Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to re: "not obligated to keep the Law of Moses"

Sacrifice isn't all of it

There are, according to tradition, 631 mitzvot, a.k.a "commandments", in Torah. Here's a list, from the website I always turn to first for basic Judaic research. Numbers 402 thru 560, according to that list, pertain to the Temple sacrifice. The mitzvot concerning the sacrifice cannot be practiced until (unless!) the Temple is rebuilt, because Deuteronomy proclaimed that sacrifices could only be made there (#545), thus ceasing the practices of the nomadic pre-Hebrews (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, etc.).

Many others are no longer practiced by anyone, Jew or otherwise. For instance: we don't keep slaves, we don't observe the Jubilee, nor do we inflict capital punishment by burning, beheading or stoning.

However - some of the commandments, and not just the Big Ten, are still as ironclad today as they ever were.

Keep in mind that Christianity began as a "movement" within Judaism, and its Gentile adherents were expected at the time to become Jews. According to the Wikipedia article I linked to elsewhere in this thread, Peter's declaration about Christians not having to keep the Law of Moses was precipitated by the issue of circumcision. As a convert, had I not already been circumcised, I would have had to be. Of course, I was born in 20th Century America, when circumcision was (and is still) common, without recourse to religious practice. And yet, as I discovered in junior high school gym class, not every male my age was. And every one of the uncircumcised were Catholic.

Look at the vocal objectors to circumcision now: every one a conservative Christian. Yet their object of worship, Jesus, was a circumcised Jew. Go figure...

There there's the dietary laws. Ham for Easter? It's a deliberate flaunting of the difference Peter declared, not to mention a sure way to prove to your neighbors that you are not a Jew, which was rather important during the Inquisition...

And that brings us ~ sigh ~ to official anti-Judaism. Hanukkah celebrates an ancient victory against it. We were not so lucky in more recent centuries -- that is, until the United States were founded, and that only guarantees freedom from persecution here. Anywhere else, including (or maybe especially) modern Israel, you can still die for merely being a Jew.

Is it any wonder we resist so strongly, no matter how "well meaning" the offer to give up all that our uncounted ancestors lived for, and sometimes died because of?

What Isaiah said he saw is not what has come to pass. Using his words to substantiate a claim of redeemer-hood is really no different from claiming that Nostradamus predicted Hitler.

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