According to two highly respected Jewish authorities, Professor Lawrence H. Schiffman and Rabbi (and polymath) Israel Drazin, today’s Judaism isn’t biblical Judaism. As it happens, back in 2018 Rabbi Drazin actually wrote a blog about Professor Shiffman’s book From Text to Tradition, in which Rabbi Drazin said:

The Pharisees, which first appear in history around 150 BCE, had three major characteristics. First, they primarily represented the middle and lower classes. Second, they were not as Hellenized as the upper class and remained mostly Near Eastern in culture. Third, they accepted the nonbiblical customs that had been passed down through the generations, the traditions of the fathers, what the later rabbis called the oral law after adding to these laws.

The Pharisees espoused views that are not mentioned or even hinted [at] in the Torah, but which were later incorporated into rabbinic Judaism.

Or, as it says on the back cover of Professor Shiffman’s book, “From Text to Tradition examines the history of Judaism as it developed from the religion of biblical Israel to the Judaism of the talmudic rabbis.”

So there you have it.  Today’s Judaism is no longer based on the Jewish Bible--today’s Jewish law is based on mitzvot (in this context, mitzvot are commandments) and these mitzvot may come from the Torah, or from the rabbis, or even just from Jewish customs.

I’m sorry to be the one who has to tell you this.

Margot Armer