Part of the problem we encounter when we read the Torah, is that it was written to a people very long ago who lived very different lives. While everything G-d said was according to eternal principles, it was said TO THOSE people. And since G-d has not given any revelation specifically to this generation, we must extract from the particulars of that time and place, the eternal verities behind them.
Perhaps G-d has not given any revelation to this time because we and the generations that have passed for thousands of years haven't listened much to His original Commandments, the greatest of which are indeed relevant for all time and all peoples. The Ten Commandments, the Two Great Commandments, these are indeed relevant forever.
One thing that a reader of the Torah must understand is that a great deal of the Torah concerns matters relating to the Tabernacle. These indeed were revelations for that people and time, though the principles on which they were based remain. A very large number of these instructions remain incapable of being fulfilled, because THERE IS NO TABERNACLE. There may be hundreds of thousands or even some millions of churches in the world, but none of them are the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle was a singular thing that no longer exists, nor does it's successor the Temple exist. Nor would recreating the physical Tabernacle or Temple achieve anything. We have very explicit instructions on how to build the Tabernacle (not so for the original Temple,) but building it again would accomplish exactly zero. In order to build the Tabernacle anew we would need two things: a set of instructions to build it (which we have,) and the command to build it (which we have not.) Even if we say that the command to build it is implied, apart from the leadership of someone like Moses who spoke to G-d face to face, such a construction would have no legitimacy. The authority to build it anew is lacking.
And modern people typically think of the Tabernacle as solely a religious structure, because our only analogues are purely religious structures. Churches and synagogues and the like. Prior to the first king of Israel (a development which G-d did not approve of but allowed,) during the periods depicted in the Torah and the Book of Joshua, the priesthood was their GOVERNMENT and the Tabernacle the means through which part of that government was possible. It enabled a system of fines essentially for crimes which were not deserving of death (sin offerings) and also a medical system (the priesthood, who quarantined persons who had potentially contagious diseases.) Moses was both priest in a sense, and also judge and military leader. Some authority over judging less important matters was delegated to tribal leaders, but with the sanction of the priesthood.
The Torah has much information relating to the conduct of that government, which while of ongoing interest is not strictly speaking relevant in the absence of the Tabernacle. We can extract important information from these instructions, but they are no longer strictly speaking executable.
And then after the first kings of Israel came the Temple, for which no specific instructions AT THE TIME are given (Ezekiel gives instruction for the construction of a future Temple in a future age.) And the Temple comes after the kings (again, an idea that G-d did not endorse but permitted.) And this Temple became more and more strictly a religious place as the roles of government were taken over by the kings, and again in the absence of a leader with the kind of close connection to G-d that Moses had. So it is perhaps not surprising that religious observance at the Temple degraded at different times, and the Temple included at various times shrines to other gods. Arguably the religious mandate for HAVING a Temple at all is not as clear as was the case for Moses. It was built by Solomon, who was notoriously soft on foreign paganism at least in his later years. The existence of the Temple is in a sense a subjugation of the Tabernacle to earthy power (the king of Israel) and a reduction to a purely religious role.
In short, if we discard all the accretions of (often idolatrous) human tradition since then, we have the task of reconstructing what those instructions to people thousands of years ago means NOW. This is not an excuse, as it is often taken as, for disregarding parts of the Torah that are perfectly clear. We have to be very careful to make the distinction between interpreting the Torah for our particular age, and misinterpreting it to appeal to our modern desires and biases. So for instance with the prohibition on homosexuality, or cross dressing, there is no valid reason to discard that since it is in no way an issue limited to that time. Some particular instruction relating to Tabernacle worship on the other hand, well that is not currently relevant because there is no Tabernacle. It is literally impossible to execute those commandments.
One problem is that there is no longer one clear authoritative interpretation. Because of this, people seem to give themselves permission to interpret the Torah in ways clearly very hostile to its intent. Many appeal to long-running human churches, synagogues and authorities as providing the authoritative interpretation, but there is nothing less authoritative than human tradition. If we learn anything from the Tanakh, we should learn that. That's the whole point I am making. It is because of human beings changing things to suit themselves that we now lack the direct authority from G-d that existed in Moses' time. G-d clearly lets us screw up, allows us to sever our connection to Him, and we done screwed up. If you stop being people worthy of any contact with the very great holiness that is G-d, you lose that contact. As a result, there has been no successor to Moses for 3+ thousand years. And nope, that successor is not Jesus. Jesus' whole thing is that he said he was the Messiah, something that Christian and Jewish hopes have been pinned on for a very long time, but a Messiah is not G-d. A Messiah is a human king, and as G-d clearly told Samuel, human kings are a bad idea.
And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected Me as their king. As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking Me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you.
~1 Samuel 8:7-8
What is needed is a sincere, earnest and self-critical examination of the Torah. Self-critical, not in the modern sense of doubting everything and believing in the supremacy of science, but in the very Biblical sense of understanding the general corruptness of human motives. Doubting our own motives. WE are the limitation, our lack of holiness has damaged our relationship with G-d for thousands of years. We have to start from that point, of understanding how far we have screwed up. And I sense no will for that at all in the general society, or anyone really.
Churches say how they have the answer (or at least that Jesus is the answer, which implies that they have the answer too.) Oh really? Ask G-d to make a rock gush water, like Moses did. See how far you get. Ask G-d to bring down fire from the sky, as Elijah did. See how far you get.
You just have slightly less bad faith than atheists and heathens.
Religious folks somehow get the idea that asking questions is the enemy. Asking questions can be, if the questions are asked from bad faith. If they are asked from a place of doubt. If what you are really doing is passively-aggressively saying that modern people are always right and ancient people are backwards and stupid. Modern people are many things, but right or wise are rarely those things.
I have no doubt at all whatsoever that G-d exists. I also have no doubt at all whatsoever that we human beings have been continually damaging our relationship with Him, to the point where confusion clearly prevails on the Earth. Because WE don't really want Him, He doesn't force us to want Him. His truth does not manifest to us. His holiness is absent from us.
We need a spirit of reconstruction, those of us who do love G-d. We need a full recognition of how badly we screwed up, and to roll up our sleeves and get to work understanding G-d's ways, not our human traditions about them. And not what we would like them to be. We also have to redouble our efforts to become holy people. In many cases, we have to make an effort to begin with, since churches often teach a doctrine of cheap grace. We will never understand the Torah or G-d's will aright unless WE are right, which means fulfilling G-d's commandments to be a holy people.
How can we do that if we don't even understand G-d's teaching to us? The essentials are very simple. He has laid out a very simple roadmap for us.
Keep the Ten Commandments
Try to keep the two Great Commandments (these are harder.)
Avoid all such other things as G-d clearly warns about in the Torah. Avoid sexual immorality, G-d repeatedly warns against it.
And that's how you should start.
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