If I haven’t sufficiently made my point in the past, I want to again reiterate that religion is not the way to truth. In fact, it leads away from truth by implementing “man-made rules as if they were doctrines” (Matthew 15:9). When Jesus was asked by a Sadducee which commandment was most important, “He told him, ‘You are to love Adonai your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.’ This is the greatest and most important mitzvah [command]. And a second is similar to it, ‘You are to love your neighbor as yourself.’ All of the Torah and the Prophets are dependent on these two mitzvot.” (Matthew 22:37-40)
After Jesus lists the two most important commands, he spends the next chapter in Matthew condemning religion. You may think he was speaking to those who were present at that time, although it’s clear he was prophesying. “Woe to you hypocritical Torah-teachers and P’rushim [Pharisees]! You go about over land and sea to make one proselyte; and when you succeed, you make him twice as fit for Gei-Hinnom [hell] as you are!” (Matthew 23:15)
Jesus describes, “shutting the Kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces, neither entering yourselves nor allowing those who wish to enter to do so” (Matthew 23:13). He calls them “blind guides” (Matthew 23:16), accuses them of making a show of prayer (Matthew 23:14), paying tithes but neglecting “justice, mercy, trust” (Matthew 23:23), and cleaning “the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence” (Matthew 23:25).
He goes on. “…You are like whitewashed tombs, which look fine on the outside but inside are full of dead people’s bones and all kinds of rottenness. Likewise, you appear to people from the outside to be good and honest, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and far from Torah.” (Matthew 23:27-28) If there is still any doubt Jesus was prophesying, Paul writes to Timothy, “Moreover, understand this: in the acharit-hayamim [latter days] will come trying times. People will be self-loving, money-loving, proud, arrogant, insulting, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, uncontrolled, brutal, hateful of good, traitorous, headstrong, swollen with conceit, loving pleasure rather than God, as they retain the outer form of religion but deny its power…” (II Timothy 3:1-5)
Loving God means obeying his commands. “For loving God means obeying his commands. Moreover, his commands are not burdensome, because everything which has God as its Father overcomes the world. And this is what victoriously overcomes the world: our trust.” (I John 5:3-4)
Loving your neighbor as you love yourself involves taking care of others just as you would take care of yourself. “Why, no one has ever hated his own flesh! On the contrary, he feeds it well and takes care of it, just as the Messiah does the Messianic Community, because we are parts of his Body.” (Ephesians 5:29-30) “Love does not do harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fullness of Torah.” (Romans 13:10)
The truth is that simple. Love God with everything you are, obeying his commands. It’s not a legalistic chore, it’s love. Love others as much as you love yourself. In that way you would never harm others just as you would not harm yourself. As Jesus said, “All of the Torah and the Prophets are dependent on these two mitzvot [commands].”
*All scripture is from the Complete Jewish Bible.