I wonder if this is accurate. Let's explore the matter a bit in view of today's parasha and other related passages.
According to D'varim chapter nine, Moses ascended Mt. Sinai "to receive the stone tablets, the tablets on which was written the covenant ADONAI had made" with the descendants of Israel" (verse nine). After chronicling the sin of the Golden Calf and his intercession for the people of Israel, Moses says the following:
1 "At that time ADONAI said to me, 'Cut yourself two stone tablets like the first ones, come up to me on the mountain, and make yourself an ark of wood. 2 I will inscribe on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke; and you are to put them in the ark.' 3 So I made an ark of acacia-wood and cut two stone tablets like the first, then climbed the mountain with the two tablets in my hand. 4 He inscribed the tablets with the same inscription as before, the Ten Words which ADONAI proclaimed to you from the fire on the mountain the day of the assembly; and ADONAI gave them to me. 5 I turned, came down the mountain and put the tablets in the ark I had made; and there they remain; as ADONAI ordered me (10:1-5).
When I was first taught about Torah in Christian circles, the predominant view was that the Law was given to demonstrate our sinfulness and need of a Savior. In fact, the assumption was that the impossibility of "keeping the Law" was perhaps the main reason in was given. Such a thought is totally missing from our Deuteronomy text. The assumption here, and I submit, throughout Scripture, is that "the Law," here epitomized in the Ten Words, was given to Israel in perpetuity as guidance for the community in its life before Hashem.
And I can prove it from today's text by asking one simple question: Why did God make a second set of Tablets for our ancestors in the Wilderness after they had proven themselves unable or unwilling to obey the commandments? If the purpose of the Law was simply to prove our need of a Savior, then the incident of the Golden Calf, where our ancestors broke the first two of the ten words, would have been sufficient to make the point. Why then the second set? The answer is, because the people still needed the Law of God as a guide for life, even if they obeyed imperfectly. The Torah remained for Israel the criteria whereby they would live communally in covenant faithfulness to God.
And I submit this remains the case for Israel in the days of the Newer Covenant.
Speaking of Rav Sha'ul on trial before the Sanhedrin, Acts 23 says this:
1 Sha'ul looked straight at them and said, "Brothers, I have been discharging my obligations to God with a perfectly clear conscience, right up until today." 2 But the cohen hagadol, Hananyah, ordered those standing near him to strike him on the mouth. 3 Then Sha'ul said to him, "God will strike you, you whitewashed wall! Will you sit there judging me according to the Torah, yet in violation of the Torah order me to be struck?" 4 The men nearby said, "This is the cohen hagadol of God that you're insulting!" 5 Sha'ul said, "I didn't know, brothers, that he was the cohen hagadol; for it says in the Torah, 'You are not to speak disparagingly of a ruler of your people.'"
Rav Sha'ul/Paul doesn't seem to realize that we are "not under the Law" any more! This incident comes late in his life, when he has been an Apostle twenty-five years. You would think he has his doctrine down straight! But look what happens here! First, Paul uses Torah as a standard to judge those before whom he stands on trial. Second, after Paul reviles the High Priest and is rebuked for it, he then says ""I didn't know, brothers, that he was the cohen hagadol; for it says in the Torah, 'You are not to speak disparagingly of a ruler of your people.'" Here he is alluding to a run of the mill commandment found in Parshat Mishatim, in Exodus 23:22, and acknowledging that this is standard to which he too is accountable.
We must not read our 21st century worldview into this. He is not apologizing because he was rude. He is apologizing because he broke Torah! Doesn't he realize that we're not under the Law more? Doesn't he realize that maybe, just maybe, the only part of Torah we have to pay attention to is the Ten Commandments or maybe the moral law? No, he doesn't realize this because like the other Messianic Jews found in the B'rith Chadasha, Paul assumed that the Torah was the standard by which Jews should live and conduct their communal lives.
It should be noted too that Paul here is accepting his role as part of the wider Jewish community. He does not dispute the Sanhadrin's right to bring him up for communal discipline, although he does of course protest his innocence. He stands before the Sanhedrin as a member of the wider Jewish community. Certainly, Paul doesn't assume that the Jewish community is not his community any more and that his job is simply to confront them with the gospel.
If we have problems here, the problems aren't in the texts--they are in our presuppositions.
How many of us have heard the phrase, "We are not under law, but under grace?" Some people use this as a blanket statement of some sort, usually meaning something like this: "We, even we Messianic Jews, don't have to worry about the Law anymore; instead, we depend upon God's grace and do the best we can and whatever we feel led to do." Sounds good. However, it is hard to defend this from the Bible. Frankly, there are all kinds of problems here.
First of all, I wonder how many people who use "we're not under law but under grace" even know where the phrase appears in the Bible? It is found in Romans 6:14, 15, and also in Galatians 5:18. In Romans 5, Paul divides God's salvation dealings with humankind up to our time into two broad eras, which he characterizes as "from Adam to Moses"--that is, through to the rule of Torah as God's way of instructing humanity and forming righteousness in His people, and then, the latter period, "in Messiah" or the era of the Spirit. In chapter six, he uses the phrase "under the law" to pertain to the first period, and "under grace" for the second period. But he does NOT use this to mean that there was no grace during the era of Moses, nor that there is no law during the era of Messiah, and most certainly not for Jews! The Apostle to the Gentiles will tell them repeatedly that Torah living is not God's mandate for them, but he never says as much concerning Jews.
Before Messiah came, and the Holy Spirit was poured out on His people, even though, in Paul's words, the Law of God was holy, just and good, and spiritual [Romans 7:12, 14], the human tendency to rebel against God's standards and his boundaries thwarted the formation of righteousness in us. We could approve the Law of God in our minds, and yet watch ourselves breaking that Law time and again. Paul says this is due not to some defect in the Law, but to sin that dwells within all of us as a principle of rebellion and lawless autonomy.
But now that Messiah has come, with the consequent resources of the indwelling Spirit made available, we have new resources available, and a different mechanism in action. Paul speaks of this in Romans 8: "the law of the Spirit of life in Messiah Yeshua"--that is, the way the Spirit works in us through Messiah Yeshua—"has set me free from the law of sin and death"—that is, the principle of operation that formerly prevailed--the way sin and death worked against righteousness-formation in us when we were apart from Messiah. Again, the idea is: just as sin once defeated the operation of Torah in us, marring the formation of righteousness in God's people, so the way the Spirit works in us now defeats and replaces the way sin worked in us.
"For what the law [and here he means, the Law of God] could not do in that it was weakened through the flesh [that is, our rebellious nature, dominated by the tendency to sinful rebellion], God did by sending His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin; He condemned sin in the flesh [that is, he dealt a death blow to the domination of this endless defeating cycle by implementing new resources and a different approach].
But why did He do this?
He did this on order that "that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh [by the old principle of operation, with our limited former resources], but according to the Spirit [by the new principle of operation, with our new boundless resources].
But notice, the purpose is "that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fully met in us." God is not jettisoning the Law, but through the Spirit, enabling its actualization in us. As Paul will say a few verses later, it is "the carnal mind [that is] enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be." If we claim to be in the Spirit, we should walk in the Spirit, not fulfilling the lusts of the flesh, and we should live as those subject to the Law of God as it applies to our several stations in life. As members of the people of Israel we remain responsible to live lives of covenant faithfulness, in the power of the Spirit and as conditioned by our encounter with the Risen One.
Why is this an important issue? There are many reasons.
First, as a counterbalance to our native narcissism and self-centeredness. Our relationship with God should not be expressed in doing what we feel comfortable doing.
Second, because alternative versions of honoring God are out there being advocated and embraced.
Third, as an antidote to our individualism which is NOT how Scripture views us or our responsibilities. We Messianic Jews remain part of wider Israel and are responsible to exemplify and promote Torah based covenant faithfulness. Honoring God in this manner is clearly what Jewish people are supposed to do.
I trust I have demonstrated how even the Apostle to the Gentiles assumed as a matter of course that he should live by the commandments of Torah, even a relatively insignificant verse from Exodus 23. If this was true for him, then by what criteria do we rightly consider ourselves exempt?
Torah Resources 
by Rabbi Stuart Dauermann