The Bible does NOT say that "Torah is a curse"; rather it is a love letter from a Father to his children that provides instruction and wisdom for life!

Folks, it gets really tiresome hearing that “Torah is a curse!” or “Read Galatians 3:10!” or “You can't keep all those 613 laws anyway!” So, here’s our response to anyone who feels that way:

If you read the context of Galatians 3:10, the first thing you’ll notice that it does NOT say "Torah is a curse!"  It says people are cursed if they DON'T live by Torah!  (The curses and blessings on the people are found in Deuteronomy 27-15 to 28-68.)  Please go back and look at how Paul says the same thing in Galatians 2:16 as he does in 3:10.  If you'd only start reading Galatians from the beginning, you might come to understand who Paul is, and what he, himself is identifying as the problem in the congregations of Galatia (see Galatians 1-6 to 2-13). 

The confusion about what rules Gentiles were to follow was when Jews in the community were putting on the Gentiles, the same "mandates" they had learned and had grown up with.  These "mandates" meant that the Jews were insisting the Gentiles "live like Jews" (Galatians 2:14).  And the way Jews lived was by the requirements of the rabbis who mandated to them how they had to live to "be justified"! 

In other words, though the Messiah had brought eternal life to ALL (Jew and Gentile alike) through faith, the Jews were still teaching that one must "do this and do that".  But Paul and all the apostles understood that Torah itself does not "justify"; and that Torah is NOT meant to be a "must do this and must do that" sort of thing!

That "must do" mentality is called strict “religious halakha.”  You can study the meaning of halakha, but in a nutshell, it is from a Hebrew word that means "to walk" - and what it means in the phrase "strict religious halakha" is that rather than simply obeying Torah because YHWH asked us to (and doing so with the joy of our heart), your "walk" is instead burdened because obeying Torah had become a "you must to what the rabbis say" sort of thing.  Simple commands like "obey the Sabbath day" became instead a stressful thing because the rabbis declared what you could and could not do on the Sabbath! 

So, Paul is not condemning Torah! What he goes on to say is that if you have accepted the Messiah by faith, and have received the "Spirit" then your walk is by the Spirit, and you willingly follow YHWH's Torah, and you no longer want to be "your old self" when your life was dominated by the disgusting practices of the world and your old, gentile (pagan) ways.  What he is saying is that no "way of the Jew, prescribed by the rabbis" (which he knows was a problem, even for the Jews) must be forced upon the Gentile. (By the way, Paul was Jewish through the tribe of Benjamin.)

If you insist on believing that "Torah is a curse", and continue to “cherry-pick” your verses, then you need to sit down and reconcile why other scriptures in the New Testament, written by Paul and the other apostles completely contradict your own conclusion. 

Take for example James 2:17 which says: "Faith by itself, unaccompanied by actions, is dead."  Actions are what you do in your day-to-day life to demonstrate your love of YHWH and you should DO something to demonstrate your love!  After all, YHWH has offered you eternal life!  You certainly don't want to blow it.   All you have to do is live your earth-bound life without sin!  But if you have dismissed Torah, then you have no way to measure if you have sinned!  You are wandering through life without a guide to what YHWH measures as sin!

SIN IS TRANSGRESSION OF TORAH (1 John 3:4), and without Torah all you have is YOUR OWN definition of "sin"!  But by offering you eternal life, YHWH did not at the same time give you the authority to define sin.  If YHWH is your God, and Yeshua is your Messiah, and you have accepted what the Messiah did for you,  then you are obligated to define sin the way He does!

Indeed, John wrote earlier:  

"And by this we will be sensible that we know him, if we keep his Commandments.   For he that says I know him [Messiah], and does not keep his Commandments, is a liar and the truth is not in him.  But he that keeps his Word, in him is the Love of Elohim truly completed: for by this we know that we are in him.   He that says “I am in him” is bound to walk according to his [Messiah's] halakha." (1 John 2:3-6, AENT).  The Messiah's walk (halakha) was in Our Master YHWH's Torah!

REFERRING TO THE MANTRA "you can't keep all those 613 'laws' anyway!" – who ever said you HAD to?  You only need to keep the ones that apply to you!  NOBODY is expected to adhere to "all 613 commands" as most of them were directed at the Levite cohens (priests); some were only for men; some only for women; and some were only for a certain time frame.)

But some were meant to last FOREVER - and those are the ones that believers must pay attention to!

While YHWH eventually recorded ten in stone, we must remember, these ten are just part of the larger picture taken from His Torah which He said would stand forever. Many people balk at this idea because they are under the erroneous impression that they don't even have to bother even keeping the TEN Commandments anymore (let alone the "613"); but, rather, just TWO - and they cite the following as "proof":

Matthew 22:36. "Teacher, which Commandment in Torah is the greatest?" 37. And Y'shua said to him, that "You should love Master YHWH your Elohim with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might and with all your mind." 38. This is the first and the greatest Commandment. 39. And the second is like it. That "You should love your neighbor as yourself." (AENT)

Unfortunately, they stop right there, totally ignoring the next verse, which says: 40. On these two commandments hang Torah and the prophets.

Does verse 40 imply that all of God's original instructions have been done away with? NO! The Torah and the Prophets HANG/ARE DEPENDENT ON those two commands! There's more to it than just "loving God and loving your neighbor!" SIN is still sin and God still expects His people to adhere to His Divine Standards for moral, holy living! So, it is important to note that Torah HANGS on those two commandments. 

Note also that it doesn't say they REPLACED the Torah!  (And it certainly doesn't say that "Jesus" came to bring a new religion that somehow abolished the Torah, because Gentiles were too special to bother with any of His Divine Commands.  Yeshua came to proclaim the Word and show people how to walk it out, and then to offer himself as the "Final SIN Sacrifice.")

Truth is, people love to pick and choose and play around with the commandments that were written in stone - such as, for instance, the Fourth Commandment concerning the seventh-day Sabbath; and it's time to realize that important commands such as the seventh-day Sabbath REST, along with His seven feasts were NEVER abolished ... on the cross, or anywhere else! There were parts of Torah that God said would endure FOREVER. (Has "forever" ended yet?)

2 Timothy 3:16. All Scripture that was written by the Spirit is profitable for instruction and for decisive refutation, and for correction, and for deep extensive learning in righteousness; 17. that the man of Elohim may become perfect and complete for every good work.

HERE IS WHAT WE CAN STILL KEEP:  If you truly love God, then please don't ignore this - because He is not happy with those who refuse to comply with His commands.  What parts of Torah are still applicable today?

The bottom line is:  For those who do not have a relationship with YHWH, Torah might be viewed as a book of do’s and don’ts; but in reality Torah is a love letter from a Father to his children that provides instruction and wisdom for life…

So, before bashing Torah again, we suggest you do some serious scripture study to learn what Torah is before you ever again calling it a curse again … because Torah truly IS a blessing!