Quotes About Torah

Hebrew for "poor, humble." The "pious poor" of Judaism. After the Exile in Babylon (587 BC), a social class of Jews who returned were known as much for their commitment to the Torah* and the temple as for their economic poverty. Their situation led them to trust in God and to pray for him to establish his justice in the Land. Accordingly, this group was one in which hopes for the Messiah flourished

Jesus reduced the Torah to two points — loving God, loving others (the Jesus Creed) — not to abolish the many laws but to comprehend them and to see them in their innermost essence

Two things resulted from this "follow Torah by adding rules" approach. The first one is that Jesus thought this completely misunderstood how to do Torah. The second, which follows from the first one, is that an increasing number of ordinary folks were cut off from their faith.

Jesus' list diverges from both of these lists and blesses the most unlikely of people. Instead of congratulating the Torah observant or the rigorously faithful or the heroic, he blesses the marginalized who stick with God through injustice.

Here's a more concrete, straightforward outline: First, Jesus fulfills the Torah and Prophets (5:17). Second, everything in the Torah is true (5:18). Third, everything therefore must be observed (5:19). Fourth, your obedience therefore must surpass the experts (5:20).

Second, there is a clear eschatological focus in the word "blessed."9 If a focus of the Old Testament was on present-life blessings for Torah observance, there is another dimension that deconstructs injustice and sets the tone for Israel's hope: the future blessing of God in the kingdom when all things will be put right; no text in the Old Testament fits more here than Isaiah 61.10 This second dimension shapes the Beatitudes because Jesus' focus is on future blessing.

Of the many ways to describe or articulate the Torah, two are pertinent in our text: one can either multiply laws so as to cover all possible situations, or one can reduce the law to its essence.

Jesus himself was law observant, but what distinguished his praxis was that he did so through the law of double love. To do the Torah through love is to do all the Torah says and more.

As the priest and Levite thought they could follow the Torah and not offer aid to the stranded, dying man (Luke 10:25–37), so Isaiah's community thought they could abstain from food and pass by the needs of others on their way to God. Fasting never stands alone. Fasting, if it is genuine, brings us into a communal spirituality because it is a response to the lack of justice in the community.

In Acts 10–11, in the encounter of the Torah-observant Peter with the God-fearing Gentile Cornelius, we see what "fulfill" looks like for the apostles: it means some radical revisioning without abolishing. Paul's words about accommodating himself to Gentile ways in 1 Corinthians 9:19–23 also illustrate how the apostles "applied" this claim by Jesus. Second lesson in Bible reading: looking to Jesus means following him and through him the Torah.

The clearest way to put this is to say that Jesus thinks that following him means following the Torah. Those who follow him (and his teaching of the Torah) will be called "great" in the kingdom. Anyone who denies his teachings and teaches others not to follow him (and through him the Torah) will be called "least" in the kingdom.

A free society is a moral achievement. That is the central insight of the Torah. It depends on the existence of a shared moral code, a code we are taught by our parents, a code we internalise in the course of growing up, a code for whose maintenance we are collectively responsible. Today, throughout much of the West, morality has been largely outsourced to governments and regulatory bodies. The

In this case the Torah is emphasising that Exodus ends as Genesis began, with a work of creation. Note the difference as well as the similarity. Genesis began with an act of divine creation. Exodus ends with an act of human creation.

Wisdom tells us how the world is. Torah tells us how the world ought to be. Wisdom is about nature. Torah is about will.

The concept of equality we find in the Torah specifically and Judaism generally is not an equality of wealth: Judaism is not communism. Nor is it an equality of power: Judaism is not anarchy. It is fundamentally an equality of dignity. We are all equal citizens in the nation whose sovereign is God.

Torah is God's book of humanity, and each of us is a chapter in its unfinished story.

Torah – God's law and teaching – was not a code written by a distant king, to be imposed by force. Nor was it an esoteric mystery understood by only a scholarly elite. It was to be available to, and intelligible by, everyone.

It is terrifying in retrospect to grasp how seriously the Torah took the phenomenon of xenophobia, hatred of the stranger. It is as if the Torah were saying with the utmost clarity: reason is insufficient. Sympathy is inadequate. Only the force of history and memory is strong enough to form a counterweight to hate.

But few nations other than Israel set it as their highest task to understand why the law is as it is. Shema is the Torah's call to moral growth.

The Torah, in other words, offers a striking way out of the dilemmas of multiculturalism. It suggests that the citizens of a nation see themselves as co-creators of society seen as the home we build together.

The entire drama of Torah flows from this point of departure. Judaism remains God's supreme call to humankind to freedom and creativity on the one hand, and on the other, to responsibility and restraint – becoming God's partner in the work of creation.

Know that prophecy does not help in-depth study of the meanings of the Torah

I think part of being Jewish is that innate desire to question things. Rabbis sit around all day and question the Torah. Giving yourself the room to question things, in a religion, just breeds thinking.

There was a tsunami and there are terrible natural disasters, all of this because of too little Torah study.