What Torah Says About Itself
Torah on its Own Terms
At face value, the Torah is the direct word of God delivered by the hand of Moses. In Torah, God describes His creation of the world, His interactions with and attempts to guide man’s conduct, and His invitation to Israelites to enter into a relationship with Him according to His terms to be blessed and a blessing to all nations.
Torah presents itself as the sole and complete expression of the Divine law for His people and their resident strangers. It defines the covenant between God and His people, establishes their rules of conduct, and provides the means of justice, worship, obedience, atonement, blessing and curse. No other revelation, tradition, or writing shall add to or subtract from its commands.
Torah states it is not complex. It uses simple and easy to understand language that provides direct access.
Torah states its covenant with us and our obligations are eternal, with specific instruction to avoid any who would have us follow other gods or prophets unlike Moses.
Positive Statements Supporting Torah-only Observance
Israelites and those who dwell among us must read and live the complete teaching of Torah;
Torah provides the exclusive law:
Torah is not too complex to understand; and
God’s covenant with His people is eternal, and our observance or rejection of His law leads to our blessing or curse.
Supporting Citations for These Statements
The following outline presents the various citations supporting Torah-only observance:
WHO MUST OBEY-Torah is not instruction for the entire world. It presents itself as the teaching for the Israelites and the strangers residing among them:
There shall be one law for the citizen and for the stranger who dwells among you. (Exod. 12:49)
Now then, if you will obey me faithfully and keep my covenant, you shall be My treasured possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is mine. You shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation…(Exod. 19:5-6)
You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy, and I have set you apart from other peoples to be mine. (Lev. 20:26)
You shall have one standard for stranger and citizen alike: for I the Lord am your God. (Lev. 24:22)
There shall be one law for you and for the resident stranger; it shall be a law for all time throughout the ages. You and the stranger shall be alike before the Lord; the same ritual and the same rule shall apply to you and to the stranger who resides among you. (Numb. 15:15-16)
And when you look up to the sky and behold the sun and the moon and the stars, the whole heavenly host, you must not be lured into bowing down to them or serving them. These the Lord your God allotted to other peoples everywhere under heaven; but you the Lord took and brought out of Egypt, that iron blast furnace, to be His very own people, as is now the case. (Deut. 4:19-20)
The Lord your God commands you this day to observe these laws and rules; observe them faithfully with all your heart and soul. You have affirmed this day that the Lord is your God, that you will walk in His ways, that you will observe His laws and commandments and rules, and that you will obey Him. And the Lord has affirmed this day that you are, as He promised you, His treasured people who shall observe all His commandments, and that He will set you, in fame and renown and glory, high above all the nations that He has made; and that you shall be, as He promised, a holy people to the Lord your God. (Deut. 26:16-19)
The Lord will establish you as His holy people, as He swore to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in His ways. And all the peoples of the earth shall see that the Lord’s name is proclaimed over you, and they shall stand in fear of you. (Deut. 28:9-10).
WHAT MUST BE OBSERVED-Torah presents itself as a self-limited written set of laws and teaching:
And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you?
but to fear the LORD your God,
to walk in all His ways,
to love Him,
to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul,
and to keep the commandments of the LORD and His statutes,
which I command you this day for your good. (Deut. 10:12-13)
Written Law-Torah requires observance of its written laws:
Moses went and repeated to the people all the commands of the Lord and all the rules; and all the people answered with one voice, saying, “All the things that the Lord has commanded we will do!” Moses then wrote down all the commands of the Lord. (Exod. 24:3-4)
And the Lord said to Moses: Write down these commandments, for in accordance with these commandments I make a covenant with you and with Israel. And he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he ate no bread and drank no water; and he wrote down on the tablets the terms of the covenant, the Ten Commandments. (Exod 34:27-28)
For the Lord will again delight in your well-being, as He did in that of your fathers, since you will be heeding the Lord your God and keeping His commandments and laws that are recorded in this book of the Teaching—once you return to the Lord your God with all your heart and soul. (Deut 30:9-10)
When Moses had put down in writing the words of this Teaching to the very end, Moses charged the Levites who carried the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, saying: Take this book of Teaching and place it beside the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God, and let it remain there as a witness against you. (Deut 31:24–26)
No Less-One may not observe less than all the laws:
You shall faithfully observe all My laws and all My regulations, lest the land to which I bring you to settle in spew you out. (Lev. 20:22)
If you fail to observe faithfully all the terms of this Teaching that are written in this book, to reverence this honored and awesome Name, the Lord your God…(Deut 28:58)
...but with overt acts, it is for us and our children ever to apply all the provisions of this Teaching. (Deut 29:28)
No More-One may not observe more than the laws:
If there appears among you a prophet or a dream-diviner and he gives you a sign or a portent, saying, “Let us follow and worship another god”—whom you have not experienced—even if the sign or portent that he named to you comes true, do not heed the words of that prophet or that dream-diviner. For the Lord your God is testing you to see whether you really love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul. Follow none but the Lord your God, and revere none but Him; observe His commandments alone, and heed only His orders; worship none but Him, and hold fast to Him. As for that prophet or dream-diviner, he shall be put to death; for he urged disloyalty to the Lord your God—who freed you from the land of Egypt and who redeemed you from the house of bondage—to make you stray from the path that the Lord your God commanded you to follow. (Deut. 13:2-6)
I will raise up a prophet for them from among their own people, like yourself: I will put My words in his mouth and he will speak to them all that I command him; and if anybody fails to heed the words he speaks in My name, I Myself will call him to account. But any prophet who presumes to speak in My name an oracle that I did not command him to utter, or who speaks in the name of other gods—that prophet shall die.” And should you ask yourselves, “How can we know that the oracle was not spoken by the Lord?”— if the prophet speaks in the name of the Lord and the oracle does not come true, that oracle was not spoken by the Lord; the prophet has uttered it presumptuously: do not stand in dread of him. (Deut. 18:18-22)
No changes-Torah is specific that nothing shall be added or subtracted:
And now, O Israel, give heed to the laws and rules that I am instructing you to observe, so that you may live to enter and occupy the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you. You shall not add anything to what I command you or take anything away from it, but keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I enjoin upon you. (Deut. 4:1-2).
Be careful, then, to do as the Lord your God has commanded you. Do not turn aside to the right or to the left: follow only the path that the Lord your God has enjoined upon you, so that you may thrive and that it may go well with you, and that you may long endure in the land you are to possess. (Deut 5:29-30).
Be careful to observe only that which I enjoin upon you: neither add to it nor take away from it. (Deut. 13:1)
When he is seated on his royal throne, he shall have a copy of this Teaching written for him on a scroll by the levitical priests. Let it remain with him and let him read in it all his life, so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God, to observe faithfully every word of this Teaching as well as these laws. Thus he will not act haughtily toward his fellows or deviate from the Instruction to the right or to the left, to the end that he and his descendants may reign long in the midst of Israel. (Deut 18:20)
The Lord will make you the head, not the tail; you will always be at the top and never at the bottom—if only you obey and faithfully observe the commandments of the Lord your God that I enjoin upon you this day, and do not deviate to the right or to the left from any of the commandments that I enjoin upon you this day and turn to the worship of other gods. (Deut 28:13-14)
DIRECTLY ACCESSIBLE-Torah presents itself as understandable to the everyday Israelite, implicitly rejecting intermediation through developed interpretation:
Surely, this Instruction which I enjoin upon you this day is not too baffling for you, nor is it beyond reach. It is not in the heavens, that you should say, “Who among us can go up to the heavens and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?” Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who among us can cross to the other side of the sea and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?” No, the thing is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to observe it. (Deut. 30:11-14)
If a case is too baffling for you to decide, be it a controversy over homicide, civil law, or assault—matters of dispute in your courts—you shall promptly repair to the place that the Lord your God will have chosen, and appear before the levitical priests, or the magistrate in charge at the time, and present your problem. When they have announced to you the verdict in the case, you shall carry out the verdict that is announced to you from that place that the Lord chose, observing scrupulously all their instructions to you. You shall act in accordance with the instructions given you and the ruling handed down to you; you must not deviate from the verdict that they announce to you either to the right or to the left. (Deut. 17:8-11)
Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day. Impress them upon your children. Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead; inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deut. 4-9)
He shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law… and he shall read in it all the days of his life. (Deut 17:18-20)
You shall set up large stones and plaster them with lime. And you shall write on them all the words of this law very plainly. (Deut. 27:1-8)
Moses wrote down this Teaching and gave it to the priests, sons of Levi, who carried the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant, and to all the elders of Israel. And Moses instructed them as follows: Every seventh year, the year set for remission, at the Feast of Booths, when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God in the place that He will choose, you shall read this Teaching aloud in the presence of all Israel. Gather the people—men, women, children, and the strangers in your communities—that they may hear and so learn to revere the Lord your God and to observe faithfully every word of this Teaching. Their children, too, who have not had the experience, shall hear and learn to revere the Lord your God as long as they live in the land that you are about to cross the Jordan to possess. (Deut.31:9-13)
ETERNAL-Torah law is for all time, even after periods of disobedience and curse:
When all these things befall you—the blessing and the curse that I have set before you—and you take them to heart amidst the various nations to which the Lord your God has banished you, and you return to the Lord your God, and you and your children heed His command with all your heart and soul, just as I enjoin upon you this day, then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and take you back in love. He will bring you together again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you. Even if your outcasts are at the ends of the world, from there the Lord your God will gather you, from there He will fetch you. And the Lord your God will bring you to the land that your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it; and He will make you more prosperous and more numerous than your fathers. (Deut. 30:1-5)
The Israelite people shall keep the sabbath, observing the sabbath throughout the ages as a covenant for all time: (Exod 31:16)
And this shall be to you a law for all time: In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall practice self-denial; and you shall do no manner of work, neither the citizen nor the alien who resides among you...It shall be a sabbath of complete rest for you, and you shall practice self-denial; it is a law for all time...This shall be to you a law for all time: to make atonement for the Israelites for all their sins once a year. (Lev 16:29, 31, 34)
When I, in turn, have been hostile to them and have removed them into the land of their enemies, then at last shall their obdurate heart humble itself, and they shall atone for their iniquity. Then will I remember My covenant with Jacob; I will remember also My covenant with Isaac, and also My covenant with Abraham; and I will remember the land. For the land shall be forsaken of them, making up for its sabbath years by being desolate of them, while they atone for their iniquity; for the abundant reason that they rejected My rules and spurned My laws. Yet, even then, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or spurn them so as to destroy them, annulling My covenant with them: for I the Lord am their God. I will remember in their favor the covenant with the ancients, whom I freed from the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God: I, the Lord. (Lev 26:41-45)
There shall be one law for you and for the resident stranger; it shall be a law for all time throughout the ages. You and the stranger shall be alike before the Lord. (Num. 15:15)
Be careful to heed all these commandments that I enjoin upon you; thus it will go well with you and with your descendants after you forever, for you will be doing what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God. (Deut 12:28)
I make this covenant, with its sanctions, not with you alone, but both with those who are standing here with us this day before the Lord our God and with those who are not with us here this day. (Deut 29:13-14)
...but with overt acts, it is for us and our children ever to apply all the provisions of this Teaching. (Deut 29:28)