To Torah-Observers and the
Hebrew-Roots Community

Shalom. I write to you not as an accuser, but as a brother who loves you — and who is still learning. I have reached for many passages before: Acts 10, Acts 15, and Acts 22; Romans 8; Hebrews 8 and Hebrews 10; Galatians 2. This time I want to set the checklist down and ask something simpler, and to ask it the way Paul teaches us to — speaking the truth in love, with patience for those who see it differently (Ephesians 4:15Ephesians 4:15but speaking truth in love, we may grow up in all things into him who is the head, Christ,). So let me begin with a single question.

Before any of this, hear me clearly: there is nothing wrong with Torah observance as a personal walk with the Lord. Many find a profound, rewarding nearness to God in keeping it closely — even to the point of wearing daily, tactile reminders of their faith. And that is exactly what it was given for: “You shall make yourselves fringes… that you may look at it, and remember all the LORD’s commandments” (Numbers 15:38-39Numbers 15:38-39“Speak to the children of Israel, and tell them that they should make themselves fringes‡or, tassels (Hebrew צִיצִ֛ת) on the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put on the fringe§or, tassel of each border a cord of blue. It shall be to you for a fringe,†or, tassel that you may see it, and remember all the…).

Tzitzit, kosher, the Sabbath rest — these are powerful anchors. Human beings are forgetful creatures, and a tangible, environmental reminder that orients the mind toward God is a beautiful tool, not a burden. I keep a tzitzit myself. Mine is embossed with Malachi 4:2Malachi 4:2But to you who fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in its wings. You will go out and leap like calves of the stall., 2 Corinthians 5:212 Corinthians 5:21For him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God., Isaiah 53:5Isaiah 53:5But he was pierced for our transgressions., and Matthew 14:36Matthew 14:36and they begged him that they might just touch the fringe§or, tassel of his garment. As many as touched it were made whole. — the Sun of Righteousness rising with healing in His wings; the One who became sin so that we might become righteousness; the wounds by which we are healed; and the hem the desperate reached out to touch. That last one is no accident: it was the fringe — the tzitzit — of Jesus’ own garment that the sick reached for, and were made whole.

So to keep the Sabbath on Saturday is good. To keep it at all is a gift. The only thing that is not good is condemning the brother who keeps it on Sunday — or keeps it differently, or is still finding his way. For the Sabbath was made for man; man was not made to perform the Sabbath for Adonai (Mark 2:27Mark 2:27He said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.). It is the earliest worker protection in all of scripture — rest given as mercy, never rest extracted as tribute. The moment the gift becomes a measuring stick for judging another, it has been turned inside out, and made to serve the accuser instead of the man it was made for.

So keep your tzitzit. Keep your Sabbath. Wear the reminders that draw you near. This letter is not against the practice. It is against the weaponizing of the practice.

Did Jesus violate the letter of the Law? The Torah-observers of His time certainly seemed to think so. And if violating the letter of the Law is itself sin, we are left with an impossible conclusion — for the One they accused was without sin. Either Jesus sinned, or violating the letter, in itself, is not what makes a person sin. Let us walk through what He actually did, and why.

In Matthew 12, they accuse Jesus’ disciples of working on the Sabbath while eating wheat berries. He then heals a man’s withered hand and asks directly: what is good — to work and heal the man on the Sabbath, or to force him to suffer another day of agony in order to do it tomorrow? It is clear which one Jesus labels as evil.

Take note: Jesus went out of His way to “violate” Torah directly in front of the very Torah-observers who were indicting Him with the letter of the Law. Mark 3 gives us a quicker reading of these events — and, as Torah itself requires, a second witness.

Note the confidence of Jesus in the rightness and sinlessness of the Spirit of mercy and grace over the letter of the Law. He did not flee. He did not cower. He walked into the synagogue, healed a man — and instantly they wanted to accuse Him of sin and conspired how to destroy Him. He simply walked off and kept doing the very thing the Torah-observers, ruled by the letter, called sinful. Then He is confronted by a demon and cures two of the worst afflictions a body can carry — blindness and muteness. Imagine it: a person who can feel, can hurt, can hear, can smell, can taste, can move — yet cannot speak and cannot see. He restores both. And for this, the Torah-observers accuse Him of being Beelzebul — by the authority of Torah.

Here is the thing: the letter of the Law did not even support them. It was human interpretation that further belabored the Law. The accepted ruling — the reason the Pharisees made their accusation — was that plucking grain counted as “reaping” and rubbing the husks counted as “threshing,” and that healing could be done on the Sabbath only if a life was in danger. Both rulings demand unnecessary burden and suffering, and call that good. Adonai, through Jesus, clearly labeled it evil.

Torah could not make holy. It was always meant to be graduated from. You do not cling to your tutor once you are ready to do God’s work; you do not hold on to the shadow (Hebrews 10:1Hebrews 10:1For the law, having a shadow of the good to come, not the very image of the things, can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect those who draw near.) when the substance has come. You follow your Rabbi — your new Guardian (1 Peter 2:251 Peter 2:25For you were going astray like sheep; but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer†“Overseer” is from the Greek ἐπίσκοπον, which can mean overseer, curator, guardian, or superintendent. of your souls.).

Torah is also not the law of the Kingdom; it cannot be. In the Kingdom no one marries (Matthew 22:30Matthew 22:30For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like God’s angels in heaven.). People do not get sick. So many of Torah’s laws become irrelevant and ungovernable there. And even here, Torah carried concessions because of hardened hearts — it was more permissive than God intended, for the sake of hard human hearts (Matthew 19). The laws of governance must change when the conditions they governed no longer exist. That is part of why the Law of Moses is described as “a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear” (Acts 15:10Acts 15:10Now therefore why do you tempt God, that you should put a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?).

The flaw was never Torah. The flaw is the flesh — the body you and I are currently in, corrupted by original sin (Romans 8:3Romans 8:3For what the law couldn’t do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,). Torah was meant to try to rescue us from it. We already know both good and evil; Torah was meant to establish a compass for what is good. But it could not change the heart. That is the promise God made instead: “I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you” (Ezekiel 36:26-27Ezekiel 36:26-27I will also give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes. You will keep my ordinances and do them.).

So what does Adonai require? Love your God, and love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22). If you do that, you will abide in the fruit — for you cannot love your neighbor and cheat them; you can only love your neighbor and help them. And your neighbor is everyone (Luke 10). Torah itself extended this protection even to the foreigner, commanding that we treat the foreigner as native-born (Leviticus 19:33-34Leviticus 19:33-34“ ‘If a stranger lives as a foreigner with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. The stranger who lives as a foreigner with you shall be to you as the native-born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you lived as foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.). You plant the fruit of the Spirit, and you reject legalism — for legalism is a poisonous rot to the other fruit (Hebrews 8:7-13Hebrews 8:7-13For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. For finding fault with them, he said, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel They will not teach every man his fellow citizen‡TR reads “neighbor” instea…).

Look at what Jesus does. He does not merely call Adonai His Father; He says, “Behold, my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother.” Why? Because of the covenant. The covenant of Genesis 15 was reaffirmed and its terms expanded in Genesis 22 — and that is the grafting in (Galatians 3:26-28Galatians 3:26-28For you are all children of God, through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.).

In Revelation there is a great multitude in Heaven, from every nation and all the tribes, peoples, and languages, too numerous to count (Revelation 7:9Revelation 7:9After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no man could count, out of every nation and of all tribes, peoples, and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, dressed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands.). These are all our brothers and sisters. It was true in Acts 10 — God has no favorites — and it is here in 1 John 3:13-171 John 3:13-17Don’t be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. He who doesn’t love his brother remains in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him. By this we know love, because he laid down hi…. It is the fulfillment of Adonai’s promise to Abraham. God said it would happen; Jesus illustrates it.

The letter of the Law produces a fig tree with beautiful leaves (Mark 11:12-14Mark 11:12-14The next day, when they had come out from Bethany, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came to see if perhaps he might find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. Jesus told it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again!” and his disciples heard it.) — but because it is not tied into the Living Water, the Holy Spirit (John 7:37-39John 7:37-39Now on the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink! He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, from within him will flow rivers of living water.” But he said this about the Spirit, which those believing in him were to receive. For the Holy Spirit was not yet…), it does not produce fruit. For a fig tree, reproduction is not external, by pollen; it is internal. That is why we must make disciples of all nations — to invite them in, as prophesied: each will invite his neighbor to sit under his vine and under his fig tree (Zechariah 3:10Zechariah 3:10In that day,’ says the LORD of Armies, ‘you will invite every man his neighbor under the vine and under the fig tree.’ ”).

The barren tree only accuses and murders brothers (1 John 3:151 John 3:15Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him.). Jesus curses that fig tree. And then, upon the cross, He begs the Father: “Forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34Luke 23:34Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”).

Torah can help sanctify, without doubt. But it is the Holy Spirit who produces fruit — the Spirit sent by Jesus. Our Paraclete. Our Parakletos. Our one called alongside: our Comforter, our Advocate, our Helper, our Counselor (John 14:16John 14:16I will pray to the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, †Greek παρακλητον: Counselor, Helper, Intercessor, Advocate, and Comforter. that he may be with you forever:). He is the gift. He is our down payment, the guarantee of our inheritance (Ephesians 1:14Ephesians 1:14who is a pledge of our inheritance, to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of his glory.) — the sample of ourselves from heaven that pulls us toward Jehovah-Jireh and Jehovah-Rapha. He is His Presence, His Truth, and His Empowerment.

And He is our Defense Attorney. For Ha-Satan stands in our Father’s court (Job 1), indicting all of us under the letter of the Law daily — every little, tiny thing — just as he prompted the Pharisees. He is the malicious prosecutor of the brethren, and we all know his fate. So let us not condemn our brothers and hand the accuser more ammunition (1 Timothy 4:1-61 Timothy 4:1-6But the Spirit says expressly that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons, through the hypocrisy of men who speak lies, branded in their own conscience as with a hot iron, forbidding marriage and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with …).

And let us also not provoke. What grace covers, we should not flaunt before those who are easily wounded (Colossians 2:16-23Colossians 2:16-23Let no one therefore judge you in eating or drinking, or with respect to a feast day or a new moon or a Sabbath day, which are a shadow of the things to come; but the body is Christ’s. Let no one rob you of your prize by self-abasement and worshiping of the angels, dwelling in the things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fles…). To eat pork in the sight of a Torah-observer can stir sinful hatred in that brother — even though what is consecrated in prayer, under Adonai’s blessing, cannot corrupt the soul and is no barrier to salvation (Mark 7:15Mark 7:15There is nothing from outside of the man that going into him can defile him; but the things which proceed out of the man are those that defile the man.). There is more fruit in bearing patiently with one another than in anything the Law could ever condemn you for. That is the nature of love and grace (Romans 14:10-22Romans 14:10-22But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written, So then each one of us will give account of himself to God. Therefore let’s not judge one another any more, but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block in his brot…).

We know the Holy Spirit wins, because His case is a perfect defense: our sins are washed clean in the blood of Jesus. Sin itself is harvested like grapes by an angel (Revelation 14:18Revelation 14:18Another angel came out from the altar, he who has power over fire, and he called with a great voice to him who had the sharp sickle, saying, “Send your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for the earth’s grapes are fully ripe!”); it is stripped from the soul in the washing, quarantined outside the walls of the Kingdom, pressed out — 1,600 stadia (Revelation 14:20Revelation 14:20The wine press was trodden outside of the city, and blood came out of the wine press, up to the bridles of the horses, as far as one thousand six hundred stadia.‡1600 stadia = 296 kilometers or 184 miles). Adonai has a plan, and it saves far more people than the letter of the Law would allow.

Jesus demonstrated this on purpose. And yet He still had to be spotless to satisfy Genesis 15 — for if the Law could make us holy, then Christ died for nothing (Galatians 2:21Galatians 2:21I don’t reject the grace of God. For if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nothing!”). The harvest of the children of God is done by one like the Son of Man (Revelation 14:14-16Revelation 14:14-16I looked, and saw a white cloud, and on the cloud one sitting like a son of man,*Daniel 7:13 having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle. Another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud, “Send your sickle and reap, for the hour to reap has come; for the harvest of the earth …) — the very imagery Jesus gave us in the parable of the wheat and the weeds (Matthew 13:24-30Matthew 13:24-30He set another parable before them, saying, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while people slept, his enemy came and sowed darnel weeds†darnel is a weed grass (probably bearded darnel or lolium temulentum) that looks very much like wheat until it is mature, when the difference becomes very apparent…; Matthew 13:36-43Matthew 13:36-43Then Jesus sent the multitudes away, and went into the house. His disciples came to him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the darnel weeds of the field.” He answered them, “He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, the field is the world, the good seeds are the children of the Kingdom, and the darnel weeds are the children of the …).

This is why the Jerusalem Council refused to lay Torah on the Gentiles. To enforce it was, in their words, to test God (Acts 15:5-10Acts 15:5-10But some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed rose up, saying, “It is necessary to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses.” The apostles and the elders were gathered together to see about this matter. When there had been much discussion, Peter rose up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that a good while ago …). They concluded:

And we have Paul’s own remorseful account of how he once used Torah to put brothers in Christ to death (Acts 22) — that Jesus accused him of using Torah to persecute Jesus Himself. In some ways it echoes David repenting of murder to return to Adonai’s true path. Later, in Acts 21, Paul is accused of teaching Jews to abandon the Law of Moses (Acts 21:21Acts 21:21They have been informed about you, that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children and not to walk after the customs.). He immediately corrects it, pointing to the Spirit-approved decision of Acts 15:29Acts 15:29that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality, from which if you keep yourselves, it will be well with you. Farewell.”, now restated in Acts 21:25Acts 21:25But concerning the Gentiles who believe, we have written our decision that they should observe no such thing, except that they should keep themselves from food offered to idols, from blood, from strangled things, and from sexual immorality.”: the Gentiles are bound to four things, no more.

We are called to tend His garden. We must do so diligently — and we must not let Ha-Satan use Torah to shut people out of the gates of Heaven that Jesus longs to reach (Matthew 23). Zeal for the letter that cannot make room for the mercy and grace of Adonai becomes the very thing that condemned the Son of God.

Micah called out the same spirit in his own day, naming every way it fell short of true holiness. And he left us the answer: