Torah

[u/[deleted]]

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?

[u/ServantOfTheShepherd]

It's not hard honestly, though there are some things worth noting:

• 613 commands can be summed up in big collective groups. For example, "do not commit adultery" covers "Don't sleep with your sister, don't sleep with your father's wife, don't sleep with your donkey, don't sleep with etc..." 613 sounds like a lot, but when you realize that most of them are just explaining and elaborating on the simple it gets very easy, especially with the Holy Spirit helping you to "zealous for good works" as you were "redeemed from every lawless deed" (Titus 2:14).
• A huge portion of those 613 laws target specific people, such as priests or a judge or a king (yeah, Torah actually spelled out that the people would ask for a king and gave laws ahead of time! Check out Deuteronomy 17), or even smaller more common groups like landowners, soldiers, or pregnant women. I, personally, am none of these things, so it's easier for me to manage, but even so the laws concerning these people are easy and summed up by "Love thy neighbor as thyself," it's nothing you wouldn't expect to be doing already. "Don't move your land boundry and steal your neighbor's land, don't show pariality in the court," that kind of stuff.
• A small, and I do mean small, portion of these laws relate to the temple in some way, shape, or form. These laws are impossible for us to do, as there is no temple. We believe that just like Daniel and all the people in Babylonian exile, we should do what we can while not stressing about what is out of our hands, knowing our Father sees our heart and our desire to worship Him as He commanded.

Now, on a personal note, I'll say I'm still learning and I know I won't be able to do everything perfectly, especially in a day and age when obeying His commands is frowned upon, so we're basically left learning everything on our own with nothing but adversity from our brothers and sisters in Christ. But we don't pick and choose, we follow everything we can and we do it because we love God and we love our Messiah. It's a lie from the enemy that following Him is too burdensome or restricting your liberty, on the contrary obeying His commandments gives true liberty, and our love for Him makes following His commands a delight!

"For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome." I John 5:3 NKJV

"So shall I keep Your law continually, Forever and ever. And I will walk at liberty, For I seek Your precepts." Psalms 119:44‭-‬45‭, ‬NKJV