"Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.
Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: "Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!"? These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence." - Colossians 2:16-23
My takeaway from Paul's teaching is this - when "tradition, rules or culture" become your God or your Way - you are missing it.
Yeshua said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No man comes to the Father (Abba) but through Me! This is the essence of Christianity.
I would agree - Which is why I disagree with your reading of Col 2
Yeshua said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No man comes to the Father (Abba) but through Me! This is the essence of Christianity.
The same Yeshua who told us to keep Torah, and to do the commandments? That Yeshua?