Biblically speaking, divine law is equivalent to sanity. To live any other way is madness. Because God is the source of life, becoming familiar with the divine operating instructions is the best way to appreciate that gift. As Ben Sira writes, there’s life and death out there, good and evil, fire and water. To whichever you choose, put out your hand—but do understand, these choices are not neutral. The outcomes will be dramatically different. Torah will save you, the sage insists. It will keep you from making the mistake you live to regret—that is, if you live at all.
When Jesus extends the law in his Sermon on the Mount, he’s not doing it to make life harder than it already is. Jesus builds a fence around the law, as the rabbis phrase it. He tells us that the road to murder begins on the path of anger; adultery’s highway has an entrance ramp from lust. If sin is not your destination, then by all means don’t travel its tributaries. Properly understood, law deserves its own fan club. God’s laws are designed, after all, with your happiness and user-satisfaction in mind.
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