To Torah or not to Torah - A gentle Gentile question...

DISCLAIMER: The content which will follow is a thought experiment inspired by a question from a community and has been chosen for further consideration within the scope of the Heritage and Reform Alliance. Find out more at: https://heritagereform.com

A serious question was recently raised in our community:

If Hashem has revealed His righteous way of life in the Torah, what biblical authority permits a sincere Gentile worshipper to follow only part of it?

The objection deserves more than a convenient answer.

Scripture calls people to love Hashem with all their heart, soul and strength. It warns against divided loyalty, double-mindedness and lukewarm devotion. Therefore, describing a Gentile follower of Hashem as merely “partially observant” can sound spiritually contradictory. How can someone claim to follow the God of Israel wholeheartedly while knowingly accepting a reduced standard of obedience?

The problem may lie in the expression “partial observance.” The real biblical question is not whether Gentiles may be less devoted to Hashem than Israelites. They may not. The question is whether wholehearted faithfulness requires every worshipper to observe every commandment identically, or whether it means faithfully obeying everything Hashem requires of that person within his or her covenantal position.

Those are not the same thing.

Torah never gives every commandment to everyone

No individual Israelite kept every commandment in the Torah.

Some commandments were given only to priests. Others applied specifically to the high priest, kings, judges, landowners, men, women, parents or those living within the land of Israel. Certain commandments became relevant only when someone contracted ritual impurity, suffered a particular loss, harvested a field or committed a particular offence.

An Israelite from the tribe of Judah was not “partially observant” because he did not perform the duties assigned to the sons of Aaron. A woman was not lukewarm because she did not fulfil commandments specifically assigned to Israelite men. A person without agricultural land was not disobedient because commandments governing the corners of his fields never became applicable.

Wholehearted obedience, therefore, cannot mean performing every commandment found in the Torah. It means complete faithfulness to everything Hashem has assigned to us.

This immediately changes the nature of the Gentile question. We are no longer asking whether Gentiles may ignore God’s instructions. We are asking what Scripture says God actually requires of people from the nations who worship Him.

The stranger, the foreigner and the native-born

English translations frequently obscure the issue by using the same word “stranger” or “foreigner” for several different Hebrew categories.

The Torah speaks of the native-born Israelite, the resident alien living among Israel, and the foreigner who remains outside Israel’s covenantal community. These categories sometimes overlap socially, but they are not automatically identical in covenantal standing.

The resident alien was not permitted to live as an idolater while enjoying Israel’s protection. He was subject to important commandments governing justice, worship and the holiness of the community. He could not offer children to Molech, publicly blaspheme Hashem, consume blood or introduce leaven into a household during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. He was also to receive justice, rest on the Sabbath and share in certain provisions given to Israel’s vulnerable.

In these matters, Torah sometimes declares that there is to be “one law” for the native-born and the resident alien.

That phrase is enormously important, but it must be read in context. “One law” does not appear as an abstract declaration that every covenantal distinction has disappeared. It is attached to particular matters in which Hashem explicitly gives the same ruling to both groups.

The phrase means that the resident alien was not subject to an inferior system of justice. It does not, by itself, prove that every commandment given to Israel automatically applied to every person from the nations.

What about the animal that died naturally?

Deuteronomy 14:21 creates one of the clearest difficulties for the argument that native Israelites and resident aliens always possessed identical dietary obligations:

“You shall not eat anything that has died naturally. You may give it to the sojourner who is within your towns, that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner.”

Israel was prohibited from eating the carcass because Israel was a people holy to Hashem. Yet the text permits it to be given to the resident alien or sold to a foreigner.

This does not mean the resident alien was morally inferior, spiritually insincere or permitted to practise idolatry. It demonstrates that proximity to Israel and worship of Israel’s God did not automatically erase every distinction between the native-born and the person from the nations residing among them.

The distinction was covenantal, not a licence for lukewarmness.

Circumcision and joining Israel

Passover provides another essential piece of evidence.

Exodus 12 teaches that no uncircumcised foreigner could eat the Passover sacrifice. If a resident alien wished to celebrate Passover, every male in his household first had to be circumcised. He could then approach and celebrate “as a native of the land.” In that specific context, Torah declares:

“There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you.”

Circumcision was therefore not an insignificant private ritual. It admitted the circumcised household into Israel’s Passover identity and the story of Israel’s deliverance, Israel’s covenant sign and Israel’s sacred meal.

Nevertheless, we should be careful not to make the text say more than it says. Exodus 12 explicitly establishes circumcision as the requirement for a foreign household wishing to participate in Passover. It does not contain a systematic statement that circumcision instantly imposed every commandment of Torah upon every convert in precisely the same manner.

That broader conclusion may be argued, but it must be demonstrated rather than assumed.

Does following Hashem require becoming Israel?

The Tanakh certainly envisions people from the nations turning to Hashem.

Isaiah speaks of the foreigner who “joins himself to Hashem,” loves His name, keeps the Sabbath and holds fast to His covenant. Such people are welcomed at God’s holy mountain, and the Temple becomes “a house of prayer for all peoples.”

Zechariah foresees nations coming to Jerusalem to worship the King. The Psalms repeatedly summon the nations to praise Hashem. The prophets anticipate Egypt, Assyria and other nations knowing and serving the God of Israel.

What is striking, however, is that the nations do not always cease to be nations. Isaiah can describe Egypt as “My people,” Assyria as “the work of My hands,” and Israel as “My inheritance” while retaining the identities of all three.

The prophetic hope is not necessarily the disappearance of the nations into Israel. It is the nations abandoning idolatry and coming under the righteous reign of Israel’s God.

Therefore, “joining Hashem” and “becoming an Israelite” should not be treated as interchangeable expressions without further argument. They may overlap in the case of someone formally joining Israel, but the prophets can also envision nations worshipping Hashem as nations.

Different responsibility does not mean partial devotion

This brings us back to the language of partial observance.

A Gentile who uses covenantal distinctions as an excuse for selfishness, idolatry or disobedience is not following Hashem wholeheartedly. But neither should we accuse someone of partial devotion merely because Scripture has not assigned that person every obligation belonging specifically to Israel.

The priest was required to be a faithful priest. The king was required to be a faithful king. The Israelite was required to be a faithful member of Israel. The resident alien was required to live faithfully within the holiness and justice of Israel’s community. The foreign worshipper of YHWH was required to abandon idols and walk in righteousness.

Difference of vocation is not difference in the required depth of devotion.

Everyone is called to complete loyalty. Not everyone is necessarily called to an identical covenantal role.

The question we should be asking

The debate should not be reduced to:

“Do Gentiles have to obey God, or are they allowed to be disobedient?”

That framing predetermines the answer and unfairly portrays covenantal distinction as rebellion.

The more accurate question is:

What does Hashem require of a faithful person from the nations, and does Scripture require that person to become part of Israel before living in wholehearted obedience to Him?

The Torah presents one holy God, one standard of justice and one demand for undivided loyalty. Yet within that unity, it also recognises different identities, responsibilities and covenantal vocations.

The alternative to identical obligation is not partial devotion.

It may instead be wholehearted faithfulness to the particular place in which the God of Israel has called each person to stand.