God expresses His will to us through His written word. Do we truly believe that? Because to say, “This commandment is irrelevant,” is to say, “God’s will for my life in this area isn’t important to me.” God is the one who makes the rules, not us.

Proper Torah observance must flow from a heart of love for our neighbor. If we claim to be Torah observant but neglect matters of justice, mercy, and faithfulness, then we are not truly Torah observant.

God did not intend the Sabbath to be a burden, but rather a time of joy. The Bible says that blessings come when we honor the Sabbath and call it a delight (Isaiah 58:13). Yeshua said the Sabbath was made for our benefit (Mark 2:27). So enjoy it and give thanks to God for giving us rest.

Like Yeshua, James is against the idea that we can just pick and choose which commandments are relevant to our lives. We have no authority to declare some commandments valid and others invalid. All of the Torah is important.

We must not become so overly obsessed with the minute details of the Torah that we neglect the more important parts. However, we also must not say that the “less important” parts of the Torah aren’t important at all. God forbid! While we certainly must emphasize the weightier matters of the Torah, at the same time we must not invalidate the lighter matters