Judaism is not a uniform or monolithic movement. Once upon a time, Judaism was unified, but the first fracture in the community occurred during the Babylonian captivity, when the Babylonians destroyed the First Temple and, with it, the center of Judaism. This was when synagogues emerged as local places of prayer, and it marked the beginning of scribing the Torah and studying sacred texts. Following the return from captivity and the construction of the Second Temple, a distinction already existed between those who remained loyal to the temple priesthood and those who focused on textual interpretation.

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Table of Contents

1. When Did the First Disagreements Begin?
2. The Cause of the Maccabean Revolt
3. The Maccabean Revolt
4. Why Didn’t the Greeks Send a Larger Army Afterward and Completely Raze Judea?
5. The Fateful Turning Point of Judaism – The Emergence of Sects
6. The Relationship of Jesus of Nazareth Toward the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes
7. The Great Crash: The Destruction of the Temple and the Disappearance of the Sadducees and Essenes
8. How the Pharisees Survived and Created Modern Judaism
9. The Pharisees Copied What They Liked from Jesus’ Teachings, and Then “Patented” It
10. A Holocaust Before the Holocaust
11. Which Religious Movements Centered Around the Torah Exist Today?
12. Which Group of Jews is Cruelly Rejected by All the Mentioned Branches of Judaism and the Church?

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When Did the First Disagreements Begin?

The crucial historical moment for the emergence of discord occurred when Hellenization spread across the land of Israel following the conquests of Alexander the Great. The aristocracy and the priesthood quickly embraced Greek customs, language, and the like, introducing them into Judaism. They believed that Judaism needed to “modernize and adapt to the rest of the empire.” Traditional Jews viewed this as a betrayal of the Lord, because high priests in the Temple sacrificed pigs (unclean animals according to the Torah) to the Greek god Zeus. With the help of the occupying army, the Hellenized priesthood and aristocracy persecuted and killed traditional Jews (Hasidim) right up until the Maccabean Revolt.

The Cause of the Maccabean Revolt

The Greek king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, in collusion with this Jewish Hellenistic priesthood, issued a decree: the Torah was banned, Shabbat was abolished, and anyone who circumcised a child would be put to death.

This triggered a reign of terror against the Hasidim. Hellenized soldiers and their Jewish sympathizers went from village to village, killing pious Jews who refused to eat pork or bow to Greek idols. In the beginning, the Hasidim suffered massive casualties because they refused to fight on Shabbat (the Greeks would simply surround them on Saturdays and slaughter them all).

Since it was Shabbat, these Jews refused not only to attack, but even to defend themselves, or to even block the cave entrance with a stone. Every single one of them was burned alive or cut down.

When the leader of the revolt, the elderly priest Mattathias, heard of this tragedy, he realized that the Greeks would simply use Shabbat to exterminate the entire Jewish people. He and his council then made a “historical and revolutionary decision”:

“If anyone attacks us on the Sabbath day, we will fight against him, so that we do not all perish as our brothers perished in the caves.” (First Book of Maccabees 2:41)

We used quotation marks for “historical and revolutionary decision” because this was not a new commandment, but rather something that already existed in the Torah, in the Fifth Book of Moses:

I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life,

These Jews who perished were convinced that the commandment regarding Shabbat (which is found among the 10 Commandments) was more critical than all the others (including “Therefore choose life…”), even though they also recognized the commandment to preserve life, to act if a neighbor’s blood is shed, and that suicide is a sin (as the commandment states “Thou shalt not kill,” which includes oneself, meaning suicide is treated as a sin).

Regrettably, this is one of the earliest historical examples in Judaism where the letter of the law was fanatically interpreted (though we do not deny that these people were great martyrs). Even Rabbinic Judaism (which generally also interprets every single letter fanatically) recognizes the concept of “Pikuach Nefesh” (the preservation of life) today. According to this concept, for instance, if a Jew were starving to death and the only food available was pork, the Jew would be permitted to eat it. Naturally, it is strictly forbidden to abuse this concept and provoke the wrath of the Lord.

The Maccabean Revolt

Shortly after this decision was made, the elderly Mattathias passed away from old age, and command of the revolt was assumed by his third son – Judas Maccabeus. Judas was a military genius. Realizing that a handful of peasants and believers could not defeat a professional Greek army in an open field, he opted for guerrilla warfare.

The Maccabees deployed tactics that drove the Greeks mad:

1. Ambushes in ravines: They would wait for the Greeks to enter the narrow mountain passes of Judea with their army, and then they would attack them from behind and from the ridges.

2. Night raids: They would strike Greek camps while the soldiers slept.

3. Purging their own ranks: Simultaneously, they carried out a campaign of terror against Jewish Hellenists (traitors), tore down pagan altars in the villages, and forcibly circumcised children.

The Maccabees believed it was pleasing to God to forcibly take children from Hellenistic Jews and circumcise them, as they maintained that no one had the right to strip them of their Jewish identity. However, this concept is completely foreign to the Bible. The parent chooses, and if not the parent, then the child chooses upon reaching adulthood whether to be circumcised. And each person individually chooses whether to accept the covenant with God; the parent decides for themselves and the child for themselves. Yet the Maccabees were fanatical too, believing that a Jew is not a Jew if they are uncircumcised. According to the Bible, ethnic Jews should indeed be circumcised – but not in this manner. They overlooked the fact that the child would still be raised with a non-Jewish mindset under the influence of Hellenized parents, and would only be scandalized by the fact that they were forcibly circumcised.

Nevertheless, let us return to the main topic.

The Greek governor of Syria sent four massive armies, one after the other, to crush the rebellion (the battles of Wadi Haramia, Emmaus, and Beth-Zur). In each of them, despite being vastly outnumbered and better equipped (the Greeks even possessed war elephants), the Seleucid troops suffered catastrophic defeats at the hands of Judas’s guerrilla forces.

The crowning victory (164 B.C.): After defeating the army of the Greek general Lysias at Beth-Zur, a clear path to Jerusalem opened up for Judas. The Maccabees entered the city triumphantly, found the Temple desolated and defiled, cleansed it, tore down the statue of Zeus, and relit the Menorah (the seven-branched candelabrum). The holiday of Hanukkah (the Festival of Lights) originates from this event.

Why Didn’t the Greeks Send a Larger Army Afterward and Completely Raze Judea?

This is an excellent question. The Seleucid Empire (the Greek empire in the Near East) was a massive power that ruled from modern-day Turkey all the way to India. Judea was merely a tiny province to them. They could have sent 100,000 soldiers and finished the job.

Why didn’t they? A perfect storm of political and geopolitical circumstances occurred – God orchestrated the global stage so that the pieces “fell into place” for the Maccabees:

1. The death of a king and the struggle for the throne (Civil War)

Right around the time Judas was winning victories across Judea, the Greek king Antiochus IV Epiphanes (the one who banned the Torah) went on a campaign to the east (Persia) to collect taxes and died there suddenly. Complete chaos erupted over who would inherit the throne in Antioch (the capital of the empire). Governor Lysias and other Greek generals were far too preoccupied fighting each other for power and the crown to deal with a few rebellious Jews in the hills. The internal stability of the empire mattered more to them than Judea.

2. The Greeks went bankrupt

The wars in the east against the Parthians and constant conflicts with Egypt completely drained the Greek treasury. Armies are expensive, and the Seleucids no longer possessed the funds to finance massive, prolonged punitive expeditions in the difficult, mountainous terrain of Judea.

3. A new superpower emerges – Rome!

This is the most historically significant factor. The Roman Republic was becoming the master of the Mediterranean at that time. The Romans kept the Greeks “in their crosshairs” and were constantly breathing down their necks. Judas Maccabeus was politically astute enough to send a delegation to Rome and sign an official military alliance with the Roman Senate! Rome dispatched a letter to the Greeks plainly stating: “If you touch the Jews (our allies), you will have to deal with Rome.” The Greeks simply could not risk a war with the world’s rising superpower.

The Final Outcome

Because of all this, the Greeks eventually shifted their strategy. Instead of attempting to exterminate them, they offered a compromise: they restored religious freedom to the Jews and the right to live according to the Law of the Torah, asking in return only that Judea nominally remain part of the empire and pay taxes.

The Maccabees accepted this, and over time they expelled the Greeks entirely and established an independent Jewish kingdom (the Hasmonean dynasty) that ruled for the next hundred years, until the Romans stepped onto the scene once again and appointed Herod the Great as king.

The Fateful Turning Point of Judaism – The Emergence of Sects

Before we proceed, let us clarify the title, because our goal is not to offend anyone. Once, the word “sect” was not an insult, but a neutral description for a school of thought or a movement. Just as Judaism once implied faith in one God and obedience to all of God’s commandments. Today, that concept is viewed through the prism of ethno-religious belonging that is “inherited from the mother,” or acquired through “conversion and paperwork status” in a religious institution that follows a dogma not aligned with all of God’s revelations (the Tanakh, the New Testament, and the Quran). Naturally, anyone who respects even one of these three books will, through the search for truth, realize that it does not contradict the other two.

Therefore, for the sake of strict objectivity (since searching for truth when studying theology is surely in all our interests, rather than catering to some religious dogma, tradition, or institution), we guide ourselves by the old vocabulary and do not invent new terms. Consequently, we do not use the word “sect” to demean or offend anyone, but to neutrally characterize a movement of teaching that has simply separated itself from an interpretation of sacred texts that does not contradict itself.

Following this disclaimer, let us return to the main topic.

After the Maccabees (specifically Judas’s brothers and successors) expelled the Greeks, they founded the Hasmonean dynasty. It was precisely during this period of their independent rule (140–63 B.C.) that a fateful turning point in the history of Judaism occurred.

Once their power stabilized, the Hasmonean kings, to the utter disappointment of pious Jews, began doing the exact same things as the Greeks before them: they became corrupt, assumed the title of High Priest even though they had no legal right to it (they were not from the lineage of Aaron), and began to Hellenize.

This profound disillusionment with the new Jewish authority led to the final fracturing and division of the people into sects or movements that marked the era in which Jesus Christ lived and directly shaped Judaism as we know it today.

Here are the three main movements (types of Judaism) that emerged or crystallized during this period:

1. Pharisees (The Separated)

They are the successors of those Hasidim (pious peasants) who supported the Maccabees but now turned their backs on them after seeing that the Hasmonean kings had become corrupt.

Their focus: Having lost their influence in the Temple, they focused on synagogues and the common people. They developed the concept of the “Oral Law” (the tradition of the elders). They believed that the Torah could not be interpreted literally, but that God had also given Moses an oral clarification.

Why they matter: They are the direct ancestors of modern, Rabbinic Judaism. The Talmud later emerged from their teachings. Today, when someone says “Judaism,” “rabbi,” or “religious Jew,” they are referring to Talmudic Judaism, a Talmudist rabbi, and a Jew who considers the Talmud a sacred text.

2. Sadducees (The Righteous)

They constituted the aristocracy, the wealthy, and the ruling elite clustered around the new Hasmonean kings and the Temple.

Their focus: Unlike the Pharisees, they recognized exclusively the written letter of the Torah (the Pentateuch) and rejected all oral tradition. They were religiously extremely conservative (they did not believe in the resurrection of the dead or in angels), but politically they were prepared to make any compromise with rulers (later including the Romans) just to maintain control over the Temple and the money.

3. Essenes (The Pious / The Healers)

This was a group of Jews who experienced such shock and disgust at what the Maccabees had turned the Temple into, that they considered all of Jerusalem cursed and religiously defiled.

Their focus: They isolated themselves completely from society. They retreated into the Judean Desert (the most famous community being Qumran) and lived an ascetic life in caves, awaiting God’s judgment, the end of the world, and the arrival of the Messiah.

Why they matter: These were the people who scribed and hid the famous Dead Sea Scrolls (Qumran Manuscripts), which were discovered in the mid-20th century and contain the oldest biblical texts in the world – which are virtually identical to the Bible today, thereby confirming the authenticity of the Bible.

The Relationship of Jesus of Nazareth Toward the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes

In the New Testament, we see clearly that Jesus was in constant interaction with these three groups, but his relationship with each of them was entirely different. Interestingly, even though he had fierce theological clashes with them, ordinary people of that era often perceived him as being closest to the Pharisees in his manner of operating.

Here is a detailed overview of those relationships:

1. Jesus and the Pharisees: Ideologically Close, but in a Fierce Clash Over the “Fine Print”

This is the relationship that confuses people the most, because the heaviest words fly across the Gospels (Jesus calls them “hypocrites,” “whitewashed tombs,” and “brood of vipers”). However, the historical and theological truth is as follows: Jesus was “closest” to the Pharisees out of these three groups in terms of his teaching.

Shared beliefs: Jesus, just like the Pharisees, believed in the resurrection of the dead, the existence of angels and demons, life after death, and the coming of the Messiah. The Sadducees rejected all of this.

Where did the problem arise? The conflict centered around the “Tradition of the Elders” (the Oral Law). The Pharisees had created hundreds of small, rigid rules to “build a fence around the Torah” and prevent sin (e.g., exactly how many steps you are permitted to take on Shabbat, or how to ritually wash hands and cups).

Jesus’s stance: Jesus accused them of losing the core of God’s word – love, mercy, and justice – because of these human regulations. He healed people on Saturdays and violated their human rules regarding purity, stating: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27).

An interesting fact: Not all Pharisees were enemies of Jesus. Nicodemus (who provided the tomb for Jesus) and Joseph of Arimathea were prominent Pharisees and members of the Sanhedrin (the Jewish supreme court) who supported Jesus either secretly or openly.

2. Jesus and the Sadducees: Political Enemies Who Signed His Death Warrant

In the entire New Testament, the Essenes are not directly mentioned even once. Jesus never visited their commune in Qumran, nor did they come to Him. However, the connection between Jesus and the Essenes runs through one pivotal figure – John the Baptist.

The Connection via John the Baptist: John lived in the Judean Desert, close to where the Essenes had their caves. He ate desert food, preached that the judgment of God was imminent, and practiced ritual immersion in water (baptism) for the remission of sins – which is identical to Essene rituals. Many historians believe that John spent some time with the Essenes before beginning his ministry.

Similarities in Teaching: Jesus and early Christianity share many metaphors with the Essenes (which we find in the Dead Sea Scrolls), such as the battle between the “Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness,” the rejection of wealth, and communal property.

The Key Difference: The Essenes were extreme isolationists. They considered all other people sinful, fled into the desert, and hated sinners. Jesus did the exact opposite – He went among the common people, sat with tax collectors, prostitutes, and lepers, saying: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” (Matthew 9:12).

If this sounds contradictory to Jesus’s famous sentence “Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains” (Matthew 24:15-16), we advise you to read this article Do Evangelicals believe that the period of the Great Tribulation is drawing near? Why is their philosophy completely different from that of the monks? .

The Great Crash: The Destruction of the Temple and the Disappearance of the Sadducees and Essenes

In the year 66 A.D. (about thirty years after Jesus), the people’s fury toward the Roman occupation and corrupt domestic rulers finally exploded. The First Jewish-Roman War (The Great Jewish Revolt) broke out. The people were led into war by the Zealots – a fanatical, radical wing that believed God would intervene militarily if the Jews raised the sword against Rome.

The outcome was apocalyptic. The Roman general (and future emperor) Titus besieged Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Following a brutal siege and horrific starvation within the walls, Roman legions breached the city. Jerusalem was razed to the ground, and the Second Temple was set ablaze and completely destroyed.

This event spelled the immediate death of two out of the three Jewish sects:

• The Sadducees vanished forever: Since their power, wealth, and religious identity depended exclusively on the Temple and the offering of sacrifices, with the fall of the Temple they lost their very reason for existence. There was no longer an altar, no money-changing, and no elite. The people hated them anyway for collaborating with the Romans. The Sadducees were literally wiped from history in a single day.

• The Essenes were wiped out in the desert: During the suppression of the revolt, Roman legions swept through the Judean Desert and Qumran. The Essene commune was destroyed, and its members were killed or displaced. The only thing left behind them were the Dead Sea Scrolls, which they hurriedly concealed in caves before the Roman swords arrived.

By that point, the Christians (the apostles and early believers) had already separated from the mainstream and, following Jesus’s prophecy regarding the fall of Jerusalem, fled the city before the siege to a place called Pella (modern-day Jordan), thereby surviving the catastrophe.

Amid the ruins of Israel, only one group of Jews remained.

How the Pharisees Survived and Created Modern Judaism

The only group that survived the Roman pogrom was the Pharisees. How did they manage it?

While Jerusalem was burning, one of the leading Pharisaic rabbis, Yohanan ben Zakkai, realized that the war was lost and that the people would biologically perish if everyone died on the walls. According to tradition, he faked his own death, his disciples carried him out of besieged Jerusalem in a coffin, and he stepped right before the Roman general Vespasian.

Ben Zakkai asked for only one thing: “Give me the vineyard of Yavne (Jamnia) so that I may open a small school there and study the Torah with my disciples.” To the Romans, who were weary of war, this sounded harmless, and they agreed.

In the city of Yavne, the Pharisees carried out a complete overhaul of Judaism and adapted it to survival without a Temple, without a state, and in dispersion (the Diaspora):

• THE SUBSTITUTE FOR SACRIFICE: Since there was no longer a Temple to offer lambs for sins, the Pharisees declared that prayer, acts of charity, and the study of the Torah were the new and 100% complete substitute for temple sacrifices.

• A STRONG FOCUS ON SYNAGOGUES: Instead of a single center in Jerusalem, synagogues in every village and city across the globe became the new centers of Jewish life.

• CODIFICATION OF THE TALMUD: To preserve their identity in exile, the Pharisaic rabbis sat down and wrote down all that “Oral Law” (Tradition of the Elders) over which Jesus had clashed with them. This recorded tradition first became the Mishnah, and later, combined with commentaries, the Talmud.

All of the modern Judaism you see in the world today – whether it is Orthodox Jews with black hats and sidelocks, or Reform Jews – are the direct theological descendants of the ancient Pharisees. Today, when someone says Judaism, they mean Rabbinic (Pharisaic) Judaism.

The Pharisees Copied What They Liked from Jesus’ Teachings, and Then “Patented” It

When we look at what the Pharisees did in the city of Yavne after the destruction of the Temple, we arrive at a staggering conclusion: they copied, adapted, and “patented” under their own name a concept that was already fully operational among Jesus and the apostles while the Temple and the altar were still standing.

While the Temple was running at full capacity, Jesus went among the people and taught them that mere animal sacrifices matter nothing to God if the heart is corrupt. When the Pharisees were left without a Temple, they found themselves in a theological dead end – how could they justify their existence and the survival of the nation without the shedding of blood for sins?

Instead of admitting that Jesus was right, they introduced a radical change overnight:

• “Patenting” the Substitute for Sacrifice

The Pharisaic rabbis declared that prayer (tefillah), good deeds (tzedakah), and the study of the Torah were a 100% replacement for temple sacrifices. This is a historical absurdity, as these were the very same people who previously persecuted the early Christians for claiming that the temple system with the blood of animals had become obsolete. The Pharisees took the principle of spiritual worship, stripped Jesus out of it, and presented it to the people as their own “new invention” for survival.

• Hijacking the Synagogue Network

While Jesus was alive, the Temple was the power center of the Sadducean and Pharisaic elite, whereas Jesus’s movement spread through the grassroots – via local synagogues, homes, and among the common people. After 70 A.D., the Pharisees literally copied this model. Since Jerusalem was no more, they relocated entirely into local synagogues across the world (the Diaspora). The synagogue suddenly stopped being just a local reading room for the Law and became the official, central pillar of Rabbinic Judaism.

• Recording the “Oral Law” as a Countermeasure

Jesus sharply criticized their “tradition of the elders” and the human regulations that were transmitted orally. However, seeing that Christianity was rapidly expanding because it possessed written Gospels and epistles, the Pharisaic rabbis realized they would lose control over the people in exile unless they wrote down their own rules too. This is how the Mishnah, and later the Talmud, came to be. They wrote down the exact human tool that Jesus had risen against, with the goal of erecting a religious wall to prevent Jews from converting to Christianity.

The Ultimate Outcome: The Pharisees created a rigid institution – modern Rabbinic Judaism. They adopted the form of decentralized operation through synagogues and the teaching that acts of mercy replace the temple cult, but they locked it all within the shackles of the Talmud. They built a system in which the rabbi holds absolute authority over the believer’s consciousness, thereby “patenting” a religion that outwardly looked ready for a new age, but inwardly remained mere textual interpretation – used not for the purpose of seeking the truth, but for the fanatical goal of preserving tradition as a fence against non-Jews. This is partly justified, because non-Jews distorted the biblical message, blended it with their pagan religions, and used the name of Jesus for the Inquisition. However, what we are criticizing here is the objectivity of Pharisaic Judaism, even while acknowledging it was historically the key to preserving the Jews as a people. Whether it could have been done better is a different topic, and it is easy to be a backseat general after the battle is over.

A Holocaust Before the Holocaust

A moment ago we mentioned the First Jewish-Roman War, but in total there were actually three! Here they are in brief:

1. The First Jewish-Roman War (66–73 A.D.) — “The Great Revolt”

   What happened: This is the one we just discussed. The Zealots raised an insurrection, and the Romans, under the leadership of Titus in 70 A.D., razed Jerusalem and set fire to the Second Temple.

   End of the war: The war officially ended only in 73 A.D. with the famous siege of the Masada fortress in the desert, where the last group of about 960 Zealots committed mass suicide so as not to fall into Roman hands.

2. The Kitos War (115–117 A.D.) — “The Rebellion of the Diaspora”

   What happened: While the Romans were fighting in the east against the Parthians, Jews living in dispersion (Cyrene, Egypt, Cyprus, Mesopotamia) launched massive, brutal uprisings. This was not a war within Judea itself, but inside Roman provinces.

   Outcome: The clashes were incredibly bloody, leaving hundreds of thousands dead on both sides. Roman generals eventually brutally crushed these rebellions, and the Jews were subsequently banned by law from setting foot on the island of Cyprus.

3. The Bar Kokhba Revolt (132–136 A.D.) — “The Final Collapse”

   What happened: This was the peak of the tragedy and a direct confirmation of the fatality of the Pharisees’ terrible theology. The Roman Emperor Hadrian decided to build a pagan city on the ruins of Jerusalem and banned circumcision. At that point, the Jews in Judea launched a new, even larger revolt under the leadership of a man officially named Simon bar Kokhba.

   Where is the Pharisaic superstition in this? The greatest Pharisaic rabbi of that era, Rabbi Akiva (who is considered a hero in modern Judaism), officially proclaimed Bar Kokhba as the Messiah! He told the people that Bar Kokhba was the promised king who would defeat Rome.

   Catastrophic outcome: The Romans deployed as many as 12 legions. Bar Kokhba and Rabbi Akiva were killed, over 580,000 Jews perished in battles, and Judea was completely devastated.

Which Religious Movements Centered Around the Torah Exist Today?

Traditional Streams (Rabbinic Judaism)

These are the direct successors of the Pharisaic theology and the Talmud that we mentioned:

• 1. Orthodox Judaism: They believe that the Torah (both written and oral) is the direct word of God and that the laws cannot be altered. It is divided into two crucial subgroups:
• 2. Modern Orthodox: They adhere to all the laws but are fully integrated into modern society, attend secular universities, and wear civilian clothing.
• 3. Ultra-Orthodox (Haredi): Total isolation from the modern world, distinctive black clothing, hats, and long sidelocks (peot).
  • Hasidic Judaism (Hasidism): This is an ultra-Orthodox but highly specific mystical movement that originated in Eastern Europe in the 18th century. The focus is on emotions, song, dance, and Kabbalah.
• 4. Chabad-Lubavitch: This is one of the largest and best-known Hasidic dynasties/groups today. They are unique because they are globally active (present all over the world) and attempt to bring secular Jews back to the faith.

Modern / Progressive Streams (Originated in the West)

These are movements that emerged mostly in Germany and America during the 19th and 20th centuries as an attempt to adapt Judaism to the modern era:

• 5. Reform (Progressive / Liberal) Judaism: The largest movement in the US. They do not consider the Torah and the Talmud as literal dictation from God, but as historical documents. They view dietary laws (kosher) and Shabbat as matters of personal choice rather than obligations.

     This is similar to a “liberal-pro-LGBT” church, except it involves a synagogue rather than a church. Today, they have female rabbis, perform marriages for LGBT couples, and are completely aligned with Western liberalism. The opinion of other branches of Judaism regarding them is extremely negative; traditionalists consider them an assimilated and apostate group that, by discarding the Torah and commandments for the sake of modern trends, has committed spiritual suicide and severed all ties with the original covenant.

• 6. Conservative Judaism: They are the “middle ground” between Orthodox and Reform. They believe the laws must be kept, but maintain that Jewish law (Halakha) must historically evolve and adapt to the times (e.g., they permit driving a car to the synagogue on Shabbat).

The Anti-Talmudic Stream (The Exception)

• 7. Karaite Judaism (The Karaites): They represent a massive exception because they are the only surviving non-Pharisaic movement. They emerged in the 8th century. They reject the Talmud and the Oral Law, recognizing exclusively the written Tanakh (the Old Testament). They read the text themselves and interpret it literally (e.g., they do not turn on lights or light fires on Shabbat at all, whereas Rabbinic Jews use timers). Today, most of them live in Israel (originally from Egypt) and in Crimea.

Non-Jewish Monotheists

When speaking of the Torah (the Law), Rabbinic Judaism has created a myth that it is exclusively their private property. However, the truth is that both Christians and Muslims – the two largest monotheistic religions in the world, numbering billions of non-Jews – ground their faith precisely upon the texts and events recorded in the Torah. Yet, the way they accept and practice it differs drastically.

Christians

The relationship of traditional Christianity toward the Torah is probably the most complicated and contradictory theological concept in history. Christians officially consider the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament) to be the holy and divinely inspired word, but in practice, they believe that Jesus’s coming fundamentally transformed the way that Law is applied.

The main characteristics of their teaching are:

• The Law is fulfilled, not abolished: Christians hold to Jesus’s words that He did not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill them (Matthew 5:17). However, under the influence of subsequent misinterpretations of the words of the Apostle Paul, the church formed the stance that Christ represents “the end of the Law” in terms of justification. This means that a person receives salvation solely through faith in Christ’s sacrifice, and not through keeping the laws of the Torah.

• Division of the Law (Selection): To justify why it does not keep most of the commandments, the church over the centuries divided the Torah into three parts: moral, ceremonial, and civil law.

  • The moral law (such as the Ten Commandments) is considered eternal and binding for all Christians.

  • The ceremonial and civil laws (animal sacrifice, circumcision, specific laws regarding purity and food) were declared obsolete. The church claims these commandments were merely a “shadow” of what was to come and were abolished by Christ’s death on the cross.

• Changing Shabbat and Holidays: The church made its greatest departure from the Torah when, under the influence of Hellenization and Roman emperors, it replaced the seventh day of rest (Shabbat) with the pagan “day of the sun” – Sunday, and replaced biblical holidays (such as Passover) with Christmas and Easter, which are infused with the pagan customs of the nations that accepted Christianity (e.g., the custom of coloring eggs is 100% pagan and has absolutely nothing to do with the Bible).

In short, traditional Christians believe in the Torah as a historical and moral foundation, but maintain that non-Jews have no obligation to keep its ritual laws. For instance, Christians do not practice circumcision, and they eat pork and other unclean animals. They believe that Jesus declared all things clean, including insects, which is a pathological lie. God would never send someone to tell people it is normal to eat unhealthy food not intended for consumption, and the Bible proves this with the verse:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (Matthew 5:17)

Christian theologians who justify the abolition of dietary laws most frequently quote the Gospel of Mark 7:19:

“Thus Jesus declared all foods clean.”

However, in historical and textual context, Jesus is not speaking there about pork or insects (which were not even considered food by the Jews of that era), but about a Pharisaic invented law regarding the ritual washing of hands before meals.

Muslims

Unlike Christians, Muslims have a completely different, much more direct and cleaner theological approach to the Torah, which they refer to in the Quran as the Tawrat. Islam views Moses (Musa) as one of God’s greatest messengers, and the Tawrat itself as a pure divine revelation given to the Israelites.

The main characteristics of the Islamic stance toward the Torah are:

The Concept of Tahrif (Alteration of the text): This is a crucial difference. While Christians accept the Jewish text of the Old Testament as accurate, Muslims believe in the concept of tahrif – that Jewish scribes and rabbis over the centuries partially altered, concealed, or distorted the original text of the Tawrat that God revealed to Moses. Therefore, Muslims consider the Torah holy in its original form, but take the current text of the Bible with a grain of salt, accepting only what is in complete harmony with the Quran.

The Quran as the Ultimate Criterion (Furkan): Islam teaches that the Quran came as “Furkan” – a criterion and judge that corrects all human errors and deviations that slipped into Jewish and Christian scriptures. Whatever in the Torah was local in character for the children of Israel, the Quran replaced with a universal law for all of humanity.

Practical Similarity to the Torah: Although Muslims do not read the Torah during their prayers, Islam in practice has retained an incredible number of elements from the Mosaic law – far more than Christianity. Muslims maintain a strict ban on pork and blood (halal diet, which is almost identical to kosher), practice mandatory circumcision of male children, have rigorous laws regarding ritual purity (wudu/washing before prayer), and adhere to a strict, uncompromising monotheism that rejects every form of idolatry and pictorial depiction of God.

For Muslims, the Torah was a perfect law for its time and for the Jewish people, but with the arrival of Muhammad and the Quran, that revelation was sealed and elevated to the status of a law applicable to all nations of the world, without the need for rabbinic Talmudic interpretations.

Which Group of Jews is Cruelly Rejected by All the Mentioned Branches of Judaism and the Church?

There is a specific group of people who find themselves in an absolute theological and social vacuum – persecuted and rejected by everyone. These are the Messianic Jews (Jews who believe that Jesus, or Yeshua, is the promised Messiah, yet still retain their Jewish identity, keep Shabbat, and observe the Torah). The word “Christianity” in Greek means “Messianism,” so it is linguistically accurate to call them Christian Jews or Jewish Christians as well. Although by that same terminology a large portion of Chabad-Lubavitch are also messianists (in Greek, the word “messianists” means “Christians”), with the only difference being that they do not believe Jesus is the messiah (in Greek: “christ”), but rather their deceased leader Menachem Mendel Schneerson.

The position of Jews who believe in Jesus exposes the ultimate, almost surreal absurdity of modern Rabbinic Judaism.

In the Jewish world today, you can be an ethnic Jew (by birth to a Jewish mother) and simultaneously be a militant atheist, believe that anyone other than Jesus is the messiah, be a pro-LGBT activist, a hardened criminal, or even an open satanist – and no one will strip away your right to call yourself a Jew. The State of Israel will grant you citizenship, and the community will accept you as “one of our own, even if he has gone astray.”

However, if a Jew appears who lives an impeccably moral life, keeps all 613 commandments of the Torah, observes Shabbat and the holidays, but believes that Jesus is the Messiah – he is immediately and cruelly excommunicated. There is no room for him in the synagogue, and the Supreme Court of Israel officially denies him the Right of Return and citizenship under the pretext that he has “changed his religion.” The rabbinic system would literally rather embrace a criminal or a satanist who is an ethnic Jew than the most pious keeper of the Torah who confesses Jesus (an identical example occurred when the Jews released Barabbas and chose to have Jesus crucified).

On the flip side, traditional Christian churches often do not view them favorably either, suspecting them of “Judaizing” because they observe Shabbat and biblical holidays instead of Sunday and church dogmas.

This fanatical stance of placing form and blind hatred above substance and morality represents a classic trait of that original Pharisaic Judaism against which Jesus fought. It is precisely due to this stubborn rejection of truth that God throughout history had to withdraw His supernatural protection from the Jewish people and allow massive, horrific suffering – not out of a whim, but as a drastic attempt to bring the people to their senses and make them realize where they are erring.

Yet, it seems that to this day they have not understood the pivotal thing: why God chose them and why throughout entire history they bear the heavy status of martyrs. Unlike them, Muslims – who are also strict monotheists and do not accept Jesus as the Son of God, but revere Him as the great Messiah (Al-Masih) and a prophet – have not passed through that type of historical and theological wandering and rejection of their own roots. Pharisaic Judaism locked itself into an eternal defensive posture, unaware that in its fight against Jesus, it lost its own purpose and the peace that God promised to His people.