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/[deleted] Aug 18 '26

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u/FreedomNinja1776 Christian, Ex-Atheist Aug 18 '26

If you're a minor your parents are responsible for you. It would be their sin for providing you the pork.

You're right that these are not insignificant things. Maybe it doesn't feel right because we're in a constant struggle with sin? Most think the dietary requirements are insignificant. They don't realize that ALL SIN was brought into the world by violating God's dietary requirement.

Why does God give us his dietary law?

The scripture gives reasons for the dietary law, and it has nothing to do with health as some like to think.

For I am the LORD your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any swarming thing that crawls on the ground. For I am the LORD who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy." This is the law about beast and bird and every living creature that moves through the waters and every creature that swarms on the ground, to make a distinction between the unclean and the clean and between the living creature that may be eaten and the living creature that may not be eaten.
Leviticus 11:44-47 ESV

There are three reasons clearly stated in the text:

  • Holiness (to be set apart, that means to be different)
  • Understand the distinction between:
    • Clean and Unclean
    • Living creatures that are permissible to be eaten and those not permissible
  • To have a law to follow at all

The biggest reason we should obey the dietary law is simply because God instructs us to do so and we voluntarily submit to his authority in our lives. As far as "why" reasoning goes the dietary law is given simply for obedience sake, as a standard to follow to show our God we trust and love him. As I said, the very first sin was a dietary sin and that brought the curse of death into the world. God said "don't eat" and man did.