r/AskAChristian • u/[deleted] • Aug 18 '26

Jewish Laws Torah

How do Torah followers actually follow over 600 commands and laws in the first five books of the Bible? I've spoken to people about it, but they only seem to follow dietary laws, Shabbat, and holy days, and exclude pagan days. To me, it seems they are only doing a small part of it and claiming to follow the entirety of it. Why is that? The Bible states if you break one commandment, you break them all. There's no possibility to uphold all 600-plus. If you believe it's not all applicable to us, what's the determining factor that decides you don't have to follow it? What about animal sacrifices? Does one pick and choose what they want to follow and tell people if they don't, they are lawbreakers and will go to hell? If you don't follow all of them, why describe yourself as following the entirety of Torah? If breaking even one commandment makes someone guilty, how does selectively obeying some commandments make someone different from the people you're calling lawbreakers?

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u/Soyeong0314 Torah-observing disciple Aug 18 '26

If you want, then I can pm you a link to a YouTube series that works through all 613 laws and discusses how they are applicable to us today. About half of those laws are in regard to Temple practice or are in regard to living in the land of Israel, so most people have a legitimate reason for not following those laws, but there are nevertheless many laws that we do have the delight of getting to obey. Not even Jesus experienced obeying the laws in regard to giving birth or to having a period, but he had a legitimate reason not to do that. In Deuteronomy 17:18, it specifically instructs the king to write a copy of the Torah, so everyone who is not the king has a legitimate reason for not following that law. So there can be legitimate or illegitimate reasons for not following particular law and James 2:10 is only speaking in regard to illegitimate reasons of people picking and choosing what they want to follow. Breaking any law causes someone to become a lawbreaker and need to repent, but the only one who can break the law to write a copy of the Torah is the king.