As a former “Christian,” I am well aware of the stigma that is Judaizing or being “under the law,” etc., particularly when it comes to keeping, doing, and guarding the instructions of the Most High Elohim.

I’ve had this conversation with several of my brothers and sisters who just don’t get how easy keeping the commandments actually is, and to be honest, what a JOY it is to do these commands. So, for any Christian who thinks being “under the law” is a terribly burdensome affair, I’d like to walk you through a day in the life, so to speak. Also, I’m open to critique, especially since we are all learning how to keep these commands correctly. If you find I am in error, please leave your (kind) rebuke in the comments. Also, I’ve asked Noel to publish this article anonymously, not because I am trying to hide myself, but because I speak of gifts and charity.

But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

So, without further ado, let’s start with day one.

Day One

On day one, I don’t have work scheduled. I work 5 days a week, and for me as a 7th-day Sabbath observer my week starts on Sunday. If you’re new to this, there are also moon people. I don’t agree, but you may find the moon Sabbath is correct in your studies. I love you either way.

Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 

Exodus 20:9

I do do work though. Because we are told to do so. I work on my computer helping out friends with their marketing. I do dishes. I do laundry. Most days, I wake up, go let the chickens out of their coop, collect a few eggs, and come in and play with my 2 year old. I try to let my wife sleep in, especially on Sunday. Sometimes I fail, but my wife is amazing and literally picks up whatever slack she needs to. This week as I’m writing this, it is “that time of the month.” Because of that and sharing a bed with her, I have become unclean.

“When a woman has a discharge, and the discharge in her body is blood, she shall be in her menstrual impurity for seven days, and whoever touches her shall be unclean until the evening. And everything on which she lies during her menstrual impurity shall be unclean. Everything also on which she sits shall be unclean. And whoever touches her bed shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and be unclean until the evening. And whoever touches anything on which she sits shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and be unclean until the evening. Whether it is the bed or anything on which she sits, when he touches it he shall be unclean until the evening. 

Leviticus 15:19-23

So, during this time, part of my routine is to simply wash my clothes first thing. This might sound funny, but I usually get into the shower with most or all of the clothes on. They come off eventually, but I make sure to wash them in water as instructed. If I know there’s going to be a wash done that day in the washing machine, I’ll put some of it in there, but mostly I just wash them in the shower. 

Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up.

Deuteronomy 6:7

 

Imagine that. One of the commands is to think on the commands when you wake up. So, that’s why I wash my clothes and myself in water first thing. Other mornings, I hop in the shower and just start my day like it’s no big deal. I’ve added a routine to listen to scripture while in the shower. Sunday is also my day to help a friend of mine by washing his laundry. He was homeless, though he has recently gotten an apartment through a state program that pays for it, and he has been doing really well lately. He doesn’t drive though, and it takes him an hour just to get to the laundromat. So every Wednesday, I swing by, pick up his laundry and do a few loads for him.

I’m going to stop the article here for a moment for a quick diversion. We are also called to follow the words of Messiah. 

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.

Matthew 5:38  

This man was very mean and rude. He physically assaulted my wife while high on methamphetamine, and used to be a really bad dude. He asked me for help one day, not having any idea who I was. I yelled at him. Told him to get lost. Told him he was a liar and a thief. Wow did I feel like garbage after. I repented, found him, and walked the extra mile. And I continue to walk the extra mile with him every single week. Sometimes multiple times per week. We have become friends. He’s totally changed. I think all he needed was the love of Messiah in his life. Ok, the detour is over. Back to walking out the Torah.

I usually spend the latter part of day 1 enjoying what the Most High has given me. I play with my youngest son, swim in the nearby lake, hike, heck, I might even go for a dirtbike ride with my boys. I watch videos on how to find edible mushrooms, how to build fires and survive in the wilderness. So while I do work, I also take it easy, typically awestruck by the magnificence of this place and everything he created in it. My wife and I usually finish the day reading scripture, and then watching an episode of Guy’s Grocery Games or maybe a couple rounds of Fortnite. I end the day putting my youngest son to bed. We always say a prayer together (he’s only 2, but he can pray with the best of them), and then I tell him a story about golf carts and tractors as he passes out. I usually just tell him the story of Shrek, but replace the characters. He thinks my storytelling is astounding! I then go to bed. I ALWAYS recite this prayer as I’m laying in bed, usually quietly to myself.

Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

Although I say it my own way. Messiah told us how to pray, so again, just trying to follow the commands.

Day Two

For me, it’s Monday. My first day of work. Again, with the clothes, I make sure to take care of the washing them first thing. This helps me think on the commands as I wake up, and because I have to do it anyway, 2 birds, one stone. I listen to scripture in the shower, usually Genesis 1 or 6 or I listen to Adam Fink’s “The Word Audio” project. I also have to take my tassels and put them on my clean clothes. I wear 2 tassels connected to the belt loops on my pants. 

38 “Speak to the people of Israel, and tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner.

I didn’t actually make mine. I have made them in the past, but I bought some from a woman who does an amazing job. Also, mine have a cord of violet. Weirdly the word “blue” is not so blue after all. 

Strongs definition:
Probably for H7827; the cerulean mussel, that is, the color (violet) obtained therefrom or stuff dyed therewith

If you wear blue, then we have a different understanding. Again, I love you.

Back to day two. My commute is 1.5 hours and I spend the majority of it listening to something useful. I usually listen to Richie From Boston explaining the next New World Order plot, catch up on my Marco Polos from fellow brothers, and then listen to a podcast, youtube video, or an article. I get to work, ignore the blatant, occult ritual that is COVID and sit down at my desk. I’ve made a point to food fast every monday that I’m in the office, but I’ll have a caffeinated lemonade or some kratom to get me going. Then I just work. And I work hard. And I spend the day telling people at my work that the earth is flat, that they should read a bible, and that what’s happening in the world now seems to be what’s written about in the book of revelation. I also mention Tartaria. A lot. At lunch time, I go for a walk. I grab my wallet to make sure if anyone asks me for help, I’m able to. If I’m lucky, I’ll run into my friend, Ray, who I met while he was panhandling one day. Ray is an extremely fit, tall and muscular black man. He’s kind of scary to look at because he always looks like he wants to kill you. When I met Ray, he was homeless, but he’s gotten help from the state, and now he has a nice apartment right near my work. Sometimes he’ll ask me for help; sometimes he won’t. Whatever he asks me for, I double it. He knows I don’t have a lot of money, so he only asks me for money when he is really broke.

I go back to work, finish up the day, and head home. Another homeless friend of mine was asking for money—way too much—to the point that I had to tell him that I couldn’t afford it. But I told him, in lieu of money, I’d be happy to give him rides whenever he needs them, so quite often I get right out of work and start taxi duty. Again, trying to go the extra mile with people. 

I get home, spend some time with my 2 year old to give my wife a break, and then do 20-30 minutes of reading with my teenagers. They hate it. They fall asleep. They treat me like I’m nuts. I’m still figuring out teenagers. It bugs me that they are more concerned with other things than scripture, but all I can do is instruct them and have faith.

Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.
Proverbs 22:6

My Monday fast is only while the sun is out, so I eat dinner. Usually I’m starving. I LOVE when my wife has ordered a veggie pizza from the place down the road. Cheese is probably the “hardest” part of Torah. I had to ask the pizza place where their cheese was from so I could research whether it contained pork rennet. 

And the pig, though it has a split hoof completely divided, does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you. Leviticus 11:7

Thankfully, their cheese is vegetarian. After dinner, I go to bed. I pretty much rinse and repeat until Saturday. 

Day Six: Prep Day

Day six is pretty much like any other day for me. One exception is that it usually involves a trip to the grocery store and a crock pot full of mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, or some other food that we can eat throughout the day. I also need to make sure that I bring all the wood up that I’m going to need for the fire that day.

32 While the Israelites were in the wilderness, a man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day. 33 Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole assembly, 34 and they kept him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him. 35 Then the Lord said to Moses, “The man must die. The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp.” 36 So the assembly took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the Lord commanded Moses.

It’s important that we follow the instructions. And, kindling the fire seems to be a big issue considering this dude was killed for it. However, it seems if you start a fire the night before and heat your house with it, and continually stoke it throughout the day, there are no issues. That’s what I’m going with right now considering we heat our house by wood stove. Anyway, this is just an example of how you’re doing a little bit more work on prep day to make sure that your Sabbath is completely restful. Typically prep day ends with me watching Adam Fink on the Parable of the Vineyard livestream. It’s a good way to fellowship and learn a thing or two.

Day Seven

Sabbath is my favorite day of the week.

I love the “Shabbat Shaloms” all over the internet. It gets me excited for the best day of the week. My household observes the Sabbath from sun up to sundown. Typically we TRY to prep some food on Friday evening, but usually we’re both so ready for our day of rest, that we fail. We always do a grocery order to make sure we have snacks and easy to make food. We pretty much live in the living room all day. My wife and I take turns playing with our toddler, taking him outside, keeping him entertained. He naps around midday and we get to read at this point. Then one or both of us will nap.

By the time our toddler’s nap is done, our teens will be up (for the first time). We used to try a “home church” scenario where we would sing and read and I even prepared “teachings” for each Saturday. It was a great way to spend Shabbat, but now that my older ones are teens, they just make it terrible. And my little one likes to scream while other people are talking, so that just leaves my wife and I. So instead of getting upset about it and trying to force people to do things they don’t want to do, we just rest. I read A LOT, and I watch a bunch of YouTube teachings during the day as well. It’s just a low-key day with not a lot happening. I try and avoid vehicles, though I don’t believe the Torah explicitly prevents one from traveling in a vehicle (unless it is animal propelled).

If you were keeping the commands of the Most High, one of the things you need to do is stop celebrating on pagan holidays. That means Christmas, Easter, Halloween, probably saint Patrick’s day, and a host of other days that you should not be celebrating.

“Do not worship Yahuah your Elohim in the way these pagan peoples worship their gods.”

In this paragraph, we’re approaching one of the hardest parts of Torah. That is forsaking the traditions of men. I don’t know why, but when you give up Christmas, everyone in your life thinks you are Satan. We all know Messiah wasn’t even born on December 25th, we all know it’s a pagan holiday, we all know what the Bible says about celebrating the way the pagans do, and yet people think that it’s okay for followers to celebrate this terrible day. If I’m being honest though, it is hard letting your family down. But you know what’s great? When you follow the ways of the Most High, you get seven new holidays!! Let’s talk about these a bit.

Holy Days

Passover is one of my favorite holidays. Although this year, I believe we’re going to be celebrating “Second Passover,” it’s still fun nonetheless. I’m a vegetarian, but I eat lamb on Passover. I also enjoy the bitter herbs. Typically my family gets together just around evening, we cook the lamb over an open flame together and head inside to eat it quickly and hope that this is the year that we get called to the greater Exodus. Usually I stay up as late as I can, but I haven’t quite made it the whole night. This year might be different… We’ll see. But starting immediately after the Passover feast is the Feast of Matzah. I love matza. I eat lots of it regularly, so this feast isn’t much different for me. But the fun part is removing all of the leavened products from your house and throwing everything out. Of course one of the complications, is that you need to figure out a few weeks in advance what to buy and what not to buy. Obviously you don’t want to waste a bunch of money at the grocery store on leavened products only having to throw them out a few weeks later. So, if you consider that hard, then the Torah is incredibly hard.

During the Feast of Matzah is typically Feast of First Fruits. Not a whole lot you can do to celebrate the Feast of First Fruits unless you have a garden or are a farmer. I recently started a garden, but I didn’t actually have anything that would come up early like barley so we pretty much just recognize that it is a holy day, a Sabbath, and don’t buy or sell.

Shavuot is a great day. Typically for Shavuot we have a nice dinner. There’s a Jewish custom where they eat ice cream. It has to do with the land of milk and honey. And so my family has adopted this custom by making sure that we have ice cream when we eat our shavuot dinner. But again, nothing that we can really do here so we observe the day as a Sabbath and that’s pretty much it. 

Yom Kippur is an interesting day. I’m still not exactly sure how to afflict yourself. Personally, I fast for the day. But it seems that there’s more to this than just fasting. And I’m still trying to work that out. But either way, it is a solemn day to reflect on yourself. We treat it like a Sabbath, and that’s pretty much it. We plan a big dinner for when sun goes down, and we celebrate.

The Feast of Trumpets is probably my second favorite holiday. I have two shofars: one that I made with my dad out of a raw bovine horn, and another nice one that I bought off of Etsy. My kids and I basically blow the shofar every hour the entire day. It’s awesome. It took me a while to figure out how to blow the shofar, but once I did, it was pretty easy. We also like to drive up to the high points around where we live and blow so that we can hear the echo all around. It’s such a fun day. And typically we have a dinner to commemorate the day.

The Feast of Tabernacles is my absolute favorite time of year. This is only my second year celebrating the holidays of the Most High, but I could tell you from now on every Feast of Tabernacles is a camping trip. Originally I tried to build a booth that we could eat in, but my carpentry skills are not great and it ended up being safer to eat and dwell inside a legitimate tent. So, we make sure to decorate the tent with branches and leaves and vines as instructed.

On the first day you are to take branches from luxuriant trees—from palms, willows and other leafy trees—and rejoice before Yahuah your Elohim for seven days.

And we just bond as a family for a week, reading scripture each day, and living outdoors. For a guy that spends 12 hours a day staring at a computer screen for work, living outdoors is amazing. I cannot wait until next year.

So, to recap, I really don’t see how there’s any way that you can’t keep all the commands perfectly. Understanding that they’re there is no temple and that we are not in the land specified by the Most High to make sacrifices and offerings, everything else is not only easy, but sometimes it’s even fun! 

If you don’t keep the Torah, but are considering the scriptures that lead you to believe this is the correct (and narrow) path, I hope that this candid look into the everyday life of a “Torah observant believer” (or whatever you want to call us) was helpful. 

Shalom!