Why I'm Still Torah-Observant

"Judah, why are you still following all that Jewish stuff?"

I attend a Sunday church. While my calling is in the Messianic Jewish movement, I'm currently more involved with the Christian world. My wife is neither Messianic nor Torah observant. One of the contributors to this blog, Aaron Hecht, isn't Torah-observant (yet 😉). 

My kids have sometimes complained that I forbid them eating certain foods. Why can't they have a bacon cheeseburger when they go out with their friends?

And while we as a family make time for erev Shabbat with a special meal, Bible discussion and blessings on each person at the table, Saturdays often fill up with activities, including my own. I'm not leading my family in keeping Shabbat well.

Last week I was talking theology with my father-in-law, and he asked whether my eating kosher is just tradition. He mentioned the vision God gave to Peter, with unclean animals coming down from heaven with a voice saying, "Rise, kill, and eat!" Doesn't that mean all food is clean in the age of Jesus? 

And didn't Jesus say he came to fulfill the Law? If the Law is fulfilled, do we really have to keep it anymore? Isn't the Law written on our hearts, and thus we don't have to work it out in our actions?

I've also witnessed lots of problems among Torah-observant believers: Torah terrorism, demonizing our Christian brothers, conspiracy theories, and lots of nonsense unrelated to Torah-keeping. I used to do those things myself. And because of all that ugly behavior from Torah keepers, some friends have come out as no longer Torah observant. 

One Christian friend keeps asking me why I'm following those old rules anyways when I'm already saved in Jesus. What's the point of following those all those Jewish things when you're already going to heaven?

It'd sure be easier to fit in with my Christian friends if I just gave up pursuit of the Torah. I could join them for Friday nights out on the town. Why am I still following those old rules, anyways? 

I also struggle with sin in my own life. Sometimes, Torah keeping feels like it's putting lipstick on a pig. I am the pig. How can I worry about kosher when I engage in lustful thoughts or lose my temper with my kids or fight with my wife?

And what is Torah observance, anyways? Is it the Orthodox Jewish Torah observance, with separate kitchens for meat and milk, eating only at rabbinically-certified kosher restaurants and growing out your sidelocks? Or is it the Hebrew Roots Torah observance, wearing multicolored tzitzit tied to belt loops and sounding shofars on every upbeat chorus? Or is it Christian Torah observance, feeding the hungry, giving to charity and standing for the unborn?

I've been thinking a lot about these things. 

Why am I still pursuing Torah in my own life and family?

And my answer is this: the Bible.

What I mean is, I'm convinced -- still! -- that the Bible repeatedly demonstrates that God wants his people to keep the Torah as much as we're able.

• The New Testament records Jesus keeping the Torah.
• We have no record of Jesus, the disciples, or the apostles actually breaking the Torah.
• Jesus tells his disciples that anyone who does the Torah will be considered great in the coming age. (And, those who tell others not to keep the Torah will be considered least.)
• The New Testament records Jesus telling his followers to keep the Torah.
• Many of Jesus' commands are above and beyond the Torah. The Torah forbids adultery, but Jesus says even looking at a woman in lust is a kind of adultery. How can we say the Torah is done away with when Jesus' tells us to observe a stronger, more stringent version of it?
• The New Testament records the disciples keeping the Torah.
• After Jesus heals a man with leprosy, he tells the man to observe the Torah's commandment about healed lepers. Why would Jesus do that if the Torah was done away with?
• The New Testament records Paul keeping the Torah in order to publicly put to rest rumors to the contrary. "That way, all will realize there is nothing to the things they have been told about you, but that you yourself walk in an orderly manner, keeping the Torah." (Acts 21:24) How is it that modern Christianity now claims the Paul did not keep the Torah? It's the opposite of the plain meaning of this verse.
• The New Testament explicitly affirms the Torah is good, holy, and righteous.
• God punished Israel for not keeping the Torah. If the Torah is no longer applicable, logically God would need to repent to Jewish people for punishing them for something He no longer requires of them.
• The Torah issues a warning against any prophet or leader who claims the Torah need not be observed.
• Many of the commandments of the Torah have an explicit clause about its eternal nature. "This commandment is for you and your descendants forever, no matter where you live." If the Torah is done away with, parts of the Bible become false.
• By claiming Jesus broke the Torah or teaches his followers to break it, Christians are inadvertently making Jesus into the false prophet of Deuteronomy 13.
• When the Israelites returned from Babylonian captivity, Nehemiah had to correct people breaking the Torah, telling them that their disobedience is the reason God sent them into captivity in the first place. I remain unconvinced God is OK with his people doing things he previously punished us for.
• Jesus tells people that God created the Sabbath for humanity. Why have his followers discarded something God created for our benefit?
• When Jesus is falsely accused of breaking the Torah (e.g. healing on the sabbath), He responds not by saying the Torah is done away with. He responds by saying what God intended for the Law (e.g. it's lawful to do good on the sabbath).
• By claiming Jesus broke the Torah or did away with it, Christians are inadvertently confirming his religious critics.
• When Jesus returns, He will (still) be Jewish; the Lion of Judah. Shouldn't the followers of the Jewish Jesus emulate His way of life?
• A Jewish Jesus will live in a way consistent with his first appearing: an observant Jew who shows us how to properly keep the Torah.
• Jesus is returning to Jerusalem, not to any other city. That implies that Israel, Jews, and Torah still matter to God.
• The Bible says when Messiah returns, He'll require all nations to go up to Jerusalem to keep the Biblical holidays. Anyone who refuses will have no rain. This implies Messiah wants all people to be Torah observant.
• The New Testament commands the Gospel "to the Jew first, then the Gentile". This implies Israel and Jewish people still exist. Jewish people remain because of the Torah.
• I'm unconvinced of the claim that Peter's vision means the food laws have been abolished. I find Peter's own interpretation of the vision more persuasive and powerful: God has made Gentiles clean through Messiah.
• The remaining anti-Torah statements in the New Testament, like Paul in Galatians, appear not to be wholesale rejection of the Torah, but relying on the Torah to be saved. Christianity today claims Paul is rejecting the Torah altogether, but this runs counter to Paul's own actions in Acts 21.
• Christians often appeal to Jesus' statement, "I have come to fulfill the Law", but they don't consider the full quote: "I have not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill the Law." Christianity has not made a practical distinction between abolishing and fulfilling.
• Modern Christianity has thrown out all food laws, even though the apostles ruled that Gentile converts to Christianity must follow certain food prohibitions from the Torah.
• I remain unconvinced of the superficial divisions of the Law into moral, civil, and ceremonial; the division doesn't appear in the Bible itself. How can we say, then, that God abolished two of those three divisions?
• Keeping the 10 commandments but not the other parts of the Law strikes me as inconsistent. On what basis should we keep the 10 but discard the 600+ summarized by the 10?

Another reason I keep the Torah is, I don't trust myself to make better moral judgments than God.

God gave us commandments governing how we live. I can throw those out at my discretion. But, "trust in the LORD wholeheartedly and lean not on your own understanding." 

Part of trusting God is believing He's right even if I don't understand Him. I don't understand some commandments God gave us. But I won't lean on my own understanding. I trust that God is wiser than I am. 

If I throw out the Torah, I'm already taking steps towards a progressive and humanistic religion. Throw out the Torah? Why not throw out the New Testament too? Progressive churches have done exactly this. Pastors of such churches are even free to criticize Jesus's own teachings - and why shouldn't they? If God can do away with the Torah, why can't we do away with things from any part of the Bible we don't like? Don't like the laws prohibiting lesbian and gay relationships? Just discard them. Don't like the laws about preserving life? Just discard them. Don't like the laws prohibiting men pretending to be women? Just discard them. Much of the culture war is a natural outcome of discarding the Torah.

I don't want to go down that path. I think the better option is following God to the best of my ability.

A big part of that is just doing the things God told us to do, including the Torah. And doing those things in light of how Jesus kept the Torah.

There are other reasons to keep the Torah. Jews who follow the Jewish Messiah should not cease being Jewish. God doesn't want Jewish people to disappear, and Jews who do not keep the Torah tend to assimilate and disappear within a generation or two. God has used the Torah to preserve the Jewish people. The Torah is the Constitution of the people of Israel. 

Another reason to keep the Torah is because the early Christian communities did. The Didache, an early Christian writing dated to the late 1st century, tells the believers to fast twice a week, weigh the cost of faith, observe basic Torah morality, forbid abortion. It spends most of its time advocating for the way of life, repeating many of the basic commandments from the Torah.

Those are valid reasons to keep the Torah.

But for me, I come back to the Bible. I cannot in good conscious stop doing what God commanded. I cannot un-convince myself that the Torah is righteous, good, holy, part of the living Word of God. Powerful and sharper than a sword, piercing the soul, judging the thoughts and intentions of the human heart. The Torah is part of the whole counsel of God.

I don 't know how to keep all the Torah. I know I'm not keeping all of it. I'm undoubtedly mistaken in how I'm keeping some of it. I'm not doing the Torah life very well in some areas of my life. 

I don't know which is better: the Hebrew Roots version of Torah observance or the Orthodox Jewish version of Torah observance. I'm failing at many parts of Torah observance in my own life and in my family and home life. And I know lots of people in the Torah-and-Yeshua world are doing things poorly and generally showing that they're just sinful humans.

Despite all this, I'm going to keep pursuing God's Torah. This means keep learning. Keep reading the Scriptures. Keep knocking on the door in prayer for more wisdom. Keep asking the Lord to turn me to Himself. "Enlighten my eyes with Your Torah." Keep asking God to sanctify my life, make it align more with His image.

The Big Bang is Christian

Dubbed the "Pillars of Creation", this photo was taken in 2022 by the James Webb telescope, showing massive columns of gas -- 66 trillion kilometers tall! -- in the Eagle Nebula, about 6,500 light years from earth. The nebula is called a stellar nursery, as new stars are actively forming within it. View the full res (70MB) photo.

Today I came across this post by well-known Christian conservative commentator Allie Beth Stuckey:

I’m reading a book written by an evolutionary psychologist, so I’ve been thinking about the claims of evolutionists a lot recently.

Obviously there’s the absurdly illogical belief that the universe was initiated by a big bang. But I also find it strange that many progressives… https://t.co/C0aSukIdTp

— Allie Beth Stuckey (@conservmillen) May 7, 2025

The part that got me was, "absurdly illogical belief that the universe was initiated by a big bang."

This is a common sentiment in the conservative Christian world. I suspect many in the Messianic and Hebrew Roots world feel the same. 

But a dirty little secret about the Big Bang theory is, it's Christian.

The Big Bang theory was developed by a devout Christian and the theory itself supports the Biblical idea that the universe had a beginning. It was initially combatted by atheist scientists because it too closely aligned with the Bible.

A devout Catholic priest and physicist by the name of Georges Lemaitre proposed the theory in 1927. 

Prior to this time, the scientific consensus was that the universe was eternal; it had always existed. But working off the theories of his contemporaries Edwin Hubble and Albert Einstein, Lemaitre theorized that the universe is expanding, with a definite point in time and space where it came into existence. In other words, the universe had a beginning.

Lemaitre's theory, which he called the primeval atom theory, was initially rejected by many atheist cosmologists. British astronomer Fred Doyle mocked the idea and coined the term "big bang" as a pejorative, claiming the theory too closely resembled the Book of Genesis.

But today, nearly 100 years later, scientists almost unanimously agree the Big Bang theory accurately describes the beginning of the universe. 

What changed their minds? 

A number of discoveries with powerful evidence:

• Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation. In the 1960s, scientists discovered faint radiation left over from the beginning of the universe. This radiation has been since observed to be stretched out due to the expansion of the universe, shifting visible light to different frequencies, aligning with predictions of an expanding, finite universe.
• Hubble's discovery of the expanding universe. Edwin Hubble discovered that galaxies are moving farther apart, suggesting the universe originated at a single point in space. This couldn't be true of an eternal universe.
• Abundance of light elements. The Big Bang predicted formation of precise amounts of hydrogen, helium, and lithium. Observations of old stars confirm these predictions.
• The reality of a dark sky. If the universe were eternal, the night sky should be very bright. Instead, it's mostly dark, suggesting a finite past.
• Distant galaxies' difference from our own. Observations of galaxies far away -- and thus, very old -- are made up of extremely bright stars, suggesting that the universe was much different than it is today, and suggesting that it had a precise beginning, not an eternal past.

The Big Bang is probably true, and it is Christian in its origins and Biblical in its implications. 

It's painful to me, then, that many uninformed Christians today reject the Big Bang categorically, as if it implies atheism. It does no such thing. It theorizes that the universe suddenly exploded into existence. 

In Biblical terms, "Let there be light!"

The universe isn't eternal, it had had a beginning: an instant of creation. And doesn't an instant of creation imply the existence of a Creator?

Some Thoughts on Miracles by Aaron Hecht

We have just come through Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This year, as sometimes happens, it coincided with Holy Week in the Orthodox Christian calendar, which starts with Palm Sunday and then goes through Good Friday and ends with Resurrection Sunday (known in some circles as "Easter.")

These two holidays are not in competition with each other, just like the Old Testament is not in competition with the New Testament. They are two parts of the same story, written by the same Author and serving the same purpose, which is to bring reconciliation and peace between God and the Human Race, which He created.

Beyond that, these occasions all have something in common, and it's not just that they are all about setting people free from bondage and the blood of a lamb covering us and all the rest. On a more basic level, they all have in common that on the first Passover in Egypt, and then later on as we move through the Exodus story and then again on the first Palm Sunday and the first Good Friday and above all on that first Resurrection Sunday, these were all occasions when God was very visibly moving in human history my performing miracles.

Now, before we move on, we need to ask ourselves what a "miracle" is.

A "miracle" is, simply put, an incident in which something happens in the natural world that should not be naturally possible.

The Ten Plagues of Egypt were all examples of this, as were the events that followed it with God appearing as a pillar of cloud over the people of Israel by day as they walked through the desert and as a pillar of fire by night to give them heat and warmth. Then of course, there's the parting of the Red Sea and the Children of Israel walking through it on dry land and then the Pharoah and his army following them and being killed when God stopped holding back the waters so they came down and destroyed them.

As tfe story continues, God does more miracles, including bringing the Israelites Manna and quail to eat, providing water from rocks, and much later, splitting the Jordan River so the people can pass through, just as He split the Red Sea.

Still later, God did more miracles, including my personal favorite from Joshua chapter 10 where He made the Sun stand still over Gibeon in the Valley of Aijalon so that Joshua and his soldiers could finish the battle. With all due respect to parting the Red Sea, this miracle would have involved changing a lot more things going on in this physical universe, including the motion of the entire galaxy, and maybe more than just our galaxy. All throughout the Book of Judges there are more stories about God giving Israel the victory in battle after battle, often against much more powerful and well-organized armies.

As we continue reading through the Bible, God continues to move in human history and there continue to be miracles but they are seldom as highly visible and dramatic as what we read about in the Books of Exodus and Joshua. Think about the victory of David over Goliath and Ballem's donkey speaking to him audibly.

But these miracles, while still being examples of events occurring in the natural world that would seem to be naturally impossible, do not seem to be as big of a deal as the parting of the Red Sea. Keep this in mind, it's important for what comes later.

Skipping ahead to the New Testament, Jesus' being born of a virgin was a pretty dramatic miracle, but only a small handful of people knew about it, probably just Mary and Joseph and of course Jesus Himself. When He grew up and began His earthly ministry, it was accompanied by many miracles, starting with turning ordinary water into wine and then moving to healing people of various diseases simply by touching them, casting demons out of people and even bringing people back from the dead.

Once again, these were miracles that only a few people would have personally witnessed and even to those few people, they might not have compared to the stories they knew about from their ancestors who saw the Red Sea parting.

Nevertheless, in John 10:37-38, Jesus says "If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him.”

Also of relevance is Luke 7:18-23; Then the disciples of John reported to him concerning all these things. And John, calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to Jesus, saying, “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?” When the men had come to Him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to You, saying, ‘Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?’ ” And that very hour He cured many of infirmities, afflictions, and evil spirits; and to many blind He gave sight. Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard: that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.”

In both of these passages, Jesus is saying that if the people hearing His teachings weren't impressed by their supernaturally brilliant logic and undeniable truth, they should at least be impressed by the fact that He was doing things that would be impossible for Him to do if He wasn't acting in the power of God.

My favorite scene in Cecille B. DeMille's classic movie "The Ten Commandments" is when Pharoah Ramses II (played by Yul Brenner) returns from seeing his army destroyed by the Red Sea and his wife asks him for proof that he defeated Moses, but all he can say in reply is "his God, IS God."

Of course, this was a Hollywood scene, not a Biblical scene. The Bible tells us that Pharaoh died with his soldiers in the Red Sea. But nonetheless, I think it's powerful because it's a demonstration of the fact that seeing great miracles SHOULD be enough to convince someone that they're dealing with a very real God. It's not a "fairy tale" or a delusion or anything else like that. 

As a sidenote to this, the story of the golden calf is such a heartbreaker. These people who had seen the Red Sea parting with their own eyes, witnessing the power of God first hand in such a dramatic way, nonetheless believed that a statue made with human hands, our of gold they themselves had given Aaron for the purpose, was as he said to them in Exodus 32:4 "“This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!”

Scholars and ordinary people have been asking the question of how these people could have been so foolish for hundreds of years, but maybe we shouldn't be so quick to judge.

In my own short lifetime, I've seen many events that fit the definition of a "miracle," including seeing personal friends of mine healed from diseases, injuries and other medical conditions that  the doctors had said there was no hope for them being healed from. That's a kind of small-scale miracle like most of the miracles Jesus performed in the Gospels. But I've seen other things that were bigger and more dramatic.

A year ago this month, the Iranians launched a large barrage of drones, cruise, and ballistic missiles at Israel. When the sirens went off, my family and I ran down into the bomb shelters, but even as we were running, I knew the attack wouldn't be successful. Some of my neighbors who live upstairs in the building ran down into the shelter with me and my family. They were scared, but they saw me not scared and asked me why. I replied that I had no doubt that God would do a miracle and prevent this attack from doing any serious damage. One of them told me later that he had gone from being an atheist to an agnostic that evening and I encouraged him to keep going.

A few months later, in October, the Iranians tried again with a much larger barrage of ballistic missiles. Once again, they didn't do any serious damage.

Now the Iranians are threatening to try once more and, according to them, this time they REALLY mean it! This time, they're serious and they're going to launch a serious attack that will do serious damage.

If the Iranian leadership were to ask me if I'm scared of this threat, I would remind them of Proverbs 16:9 "A man’s heart plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps" and the Yiddish saying which is derived from this, which simply says "Man plans and God laughs."

But all laughing aside, when Jesus said we should believe the miracles He does even if we don't believe what He says I commend to everyone the history of the modern State of Israel. As we approach Israeli Independence Day in a few weeks, many people take Israel for granted. But the truth is, this country is a miracle of God. 

The story of how this country came into existence on May 15th, 1948, is long and complicated and involves hundreds of people doing all kinds of different things in dozens of countries all over the world over many years leading up to that event. If a mathematician were asked to calculate the odds against all of these things happening, the mathematician would be forced to admit that there's no natural way it could have happened.

When Israel advocates try to make the case for the modern State of Israel being worthy of Christian support, we often do so by showing the prophecies in the Bible that point to it. This is good to do and I've seen more than a few people convinced by this. But I've also encountered people, including people who emphatically declare themselves to be "Bible-believing Christians" who are not convinced by the hopelessly unambiguous words of prophetic Scripture. To these people, I think we can and should point out the miracles that accompanied (and still accompany) the formation and the continuation of this country. There might still be some "stiff-necked" and/or hard-hearted people who won't get it, but there are some who might.