If Yeshua kept Torah how did he touch a leper? Or the dead?

Someone recently posed a great question.  He said:  "I was talking to a friend from church as he disagrees with Torah observation. He said if Yeshua kept Torah how did he touch a leper? Or the dead?"

OUR RESPONSE:

Yeshua could touch a leper because he was the Messiah and could heal anyone he chose to heal. We must remember not to confuse the rules of tum'a (uncleanness) with "violation" of Torah by Yeshua, and assuming that Torah must not have applied, since we seem to read f events in the New Testament which appear to violate Torah.

For example, anyone touching a corpse simply is made "unclean" for a time (usually till sunset). But a Levite Priest was forbidden to make himself unclean in this manner due to his role in leadership. But Yeshua was not a Levite Priest! He was of the tribe of Judah, not Levi!

In Luke 7, Yeshua did not make himself unclean when he revived a dead man. Yeshua touched the coffin, not the dead body and simply "spoke" the man alive (Luke 7:14).

In Matthew 8 when Yeshua healed the leper, it is just as likely that the leper was healed and made clean *before* Yeshua touched the man! For in Matthew 8:16 we read: "...they brought him many possessed and he cast out their demons 'by a Word', and all of those that were badly afflicted he healed them."

In other words, it is wrong of us to place our limited understanding of the rules of tum'a (uncleanness) and how those rules apply to us and expect them to apply to Yeshua. We can rightfully assume that Yeshua knew *exactly* what he could do or not do to remain within Torah! Indeed, that would have to be, or he could not have been the Messiah!

You see, we are filthy. When WE touch an uncleanness, we become unclean. But Yeshua, having the holy qnoma (soul) he had, could never become unclean. He had the power to remove the uncleanness from a person and not "take on" that uncleanness to himself.