Here I have do disagree with you because what I am convinced that he was doing was to simplify Torah as to state that it was all about love of God and our fellow humans. Thus, obedience to the specifics of the Oral Law was unimportant even when it is an accurate reflection of specific teachings. Hillel pretty much also went in that direction but not as far as Jesus and his followers took it.
IOW, Jesus' basic message was, imo, "Love God and all of His creation, and then clean up your act!"-- the "Law of Love"-- iow, "agape", extended to all.
I concur with you that he summarised the essence of the Torah in the twin commandments, "
love God with all your heart, soul, mind" and one's neighbour as oneself. Everything else is 'relative' to and contingent upon this essence of the Torah (in his judgement).
However, where I may disagree somewhat is that the early church after Jesus's death, in Jerusalem, continued to be entirely Torah-observant (which would include both the written word and the oral traditions Jesus had regarded as authoritative). The majority of scholars today do not believe that he actually 'abrogated' the Torah or expected other Jews to cease being Torah-observant.
Had this been the case, then we need to consider why the Council of Jerusalem in 50 CE had to be summoned in the first place: the question set before the apostles gathered around James and Peter at the council was - "do Gentiles need to become Jewish proselytes and adhere to the Torah to become followers of Jesus?"
The entire premise of that 'dispute', presupposes that the Jewish apostles were Torah-observant. We can see this spelt out very clearly in the subtext of Acts chapter 21, where Paul comes before James - Jesus's 'brother' and the titular head of the Jerusalem church, then the mother church of the Christian movement in the pre-destruction of the Second Temple era - and James informs him that pernicious rumours had been spread abroad that he was encouraging Jews to cease obeying Torah. To 'quash' the rumours - which James takes to be false - he and the other 'elders' tell Paul to undergo a ritual purification rite to prove his faithfulness to the mitzvot in public and Paul humbly obliges (deferring to James's authority):
"When we arrived in Jerusalem, the brothers welcomed us warmly. 18 The next day Paul went with us to visit James; and all the elders were present. 19 After greeting them, he related one by one the things that God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry. 20 When they heard it, they praised God.
Then they said to him, “You see, brother, how many thousands of believers there are among the Jews, and they are all zealous for the Torah. 21 They have been told about you that you teach all the Jews living among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, and that you tell them not to circumcise their children or observe the customs. 22 What then is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come. 23 So do what we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow.
24 Join these men, go through the rite of purification with them, and pay for the shaving of their heads. Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you yourself observe and guard the Torah. 25 But as for the Gentiles who have become believers, we have sent a letter with our judgment that they should abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled* and from fornication.” 26 Then Paul took the men, and the next day, having purified himself, he entered the temple with them, making public the completion of the days of purification when the sacrifice would be made for each of them."
(Acts 21:17-26)
Note that every Jewish Christian is described here by the Jerusalem elders as strictly Torah observant ("zealous" for the Torah) and Paul complies with the order to demonstrate that he too is still a Torah-observant Jew, even performing a sacrifice in the Temple.
Interestingly, in a somewhat related linguistic matter to our discussion at the start of my post, I read somewhere that in Hebrew the words for “neighbor” (
re‘a Leviticus 19.18) and “enemy/evil [one]” (
ra‘, as in 1 Sam 30.22) share the same consonants (
resh and
ayin), distinguishable only in vowels which aren't in the text. Thus, when Jesus in Luke expounds the Parable of the Good Samaritan in response to the question from the Torah-teacher, "Who is my neighbour?", his reply “What do you read there?” is akin to demanding of him: “Can't you see in the Torah the injuctuon to love neighbor (in the narrow sense) and your enemies?”
So, yes, Jesus goes further even than Hillel in taking the Torahic concept of 'neighbour' in the direction of an all-encompassing love of other human beings, irrespective of their merits - thus including 'enemies' (most radically) in that 'love':
"Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. For He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous" (
Matthew 5:44-45).
I once read a midrash concerning Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korcha, in which the sage was asked by a non-Jew: "
When do we [Jews and Gentiles] ever rejoice together?"
The Rabbi answered:
'
We rejoice together when the rain falls. Why is this? 'The meadows are clothed with flocks; the valleys are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, yea, they sing' " (Psalms 65:14). What is written after this? 'Shout unto God, all the earth.' It is not written ['Shout unto God] Priests, Levites, and Israelites,' but 'Shout . . . all the earth!' (
Genesis Rabbah 13:6)
God's 'blessing of rain' is for all: that is, his divine providence in nature as supreme benefactor of His creatures. This eternal loving-kindness expressed through His rich bounty in nature, was viewed as "indifferent" to the merits or choices of the recipients. All the earth, good and bad.
Jesus and the Rabbis agreed on this, only Jesus took it 'further' than they did towards a more radical 'love ethic' in terms of its application but there was precedent in Jewish tradition for something close to it.
