians take the words of Jesus and get them to fit into the worldview of Paul.
I feel that my approach is more accurate, but I can see why Christians see things differently based on their starting point.
As my brother put it, he (Jesus) is comparable to R. Shimon Ben Yohai. Same message same kind of expressions. (I was thinking more along the lines of R. Hanina Ben Dosa, the miracle worker, who also was highly misunderstood.) Maybe it makes sense to go into this in detail, but I am pretty sure I am not the first person to notice this. [Daniel Defoe also noted that Paul never said Jews need not keep the Law and he goes into great detail about that.]
I can't look anything up but perhaps I should write a drop off hand to make it clear what I mean.
(1) Heaven and Earth are still around therefore one has to keep all the Mitzvot, since "Heaven and earth will pass away but not one jot or title of the Law of Moses."
(2) Being the "son of Man" (as Jesus said he is) is not the same as being God.
(3) Nor is being the son of God the same as being God. The angels are called בני האלהים [children of God] in Job. In Genesis the בני האלהים "children of God came upon the daughters of man and gave birth." All the Jewish people are called the "children of God" in Exodus. They are called "בני בכורי" "my child, my first born" when Moses was telling Pharaoh to let them go. "Let my son, my first born Israel go!"
(4) Revival was a miracle done by the prophet Elisha in Kings and also Eliyahu the prophet and that does not indicate either Elisha or Eliyahu were God.
(5) When someone called Jesus, "good," he said, "Do not call me good. Only call God 'good.'"
(6) Contrary to the book of Hebrews, the Law of Moses is the life and the good. "These are the commandments that one should do and by doing so he will live"--Leviticus. "I place before you this day life and the good, and death and evil. Therefore choose life to walk in the commandments of God"-Deuteronomy.
The prophets end with "Remember the Law of Moses" Malachi.
The commandments do not sound like they temporary as long as one wants "the life and the good."
I should mention that in spite of all this people that make a show of keeping the commandments and expect to get paid for doing so as the ultra religious do are also not keeping the law of God and there is good reason to run from them.
(7) The book of Hebrews makes it clear that the Law of God is a burden and bad thing. It could not be more clear even if he had wanted to be. That is in direct contradiction to everything it says in the Law of Moses about the Law being a good thing. And in contradiction to Jesus himself that the law will never pass away. Therefore you have to say that the approach of Jesus and that of the author of the book of Hebrews is not the same.--as long as words mean something.
(8) Mixing dirt and water on Shabat is subject to an argument among the rishonim. See the Rosh [Rabbainu Asher]. So there is no reason to think Jesus was violating the Shabat.
(9) Eating grains from attached sheaves on Shabat is not violating Shabat if the sheaves are ripe already are no longer getting sustenance from the ground.
(10) Swearing by the altar in the Holy Temple is an argument among the sages of the Mishna as brought in Tractate Nedarim and Jesus was going with the opinion of R. Yehuda. Not that he was disagreeing with the sages.
Or for beginners that do not know Hebrew what they could do is to get Rav Shimshon Rafael Hirsch's Horev which gives a great introduction to the Torah.
The setback to all this is that the t groups that claim to be keeping the Law of Moses are all terrible cults, and it is not my intention for people to get involved in any of those horrific, demonic cults. For this reason I have tried to mention on this blog the importance of Litvak {Lithuanian}yeshivas based on the path of the Gra and Rav Elazar Menachem Shach and to avoid all the cults. Or to learn Torah at home.
Appendix:
I should mention:I grew up in John Birch society area. It was basically WASP and very nice. I kind of had a glimpse of Old American Values, and it was a really nice world. So I have a certain degree of respect for those kinds of values. But the values of Jesus and the Talmud are exactly the same, -only Paul comes out making a different religion.
Where do you see this in the Talmud? Mainly in books of Musar. The Talmud itself is not concerned with the larger issues of morals and compassion but with law. It was the later Musar books that condensed the basic world view of the Torah into simple forms that you can see this. The idea of compassion being central in Torah is clear in Musar and the sermon on the mount is mainly word for word what you find in Reshit Chachma at the end where is brought ancient teachings from the second Temple period.
So even though Christians have a great deal for respect for Jesus -and that is a good thing-still their interpretations of him seem to me to be very much contrary to everything that Jesus himself thought and said.
["Not one word of the Law of Moses will ever be nullified." "The Pharisees sit on Moses seat. so all they say to do one must do."]
I was never able to see in the actions or words that are recorded in the name of Jesus anything but a call to keep the holy Torah, and avoid hypocrites. There is nothing to indicate otherwise to me.
But it occurred to me a few day ago why Christians do not see things in this way?
It depends on your starting point. If you start with Paul and the Book of Hebrews, and then work backwards towards the four gospels, then you can see how Christians take the words of Jesus and get them to fit into the worldview of Paul.
I feel that my approach is more accurate, but I can see why Christians see things differently based on their starting point.
As my brother put it, he (Jesus) is comparable to R. Shimon Ben Yohai. Same message same kind of expressions. (I was thinking more along the lines of R. Hanina Ben Dosa, the miracle worker, who also was highly misunderstood.) Maybe it makes sense to go into this in detail, but I am pretty sure I am not the first person to notice this. [Daniel Defoe also noted that Paul never said Jews need not keep the Law and he goes into great detail about that.]
I can't look anything up but perhaps I should write a drop off hand to make it clear what I mean.
(1) Heaven and Earth are still around therefore one has to keep all the Mitzvot, since "Heaven and earth will pass away but not one jot or title of the Law of Moses."
(2) Being the "son of Man" (as Jesus said he is) is not the same as being God.
(3) Nor is being the son of God the same as being God. The angels are called בני האלהים [children of God] in Job. In Genesis the בני האלהים "children of God came upon the daughters of man and gave birth." All the Jewish people are called the "children of God" in Exodus. They are called "בני בכורי" "my child, my first born" when Moses was telling Pharaoh to let them go. "Let my son, my first born Israel go!"
(4) Revival was a miracle done by the prophet Elisha in Kings and also Eliyahu the prophet and that does not indicate either Elisha or Eliyahu were God.
(5) When someone called Jesus, "good," he said, "Do not call me good. Only call God 'good.'"
(6) Contrary to the book of Hebrews, the Law of Moses is the life and the good. "These are the commandments that one should do and by doing so he will live"--Leviticus. "I place before you this day life and the good, and death and evil. Therefore choose life to walk in the commandments of God"-Deuteronomy.
The prophets end with "Remember the Law of Moses" Malachi.
The commandments do not sound like they temporary as long as one wants "the life and the good."
I should mention that in spite of all this people that make a show of keeping the commandments and expect to get paid for doing so as the ultra religious do are also not keeping the law of God and there is good reason to run from them.
(7) The book of Hebrews makes it clear that the Law of God is a burden and bad thing. It could not be more clear even if he had wanted to be. That is in direct contradiction to everything it says in the Law of Moses about the Law being a good thing. And in contradiction to Jesus himself that the law will never pass away. Therefore you have to say that the approach of Jesus and that of the author of the book of Hebrews is not the same.--as long as words mean something.
(8) Mixing dirt and water on Shabat is subject to an argument among the rishonim. See the Rosh [Rabbainu Asher]. So there is no reason to think Jesus was violating the Shabat.
(9) Eating grains from attached sheaves on Shabat is not violating Shabat if the sheaves are ripe already are no longer getting sustenance from the ground.
(10) Swearing by the altar in the Holy Temple is an argument among the sages of the Mishna as brought in Tractate Nedarim and Jesus was going with the opinion of R. Yehuda. Not that he was disagreeing with the sages.
These are merely a small sample of what occurs to me off hand about this. But you can already see where I am going with all this. Churchianity has nothing to do with Jesus. If one wants to follow Jesus he need to learn and keep the Law of Moses and the Oral commentary.
And just to lay my cards on the table what I am suggesting is for people to learn the whole written law in Hebrew {That is the Old Testament} word for word. Plus the Oral Law which also is very easy if you simply start at the beginning of Tractate Brachot and just say page after page as fast as possible until you have finished the two Talmuds the Sifra Sifri Mechilta Tora, Kohanim and the Midrash Raba and Midrash Tanchuma.(I personally prefer to do this kind of thing with Rashi and Tosphot but you do not have to. You can do instead just the simple basic oral law itself with no commentary if you want.)Or for beginners that do not know Hebrew what they could do is to get Rav Shimshon Rafael Hirsch's Horev which gives a great introduction to the Torah.
The setback to all this is that the t groups that claim to be keeping the Law of Moses are all terrible cults, and it is not my intention for people to get involved in any of those horrific, demonic cults. For this reason I have tried to mention on this blog the importance of Litvak {Lithuanian}yeshivas based on the path of the Gra and Rav Elazar Menachem Shach and to avoid all the cults. Or to learn Torah at home.
Appendix:
So even though Christians have a great deal for respect for Jesus -and that is a good thing-still their interpretations of him seem to me to be very much contrary to everything that Jesus himself thought and said.
