What is Torah? Here is a condensed explanation.
YHWH (God the Father) created everything, including Man. He commanded all living things – the birds, fish and animals – to “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:21-25).
He gave man some rules to follow as well. That is called “Torah” (YHWH’s “do’s and don’t’s”; His Divine Instructions in Righteousness, the first five Books of the Bible). It started out with some simple rules for Adam and Eve: “Be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28); “Don’t eat the fruit of the tree in the middle of the Garden” (Genesis 2:16 and 17); and “Name all the animals” (Genesis 2:19-20).
Adam and Eve ended up committing the first sin by breaking YHWH’s Torah command to not eat from the tree in the middle of the Garden (Genesis 3), and consequently, they were kicked out into the world to experience “good and evil.”
As the world’s population began to grow, YHWH was forced to add more and more rules to keep mankind in line. Most ended up getting totally away from God; and because of this, the world as a whole, became evil and decadent and He decided to destroy it (the story of Noach, Genesis 6). Fortunately for us, Noah was a righteous man (apparently the ONLY righteous man) and YHWH decided to spare him and his family, and allowed them to restart mankind (Genesis 7 and 8).
As mankind began to flourish on earth once more, YHWH again had to make more rules to keep them in line (i.e., read about the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 and also the destruction of Sodom and Gemorrah in Genesis 19).
In Genesis 12, He did something awesome: He spoke to Abraham, the pagan Chaldean and told him he would ultimately be made the father of “a great nation” (Israel) – and to get out of his own country and go to a land he would be shown. Because Abraham decided to obey YHWH, he not only physically “crossed over” into a new land, but also spiritually – which is why He became the first “Hebrew” (Hebrew means “to cross over”). Abraham was our first Patriarch. Please note he was NOT a “Jew.”
Genesis goes on to outline the history of YHWH’s people, the Hebrews. It is important to note these people were NOT ” Jews,” because there were no Jews until after our Third Patriarch, Jacob, had one of his 12 sons (who became “the 12 Tribes of Israel”) whom he named Yehudah (or, Judah, where the term “Jew” originated). Although nobody was a “Jew” until Judah became the Tribe of Judah, EVERY believer in YHWH up until that time was Torah observant: Cain and Abel knew to present animal sacrifices (Genesis 4); Noah knew the difference between “clean and unclean” animals (Gen. 7:1-3), and all the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob obeyed YHWH’s Instructions!
That’s because they knew that He (via His Torah/Divine Instructions in Righteousness) was showing them how to live holy, set-apart lives. He meant Torah for ALL, as we can see in Numbers 15:13-16, wherein He reiterated FOUR TIMES that EVERYONE who chose Him would have to do exactly as His Chosen people – who were Torah observant.
Numbers 15: 13 “‘Everyone who is native-born must do these things in this way when he brings an offering made by fire as an aroma pleasing to the LORD. 14 For the generations to come, whenever an alien or anyone else living among you presents an offering made by fire as an aroma pleasing to the LORD, he must do exactly as you do. 15 The community is to have the same rules for you and for the alien living among you; this is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. You and the alien shall be the same before the LORD: 16 The same laws and regulations will apply both to you and to the alien living among you.'”
Romans 10: 12. And in this, it discriminates neither Jews nor Gentiles. For there is one, Master YHWH, over them all, who is abundantly generous towards every one that calls on him. 13. For everyone that will call on the name of Master YHWH, will have life.
NOTE: It is important to understand that YHWH did NOT make His New Covenant with the Gentiles; He made it with those who were obedient to His divine Instructions! Same God, same rules for both the “natural” and the grafted-in” children….
Jeremiah 31: 31 “Here, the days are coming,” says ADONAI, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Isra’el and with the house of Y’hudah.
From this we see that Torah is a YHWH thing, not a “Jewish thing.” The reason Torah ultimately became associated with “Judaism” is because the Tribe of Judah was chosen to take Torah into the world and safeguard and preserve it (Genesis 49:10, Micah 4:2); and, let’s not forget that YHWH caused Yeshua our Messiah to be born into the Tribe of Yehudah/Judah!
Notice in Isaiah 53, we are given a glimpse of our Messiah! (Please read it, if you haven’t done so.) When YHWH caused the Messiah to be born as a human being indelibly linked to God as if by some invisible umbilical cord – we see throughout the Gospels that He came NOT to start any “religion” or change the rules; but rather, to proclaim the Kingdom of YHWH and expound upon and reiterate His Father’s Divine Instructions, and do everything His Father commanded (see Luke 4:43, Luke 8:1; also Acts 24:14 and Acts 28:23). As a human (albeit, with a Divine nature,[1] He did not have the right to change anything His Father ever commanded. He came to explain and show us how to properly obey and, and to reveal that man had been adding to the Word, thus binding people in man-made legalism and dogma.
[1] Put another way, a “nature” is like a body hidden behind a curtain. For those in the audience, nothing of that nature can be seen. Then, all of a sudden, a hand and part of an arm appears through the veil. While we know there is a body attached to that limb, the limb is all we see. Furthermore, that arm moves with full force, will and agreement of the mind that controls the body. For the viewers, the arm appearing out of the curtain is the qnoma (occurrence) and the hidden mind behind that limb’s movement is its kyanna (nature). (Source: Andrew Gabriel Roth’s Aramaic English New Testament – http://www.aent.org/, footnote to 1 Thess. 4:9)
Yes, we can say that Y’shua was YHWH (you cannot separate the “arm” – Isaiah 53:1 – from the body). He raised the dead, healed the sick, turned water into wine, calmed the storms, and somehow disappeared from a sealed tomb after His death. He came in the power of the Father for He was an “arm of YHWH (see Isaiah 53:1 and Acts 10:36-48), which made Him ONE with the Father.
Notice Yeshua never said that ANYTHING concerning proper worship of His Father would change after the Resurrection. For instance, He never once suggested that believers would be allowed to ignore the Seventh Day Sabbath (which is a SIGN between YHWH and His people – Ezekiel 20: 11; also see Exodus 20:8-11, Isaiah 56:2-7, Isaiah 58:13-14, and Isaiah 66:23). He never said He came to bring “Christianity” which should be splintered into nearly 40,000 denominations…a religion that teaches God’s laws are a “curse” and that “Jesus” came to abolish the law. He kept the Seventh Day holy, He celebrated the feasts, and He ate only kosher foods. He never once suggested His followers should do otherwise.
So you see, Torah is nothing more than our rules for living, given to us by YHWH! It is not a “curse” as some would have you believe, and it was never “done away with.” We cannot follow ALL of Torah today because most of the original “613 commands” (http://therefinersfire.org/original_commandments1.htm) were for the priests of the day; some were men while others were for women; some were only for a certain point in time; and some were meant to last forever, such as the Seventh Day Sabbath (http://therefinersfire.org/true_sabbath_day1.htm) and the Biblical Feasts (http://therefinersfire.org/feasts3.htm). Those are the ones we MUST comply with.
When the Messiah said “Follow me” (Matthew 8:22, 9:9), He meant we are to behave the way He did and obey Torah – the Word of YHWH! His death, as atonement for our sins did not mean we could simply keep on sinning and still obtain our place in the Kingdom! He meant we had our place so long as we did not continue to sin!
And Torah defines “sin.” Sin is transgression of Torah (1 John 3:4)