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StGerardMajella
Guest
With all due respect, I have always found statements such as this as baffling, if not absurd. Today’s observant Jews - whether they believe in Christ or not - continue to follow the Torah, observe the Sabbath, keep the dietary regulations, celebrate the Jewish holidays such as Passover, etc.
The missing ingredient is that the Temple is destroyed, so many of the Torah observances cannot be done in today’s era. Nevertheless, the Jewish people substitute their prayers for ritual sacrifices in the Temple. For example, in the morning prayer service, the Jewish people will pray that they have been instructed by the Lord: “Let our lips compensate for the bulls”, meaning let prayer substitute for ritual sacrifice.
This foreign concept that somehow the Jews of today are somehow inferior because there is no Temple, is quite frankly, ludicrous. Or even the notion that the Judaism during the Temple is not the same as “rabbinic” Judaism of today.
First, what exactly is “rabbinic” Judaism? There are numerous divisions of Judaism, with various denominations and divisions, from progressive, conservative, orthodox, pro-Zionist, anti-Zionist, “reconstructionist”, etc. Even within these strands, there are even further divisions based upon demographic make-up, historical traditions, etc. Judaism is as diverse as the sects of Christianity in this regard.
If anything, because there is no Temple, the Jewish people have to be even more prayerful, and more strict in observing what Torah observances they can still observe without a Temple being present. In fact, I would argue that this is more difficult for a Jewish person to be religiously observant in today’s era with the Temple being destroyed.
One could even state that the religiously observant Jews of today are even stronger spiritually because they have to compensate in prayer what they lack in having a physical Temple.