“Should any of you, holding a matter against another, go to be judged before the unrighteous, and not before the set-apart ones? Do you not know that the set-apart ones shall judge the world? And if the world is judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more, matters of this life? If then you truly have judgments of this life, do you appoint them as judges who are least esteemed by the assembly? I say this to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise one among you, not even one, who shall be able to judge between his brothers? But brother against brother goes to be judged and that before unbelievers! Already, then, there is a failure with you, that you have lawsuits among you. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? But you yourselves do wrong and cheat, and that to your brothers!”

Torah law commands us to establish believing and observant communities. It commands us to establish courts, judges and elders within those communities to judge all matters, from the least of civil disputes to the most heinous of criminal charges, between its members. It commands that we do so with righteous judgement, mercy, longsuffering and love, whenever possible. It commands us not to make a public charge of any kind against others on the testimony of a single witness, but to consider such uncorroborated testimony false and evil speech unless the accused first receives due process of law and is lawfully convicted. And these are only the basic requirements of Torah law to which we, as members of the Greater Commonwealth of Yisrael, are bound.

Yeshua Hamashiach and his apostles instruct us that we, as his followers and disciples, should go even farther in righteousness, mercy and love, by giving grace forbearance, and compassion to one another. They teach this not only in word, but by their own deeds and examples. When they were treated harshly, they forgave their oppressors for the sake of the Kingdom of YHWH and sought only to imitate and emulate Him and His ways. And what are His ways?

“YHWH,YHWH, an Ěl compassionate and showing grace, patient, and great in mercy and truth, watching over mercy for thousands of generations, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but by no means leaving unpunished, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.”

How many of us can truly claim, as supposedly Torah observant believers, that we keep all of these commands and instructions? How many of us can honestly claim to do much of anything like these? And if we do not, what does that make of us?