From the End Back to Genesis: The Power of Torah Reading

Introduction

There are very few things in life that we, the human race can claim a new beginning. For the Jewish communities around the world, every year on Simchat Torah, there is a new beginning.

On this day, all around the world the Jews in the synagogues read the last portion of the Book of Deuteronomy, Chapters 33-34, Vezot HaBracha (“this is the blessing”), and just as soon the last reading of the scroll of the Five Books of Moses is finished, it is rolled back to the beginning of the Torah — to the book of Genesis.

We finish the cycle of reading the Torah (The Law of Moses) from beginning to end. Every week we read a portion that is decided by a long tradition that precedes the time of Yeshua and the apostles.

Here are some examples of this practice from the New Testament:

This honor is given to respected members of the community and usually to someone who has a birthday on that week. The apostles recommend for our non-Jewish brothers in the community to go to the synagogues every Shabbat in order to hear “Moses being read”:

People didn’t have bibles in their pockets or on their phones like today. Even a part of the Bible, like the five books of Moses, the Torah, was rare to have, even in normal synagogues. We read about the apostle Paul who traveled through Asia Minor and Greece, and every Shabbat went to a synagogue, and often was invited to read from the Torah and to preach.

This phenomenon is totally ignored by most Christians. One of the most serious problems with my Christian brothers and sisters is that they are not being taught nor encouraged by their churches to ask intelligent and difficult questions from the scriptures.

How is it that the apostle Paul, for whom it didn’t take long after arriving in a town to go on Shabbat to the local synagogue, immediately get invited to read from the Torah and to preach?

If Paul were a typical 20th Century Christian, a stranger in town, and he walked into the local synagogue wearing a small golden cross on his chest, and having the smell of bacon from his breakfast, do you think that those Jews would invite him to come up and read from the Torah and to teach?

Anti Torah Attitudes

There are few things that fascinate me over and over again: how is it that the majority of Christians have developed such a negative attitude against the Torah? When we in Netivyah purchased a Torah scroll and started to read from it every Shabbat, the so-called Messianic congregations in Israel went ballistic.

There was an article written by one of the missionaries in Jerusalem that we, the members of Netivyah and the Ro’eh Israel (“Shepherd of Israel”) congregation in Jerusalem have started to worship an idol, and are guilty of idolatry, because some people kiss the Torah scroll. There was total defamation against us in Netivyah and against the Torah. Statements like “The have gone under the Torah”, “They believe that the Torah will save them!”

It was said almost unanimously against us, that we have lost the grace of God, and that we are Judiazing. These missionaries and some so-called Messianic Jews didn’t know that you can’t Judiaze a Jew.

Things got even worse when we started to keep and celebrate other biblical seasons like the Feast of Sukkot, and Yom Kippur (The Day of Atonement). I praise the Lord that things have changed, and that now there are several Messianic congregations that have Torah scrolls, and read on Shabbat the Torah portions, and from the prophets and the New Testament, just like we have been doing for many decades.

The Importance of Torah Readings

The reading of the Torah in the congregations is so very important for the following reasons:

1. There is an ignorance of the Torah and the Old Testament among Christians, and even among many pastors and missionaries.

2. Very few believers in the world, including pastors, have actually read the Old Testament from the beginning to the end. When you attend a synagogue every Shabbat, you will hear the reading of the Torah and from the prophets, and connect the two readings to see the bigger picture of God’s revelation.

3. We are Jews, the apostles were all Jews, Yeshua is the King of the Jews. Why should we worship like strangers to the Torah, the prophets, and the writings? Why should we reject the very same tradition and practice of Yeshua Himself and the apostles themselves, and adopt an allergic reaction of an attitude that wants to alienate us from the very source of our faith, the Torah, and the prophets, and the writings — the Tanach!

   Yes, many of our Christian brothers in Europe and around the world have understood, repented, and are changing. There is teaching going out of Israel to the ends of the world both in person and online, and so many Christians in all seven continents are hungry to know more about the biblical traditions that were practiced by the early disciples of Yeshua in the land of Israel. Some are adopting the reading of the Torah and the practices of the early church as we read about it from the Word of God in the Gospels and epistles of the apostles.

4. It is important for the Jewish disciples of Yeshua in Israel and around the world to show that they didn’t stop being Jewish, and that faith in Yeshua is also faith in Moses and the prophets of God in Israel, and not a rejection of the Torah and the prophets.

Keep reading the Bible, from beginning to end. God bless you!