The Armstrongist Mini-Torah Doing an End-Run Around the Law

Sukkah (Booth) at Neot Kedumim Park, Israel (Fair Use)

The Armstrongist Mini-Torah

Doing an End-Run Around the Law

By Scout

 

Jesus in that sermon (Sermon on the Mount) said He did not come to destroy the Law or the prophets. He came only to fulfill. And I've shown you that according to the New Testament in James that we are commanded to fulfill the Law following in His steps — He set us an example that we should follow His steps and we too must fulfill the Law or else we are sinners and love is the fulfilling of the Law. And He said that not the dotting of an "i" or the crossing of a "t" would be removed from the Law until everyone is really fulfilling it. ― Herbert W. Armstrong, “Spirit of the Law”, Sermon, 1979

 

Cult theology can become a comedy of errors.  When I was at the Big Sandy Feast site one year, back in the Seventies, I heard someone criticize Ambassador College faculty members and administrators who lived on Faculty Row for not moving into a temporary dwelling for the duration of the Feast of Tabernacles.  Some people on Faculty Row did have their kids living in tents in the backyard. It was funny, because I think the critic was probably living in one of the nearby hotels or a sleek tent in Piney Woods. He probably felt that he was in the right because his residence was temporary, for him at least, but he conveniently overlooked the other characteristics of the prescribed suka (Hebrew) for the Feast of Tabernacles. From the name of this holy day alone, we know that the suka occupied a central role in the liturgy for this observance. 

The Torah is explicit about what qualifies as a temporary dwelling for Sukkot. But there is a discrepancy between the inspired scripture in the Old Testament and the modern-day re-imagining of the Torah by Armstrongists.  The Armstrongist version of the Torah is smaller and in some cases not as demanding.  As in the case of the suka.  This reduction of the Torah seems to be out of rhyme with Herbert W. Armstrong’s (HWA) statement above that speaks of keeping the Torah, the same law Jesus kept, down to the jot and tittle.  The Armstrongist rendition of the Torah could be called a Torah Lite, but I prefer mini-Torah.  The suka case needs to be examined further. 

The Case of Suka at the Feast of Tabernacles

Herbert W. Armstrong was always an advocate of letting the Bible interpret itself. So, I will do that in this case. The word suka, translated as booths, means “thicket”. It definitely has an arboreal connotation. In Nehemiah 8:13-15, we find this statement:

“On the second day the heads of ancestral houses of all the people, with the priests and the Levites, came together to Ezra the scribe in order to study the words of the law. And they found written in the law which the LORD had commanded by Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in booths in the feast of the seventh month: And that they should publish and proclaim in all their cities, and in Jerusalem, saying, Go forth unto the mount, and fetch olive branches, and pine branches, and myrtle branches, and palm branches, and branches of thick trees, TO MAKE BOOTHS (SUKA), AS IT IS WRITTEN.”

It is clear that this refers to brush arbors. This is how Ezra and the august body of authorities read the scripture.  Why should we read the passage differently? This dwelling is something that you make yourself with your own hands, is temporary (That is, the suka is temporary, not your dwelling there.  It wasn’t there before Sukkot, and it will go away after Sukkot), and for the express purpose of observing Sukkot. A hotel room does not fit this profile in the least. The people who dwell in hotels, motels, and rented houses for the FoT, do not comply with the Torah at the jot and tittle level that HWA says is required. Re-read his statement above..

In fact, the Torah on this issue will never be observed among Armstrongists. Can you imagine what would happen if an Armstrongist minister told his wife that she is going to help make a brush arbor and live in it for eight days? You would see a mass exodus from the Armstrongist denominations. It would be a problem that no amount of second tithe could fix. The brush arbor is in the inspired Torah in the Tanakh. A swank hotel room is in the uninspired mini-Torah used by Armstrongists. Because of this departure from the Torah-prescribed brush arbor, nobody in the Armstrongist realm actually observes the Torahic Feast of Booths even though in Armstrongist theology the Torah is written on the hearts of all true Christians.

The lowly brush arbor seems to be without esteem among modernists but Dr. Eitan Bar said the following of it:

"The practice of building and living in sukkot—simple structures crafted from branches and foliage—carries profound symbolic meaning. It brings to life the reality of human frailty and transience, reinforcing the truth that ultimate security is found not in human achievements but in God's enduring care. Sukkot is a festival of sensory richness. The waving of the "Four Species" (etrog, lulav, myrtle, and willow) during prayer symbolizes unity and the blessings of creation. The festive meals shared under the open sky, the storytelling, the songs—all foster a deep sense of community, humility, joy, and gratitude. It is a festival where theology becomes tactile, where faith is not merely professed but lived and experienced."

Staying at an expensively appointed hotel for eight days just doesn’t do the same thing. 

The Torah Cannot Really be Miniaturized 

After the Destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, the Torah, which was Temple-dependent, was repackaged by Yohanan ben Zakkai, a prominent Pharisee, along with the sages of the Academy of Jamnia, to function without a Temple.  This was the beginning of Rabbinic Judaism practiced in the synagogue system.  The only other repackaging of the Torah that I know of has been the repackaging done by Armstrongists.  While ben Zakkai had the authority of the Bet Din behind his effort, the Armstrongists seem to have not hearkened to any authority.  Armstrongists might say that their authority is simply the Bible.  But it is not clear that there is a scriptural authority that justifies either the Rabbinic or Armstrongist repackaging.  

And Paul and Moses put a great obstacle before those who would edit and streamline the Torah.  Paul stated in Galatians 5:3, “Once again I testify to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obliged to obey the entire law.”  You cannot do just part of the Torah.  It functions like a unit, an operational whole. It cannot be downsized into a “more manageable” package.   Moses said in Deuteronomy 12:32, “You must diligently observe everything that I command you; do not add to it or take anything from it.”   The Torah may have had multiple sources, but the claim of scripture is that Deuteronomy 12:32 encompasses the holy days.  My guess is that sometime in the post-exilic period the Law, Prophets and Psalms were essentially frozen and later Jesus had no trouble referring to them as having authority.  The Tanakh became a recognized and stable body of writing.

I have no history of how the Armstrongists packaged the Torah and recast it as their denominational mini-Torah.  Maybe change accreted through a case-by-case resolution of issues that naturally emerged over the history of the Worldwide Church of God.  Maybe nobody in the Armstrongist camp really ever set out to rewrite the Torah.    

Level of Observance

A potential argument is that a hotel room in a high-end hotel is not the same as but is functionally similar to a suka.  It is a place to live for a while. To start with the concept of a suka from scripture and arrive at the concept of a hotel room just requires disregarding a “few irrelevancies” listed in scripture – like brush, like the temporary status of the structure, the fact that it is hand-made and that kind of thing.  Hence, the Torahic requirement is not abandoned; it is just practiced at a different, less stringent level of observance.  This argument should not have traction among Armstrongists broadly.  Armstrongists generally believe that Jesus defined the Torah for their keeping at the jot and tittle level.  The example that Jesus set living under the Law is their example for Christian living today.  And the Sermon on the Mount made the Torah even more stringent, not less so.  And Armstrongists assert that the Holy Spirit makes it possible for them to keep the Torah when the ancient Israelites could not.  And the Holy Spirit is not in their lives to abbreviate Torah-keeping but to expand it.  So, the idea that replacing the suka with a hotel room at a top-drawer hotel is just an insignificant matter of observance level is a dog that won’t hunt. 

Conclusion

The Torah was the national charter for a certain group of people at a certain time and a certain place.   It defined the way to live a good and Godly life on this planet on the pathway to Sheol. It was an effective means to a desirable end. But the New Covenant is a covenant of better promises. It is not about living in a suka unless you just want to as a learning experience.  It is about salvation by grace through faith. And sleeping in a suka (or a posh hotel room at the Feast of Tabernacles) won’t make you a Christian any more than sleeping in a garage will make you a car.