Torah

Are the laws of kashrut (the Jewish dietary laws) just empty, outdated rules, or do they serve a purpose in glorifying God for the Catholic Jew?

Did Jesus Suspend the Observance of the Law? This article examines some of the Biblical arguments in support of the traditional doctrine that exempts, not only the Gentile, but even the baptized Jew from keeping the Law of the Torah. We will examine here certain episodes which have been interpreted to show that Jesus suspended the observance of the Law: Jesus and the kashrut dietary laws, Jesus and the Sabbath, and Peter's vision of the animals in Acts 10. 

When Jesus distributed the matzo to the disciples saying, “This is My Body,” He perfected and updated the Biblical commandment to eat matzo on the Seder night, so that the commandment to eat matzo we received at Mt. Sinai would teach us how to respond to G-d as He revealed Himself through the Incarnation and the Cross.

AHC President David Moss interviewed Archbishop Raymond L. Burke in La Crosse, Wisconsin on Aug 5, 2010, on the topic of the election and vocation of the Jewish people within the Catholic Church.

Is the baptized Jew obligated to keep the commandments of the Jewish Law? In the first part of this series, we see how Jesus did not abrogate the Law of Moses that was given to the Jewish people. We also see how the early Jewish-Christian community continued to live in accordance with the Torah. 

I like to say that studying Judaism made me Catholic. Many years ago, I was a zealous, anti-Catholic evangelical Christian living in Jerusalem and active in the Messianic Jewish movement. Messianic believers are eager to rediscover the Jewish Jesus and the Jewish practices of the Early Church before it became tainted and compromised—so they say—with gentile beliefs and practices.

No one could stand beneath the Cross there who wasn't willing to join Jesus on the Cross, to suffer with him. But only those who truly loved Jesus could do that, so only those who truly loved Jesus were worthy to stand with him beneath the Cross--and who truly loved him? Only those whose love the Gospel declares: The Blessed Virgin, Mary Magdalene, and the disciple whom he loved.

The history of the relationship between Israel and Christendom is drenched with blood and tears. It is a history of mistrust and hostility, but also - thank God - a history marked again and again by attempts at forgiveness, understanding and mutual acceptance...  Can Christian faith, left in its inner power and dignity, not only tolerate Judaism but accept it in its historic mission? Or can it not? Can there be true reconciliation without abandoning the faith, or is reconciliation tied to such abandonment?

Is the baptized Jew still a Jew? Is he still obligated to keep the Law? Didn't St. Paul say that he's not? The purpose of this article is to address these questions by examining some of the most relevant passages from the epistles of St. Paul. We will see that a careful reading of his epistles suggests that the very reason St. Paul gives for exempting the Gentile from the observance of the Law deepened the meaning of the Law and value of observance for the Christian Jew.

According to Jewish tradition, God gave 613 mitzvot (commandments) to Israel. 271 of these commandments can still be observed today. Check out our dynamic table of mitzvot, sortable according to the classification of Maimonides (Mishneh Torah and Sefer Hamitzvot) and the Chafetz Chayim. 

The commandments of the Law of Moses require both interior and exterior acts. There are commandments which pertain to the heart (love of G-d, to love of neighbor, fear of G-d etc.) and commandments which pertain to the body (resting on the Sabbath, eating kosher food, etc.). Virtually all the commandments of Jesus relate to interior acts. True, he requires acts of charity. He requires us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick etc. but that is because those acts bear witness to love. It is the love that he requires, and it has been said by Catholic saints that, without love, even such acts are meaningless.

The sanctification of the body is important because, as St. Paul points out in Romans 7, the law of sin, i.e., the impulse to sin, resides in the body.  The sanctification of the body through the repeated acts of obedience to the ceremonial law is directed to uprooting that impulse to sin.