Death of a Nomad

“All of the commandments are stated as a positive. If you read it as a “do not do”, then the command is incomplete.”

Tracy Anderson, The Universal Law of Hebrew: Zayin

We read the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, as a list of rules of sorts. This makes us see them as impossible to do—especially given how many there are. And I suppose if you approach them that way, they probably are.

We read the Bible and think, “I could never follow all these things.” We read Deuteronomy and say, “Thank God for Jesus.” We read Leviticus and think, “Whew! I’m glad that was then!” We read Genesis and think, “Eve really messed us up!” 

Granted, we can see the wisdom in it—somewhat. We visit those pages every once in a while and happen upon a principle that still seems to apply today.

I submit to you today that it is worth much more than that. None of the commands are written as a “do not do this.” They are not written as directives. Instead, they are written as responses. They are almost descriptive in that they describe what happens when one is made over, when one transfers from darkness to light, when one walks the narrow path, when one does what Yeshua did, when one is mature.

So, if you read any of the Torah and think, “Wow! Israel broke those so quickly!” That is incomplete. All of the commands were written as declarations of wholeness that only comes when one has been challenged and searched via torah. 

We look at Israel while Israel was still in process and conclude that Israel just couldn’t do it and we weren’t meant to. In all actuality, Israel was being trained to move toward wholeness. So, it makes sense that they were still falling short. You’d see YAH/God pick up with the next generation what he couldn’t accomplish with the previous. This is because relationship/covenant with YAH is household, communal and generational.

If we read the Bible as a bunch of “don’t dos” (as we are conditioned to do in a Western mindset), we misunderstand who YAH is, what He requires and how life works.