Before Torah can be The Way of Life for us it must first become death to us.
Obedience to the commandments will bring about nothing but horrors and vanities if we don’t let the Torah first do its terrible work in our hearts.
When we try to take hold of everlasting life without the Life-giving Spirit, we have all the power, longevity, and invincibility but we are the undead in reality.
Without the Spirit of the Torah, we are mechanically imitating life without actually living it. Lacking the soul of the Torah we become life-takers rather than life-givers. We go to the innocent lost souls offering eternal life only to take from them what life they did have, and make of them monsters as much monsters as us.
But when we take hold of the Spirit of the Torah, without the Letter we become gods in our own right in this world. We grow invincible and strong offering hope and saving people. The spirit without the letter makes us merciful and gracious, goodnatured and kindhearted…yet all without ability to truly affect change nor to impart life to others.
We can prolong it, sure but we will be forced to do so for each person everyday and always. Nor will we have anything to offer more than this present existence. And whenever the enemy desires to destroy us, he need only bring with him our one all-crippling weakness to us, and not only we but all we’ve worked so hard to save and protect will be undone.
No. When it comes to the Torah, we must die to self-will. We must sacrifice ourselves in order to truly take up The Way in both the Letter and the Spirit. Anything less is making of us either gods or monsters each to be unleashed upon an unsuspecting world.
You must decide this day the sort of being you want to be. You can only be one of three…
Will you take up the Torah as a weapon against your fellow man, taking that which is intended to bring life and making of it an instrument of death and destruction?
Will you refuse the Torah for the compelling power of vague grace, spending all your days trying to save everyone without the means to do so?
Or will you take up the Torah as The Way of Life, die to self, Walk the Path, become daily more alive and bring that life and hope to the broken along The Way?
Question Everything