Judaism – it is time for a change. Part 1

(4960 words)

One of the saddest things for me to witness is how the Judaism I love has changed, distancing itself from its unmediated connection with the Creator of all, and becoming just another human religion. What are the reasons for this? Their roots lie deep in history.

The intent of this post is not to offend any denomination or individual, but rather to encourage Israel to find its true calling.

So let’s begin:

1. The Nation’s Leaders According to the Torah

According to the Torah, the priests (Kohanim) and Levites are meant to lead Israel, alongside prophets appointed on God’s behalf. Additionally, God would occasionally raise up judges or mighty warriors in response to specific, emerging needs. However, during the early centuries BCE, the Pharisaic movement emerged, seized leadership, and altered the biblical Judaism that had been practiced until then.

The Pharisaic movement initially arose in opposition to the priestly leadership in the Temple, as the priesthood had grown corrupt over the years and consequently lost its spiritual relevance. Yet, the transfer of leadership from the priests (the Sadducees) to the Pharisees brought about far-reaching spiritual changes, and above all, created a direct contradiction with the Torah.

The original leadership structure contained profound, divine wisdom and indispensable checks and balances. This balance was achieved when, on the one hand, there was a class of people destined from birth to lead the nation spiritually and serve in the sanctuary (the priests and Levites). Free from the burdens of earning a livelihood, they were educated from infancy in the deep-rooted traditions of the priestly households for this exact purpose.

On the other hand, God personally appointed prophets and judges whose authority was not inherited, nor was it granted by lineage, tradition, habit, or any electoral system. The role of the prophets and judges was, among other things, to balance the priests’ tendency to fall into corruption after years of service.

For their part, the priests contributed to this delicate balance by providing stability—a constant that did not rely on the personal prestige of any specific leader, but was deeply rooted in generational tradition, originating at Mount Sinai and the word of God to Moses.

This leadership, in all its parts, was meant to teach the Torah to the people—not merely from the written text, but by bringing the contemporary, living, and ever-renewing word of God to the nation. The priests did this through the Urim and Thummim; the prophets and judges through visions received from above.

Prophets generally arose when the nation strayed from the path and God saw a need for correction. The enemies of Israel served as the sign of this deviation, prompting the prophets, judges, or mighty warriors—personally appointed by God—to deliver the necessary corrections in His name. Later, the role of the judges transitioned to kings, though kings, by their very nature, are far less suited for this task.

The leaders were meant to be the mouthpiece and the medium through which God Himself guided the nation in every matter—from the grand to the minute, from the collective to the personal life of every individual. Every person in Israel was supposed to feel that God Himself was leading them and the entire nation, while the human leaders were meant to be virtually transparent. According to the Torah, the Hebrew leader is merely a conduit. There is no emphasis or public attention drawn to his personal life, character, or talents; the only relevant aspect was his degree of loyalty to God and to the messages he relayed back and forth, or the deeds he performed in God’s name.

Anyone examining the description of Moses’ leadership—the nature of what the Torah says about him, and especially what it does not say—can see exactly how a Hebrew leader should be presented to the public. The only personal story about Moses that the Pentateuch dwells upon is the story of his birth, upbringing, and exile, culminating in his appointment through a direct revelation from God at the burning bush. The Torah details this solely to emphasize that Moses’ calling to leadership, from the moment of his birth to his appointment, was a calling from above. His appointment was by God, through clear revelation and supernatural signs. This same standard must be evident for any other leader: it must be undeniably clear that God appointed him, not men.

Prophets, judges, and kings must be appointed by God because He alone is meant to initiate corrections and select the appropriate individuals for the specific circumstances and reforms He wishes to enact. The appointment of priests and Levites, conversely, occurs automatically through priestly lineage. Yet even here, it was God who pointed to the specific family within the tribe of Levi that was meant to lead.

Later, God also appointed kings on His behalf because the people insisted on transitioning to monarchic rule instead of judges. This, in itself, was a distortion of the original intention, as kings naturally preoccupy themselves with their image, politics, and ego, rather than actively listening to the word of God. Therefore, even then, God expressed His displeasure regarding this through the prophet Samuel.

2. Who Are the Pharisees?

However, at some point during the latter days of the Second Temple, this described leadership structure broke down severely. The priests became corrupt. True prophets were stoned and persecuted, and false prophets rose in their place. Kings established dynasties that were not directly appointed by God (unlike Saul, David, or Solomon), and Israel strayed drastically from its path. The Pharisees saw this situation and wanted to fix it. But because they were neither priests, nor prophets, nor judges or kings directly appointed by God, they created a new category within Judaism that does not exist in the Torah: scholars, who added an extraneous interpretation to the commandments, obsessed over minor details, and introduced novel rulings.

The source of the Pharisees’ power and authority was—and still is—their mastery of details and their scholarship, rather than direct divine revelation. This is where the root of the problem lies. However virtuous, God-fearing, and talented these leaders may be, their authority and power remain strictly human in origin. Consequently, Judaism became, and is increasingly becoming today, just another human religion. It lacks spiritual power and is losing its global uniqueness as a faith based on a living, direct divine revelation.

This contrast is glaringly obvious when reading the Hebrew Bible, where phrases like “Thus says the Lord” or “And God said to Moses” (or to Samuel, etc.) are used frequently, along with “And God appeared to Abraham” (or Moses, Jacob, etc.). There is no other religion, denomination, or faith in the world that describes direct speech or unmediated divine revelation to individuals—priests, prophets, and even common people. However, since the rise of the Pharisees, these unique elements have vanished from all their writings and from the daily lives of both the leaders and the nation.

In this context, we can look at Rebecca—a simple woman, a shepherd’s daughter. Naturally and clearly, in her own language—not through a rabbi, a prayer book (Siddur), or a dictated prayer—she went to “inquire of the Lord” (Genesis 25:22).

Rebecca sought the direct, living word of God to explain the struggle of the two fetuses within her womb, and she received an immediate answer directly from God Himself. She did not engage in mysticism, Kabbalah, or numerology (Gematria). She did not go seeking a ‘blessing’ from a ‘righteous man’ (Tzadik), nor did she ascend to any spiritual ‘orchard’ (Pardes) or ‘spheres’ (Sefirot). All these practices distinctly belong to foreign doctrines, yet they took root in Pharisaic Judaism as an attempt to substitute simple, direct revelation.

The only source for the power Rebecca received from above (a power capable of granting wisdom, heroism, knowledge, supernatural abilities, and more) is the power of the Shekhinah (the Divine Presence). She would never have received this power from any rabbi, tradition, or through ‘Torah study.’ God brought down His Shekhinah upon Abraham following the covenant He made with him. This covenant and the Shekhinah passed from Abraham to Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, Joseph, and onward—to those who chose it, while those who did not were cast out along the way. Later, a renewed covenant was made at Sinai, and the Shekhinah descended upon the nation by virtue of the service in the Temple (and here too, the Shekhinah rested only upon those who chose to remain faithful to this service, not indiscriminately on every individual in Israel). There is no covenant with God without the Shekhinah descending clearly for all to see, and there is no Shekhinah without a covenant. Therefore, a Jewish leadership that is not clearly anointed by His Holy Spirit does not know how to speak His word. Because they did not perform the covenant-making process correctly, they cannot impart the Spirit onto the people. (For the question of how the covenant should be made today to merit direct revelation of God through the Shekhinah, like Rebecca did, see the post on this subject: here – Hebrew version).

Note that the answer given to Rebecca, like to many others during the biblical era, was specific and precise, and its accuracy could be tested and proven. It was not a generic answer in the vein of “God said everything will be fine”—the kind occasionally heard in the modern era from false prophets, rabbis, and community leaders. It is not that God cannot say that everything will be fine, but rather that such generic answers do not indicate whether God actually spoke to the speaker or if they merely heard it in their own imagination.

Today, because the covenant was not renewed in accordance with the Torah, and because Jewish leaders are rabbis rather than God-appointed priests, prophets, or judges, the living words of God is absent, and the spiritual leaders are appointed by humans (or by themselves). In this situation, the question arises: Am I, as a believer, supposed to accept their laws and teachings? After all, the prophet Jeremiah already warned: “This is what the Lord says: ‘Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the Lord. That person will be like a bush in the wastelands; they will not see prosperity when it comes. They will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him. They will be like a tree planted by the water…'” (Jeremiah 17:5-8).

According to the Torah, I must only accept spiritual guidance from those who clearly and directly convey the word of God, acting according to the rules He established.

Over the years, especially after the destruction of the Temple—when the priests permanently lost their source of power—the Pharisaic stream became the exclusive stream in Judaism. Today, we know no other Judaism. But the God of Israel is always faithful to His Torah and His path; therefore the question is: Are we willing to let go of the exilic ways and return to the source? Are we willing to return to Him?

3. What Are the Foundational Principles of Judaism?

According to the Torah, it is completely impossible to conduct public or private Jewish life without priests and Levites alongside judges and prophets, and these cannot function without a Temple and the offering of sacrifices. The Temple is the only spiritual engine capable of bringing the Shekhinah of God to dwell in Israel. Without the Shekhinah, God is not present, nor does He appoint leaders. Therefore the Pharisees are neither authorized nor capable of building a Temple.

Therefore, it does not matter what substitutes were invented over the years of the exile: praying three times a day in a synagogue instead of the priests’ daily Temple service; performing ‘Kaparot’ (atonement rituals) on Yom Kippur instead of the High Priest entering the Holy of Holies with the sacrificial blood to atone for the nation; eating the head of a fish, a lamb, or anything else on Passover instead of the actual Passover sacrifice commanded in the Torah; lighting Shabbat candles and presenting two Challah loaves instead of the Showbread and the lighting of the seven-branched Menorah, which the priests were commanded to perform on Shabbat in the Temple. All these substitutes are invalid because they were not given by God at Sinai, nor by prophets explicitly appointed by Him, but rather by scholars searching for replacements for the real thing.

According to the Torah, without the Temple service, there is no atonement for sins. Therefore, the entire nation, including the Pharisaic rabbis, remains in a state of impurity, and the Shekhinah distances itself from them. If so, what is the point of synagogues? What is the point of observing Sabbaths and holidays when God is neither present nor listening? What is the point when He is not with you in the Sukkah, on Shabbat, or on a holiday through His Shekhinah?

In the past, the Shekhinah would descend upon true prophets, judges, and kings appointed by the God of Israel through direct revelation. The descent of the Shekhinah also purified them and granted them the necessary skills to perform their duties—not merely through human effort, but with heavenly valor. For example, one can witness the clear power of the Shekhinah operating in the training, appointment, and actions of Samuel, Gideon, David, the prophet Ezekiel, Jonah, and others. Today, we do not see this power at work, neither among the leaders nor among the people, because Judaism has lost the power meant to operate within it—namely, God Himself—and has become just another religion, a form of idolatry (Avodah Zarah). Today, the God of Israel does not send people on His behalf, does not uniquely purify them with His Shekhinah, and does not verbally deliver His word to them. This is because the people of Israel, religious and secular alike, do not seek to observe His Torah according to what was given at Sinai, but instead settle for the substitutes provided by the Pharisaic rabbis. Yet, every such substitute is akin to turning one’s back and saying “no” to God.

When there is a fundamental spiritual problem, what happens over time is that distortion piles upon distortion because the root is out of place. The Pharisees, who evolved over the years into the rabbis we know today, had to solidify their authority by adding interpretations, prohibitions, and laws spiced with fairy tales, convoluted logic (Pilpul), and mysticism mixed with superstition. None of these elements were characteristic of pre-Pharisaic culture; rather, they are the hallmarks of foreign doctrines.

Lacking a Temple and lacking the Shekhinah, the Pharisees had to shift the focus of worship to prohibitions and ‘commandments’. Over the years, they added so many rules and restrictions that a Jew wishing to observe them drowns in a sea of laws, requiring a rabbi to explain what must be done. However, the Torah does not demand this level of pedantic precision. Instead, it desires that the believer—while adhering to the written word to the best of their knowledge, even without understanding everything—simply does the best they personally know how. This is the true service of the heart!

Personal worship of God is meant to be predominantly internal (an inner process), not external. What does the God of Israel care if one wears this or that specific type of Tzitzit or Tefillin? Why would He want dictated prayers read from a Siddur if what He truly seeks is the believer’s heart and the personal, internal process they are undergoing? According to the Torah and throughout the entire biblical era, there were no prayer books. When an individual wanted to pray, they did so: (a) in private, (b) in their own words, and (c) whenever they wished to be close to their God, not at predetermined times.

Physical, external, ritualistic, and fixed actions are not meant to be the focus of the individual believer’s life at all. The center of gravity for most practical, ritual, and symbolic commandments is meant to be in the Temple, for that is where the public and ceremonial connection to the God of Israel occurs. The connection there is made in a principled and symbolic manner (through a variety of ritual actions), though the private individual also played a part in this, such as when ascending to the Temple three times a year to offer a sacrifice. However, the daily center of gravity for the private individual is the effort to find their personal path to drawing near and building a personal relationship with God.

Therefore, in the Torah, the instructions for observing the personal commandments between man and God (unlike the public Temple service) are given in general terms, with very little detail and ample room for personal interpretation—each person according to their place in the process and the unique way they are spiritually built.

To guide this believers’ lifelong journey, the God of Israel precisely crafted the Torah’s language. He chose specific words, deliberately omitted others, and expanded or condensed the text exactly where needed. He did this to allow the believer to craft his own personal dialogue with Him. Yet today, this profound internal process—the very heart of the commandment—has been lost. Instead of seeking a personal lesson, believers simply memorize man-made additions and subtractions.

The result is that no trace of God’s original Spirit remains, and we have entirely lost the feeling and intention that observing the commandment was meant to evoke. Often, it is precisely the more abstract element—the one not rigidly fixed, the one that is more personal, less perfectly clear, and requiring internal exploration—that the God of Israel intended for us to pursue.

4. How Did Judaism Change?

In the days of Moses, for instance, there were no ‘streams,’ differing opinions, or denominations. Anyone who denied what Moses commanded was simply destroyed (see Korah and his rebellion). This is how it works when the Shekhinah is present and God decides, not men. But when there are arguments and diverging opinions, you can be sure that the Torah being followed is a Torah of men. After all, the entire Mishnah and Talmud are based on these debates and the personal opinions of this or that rabbi. The teachings of men are always accompanied by doubt and human weaknesses, such as the lust for power, honor, or wealth. Consequently, leaders tend to rigidify the rules, focusing on the dead letter rather than the spirit, adding stringencies and trying to be overly meticulous in order to mask the underlying doubt and weakness. For example, the futile attempt to provide precise, clear, and uniform instructions on how to observe Shabbat, empties the concept of Shabbat of its core essence and intention in the Torah.

How do I know this is the case? Because I read the Torah. Every reader is invited to examine and investigate this. For instance: why are there microscopic details in the Torah on how to perform a sacrifice in the Temple, including the specifics of the priest’s garments, the location of the altar, its dimensions, how it is built, and so on? Yet, regarding the Sabbath—which is undoubtedly one of the pillars of Judaism and one of the Ten Commandments—there are only two or three very brief verses meant to contain all the laws of Shabbat? The answer is that this was God’s intention when He dictated the Torah to Moses. Had He wanted humans to expand upon it, add to it, or subtract from it, He would have appointed someone of Moses’ spiritual magnitude and empowered them to perform signs, so that it would be unequivocally clear that God was speaking through them.

Naturally, the Pharisees understand this principle as well, which is why there are stories of supernatural feats attributed to this or that rabbi. But these are fairy tales. How do I know that these are fairy tales while the biblical narratives are not? Because I know the God of Israel and how He operates. Whenever God performs a supernatural act, He always takes one hundred percent of the credit, doing so to glorify His own name, not the name of the person holding the position. Whereas among the Pharisees, the story always serves to glorify the rabbi’s name and give him the credit.

Still we can ask the question: If God did not intend for us to be pedantic and stringent with the details of the personal commandments, why does the Torah tell the story of the man who went out to gather wood on Shabbat and was stoned to death (Numbers 15:32)? After all, one could argue that this was simply his personal interpretation of the commandment. The answer is that he acted with clear rebellious intent. David, on the other hand, when fleeing from Saul, ate the holy bread designated for the priests—an act forbidden by the Torah—yet was not punished (1 Samuel 21:7). Why? Because David committed the act out of distress, not out of rebellion.

This story also illustrates the vital need for the Shekhinah. For here the Torah testifies about itself: it is not words, letters, or human beings that should judge between one act and another, but rather God, through the power of His Shekhinah.

However, because the power of the Shekhinah is not at the Pharisees’ disposal, they must argue that their interpretations and ordinances constitute an “Oral Torah” given at Sinai, delivered orally because it was impossible to write everything in a book.

But we have clearly refuted this argument, as the Torah does detail the sacrificial services precisely. When it wishes to be specific it has no problem doing so. Then in the laws of Shabbat for the individual, the details of what to do are intentionally omitted. The general directive in the Torah is to cease daily labor, work for livelihood, or earthly matters on this day, and instead engage in the internal work that is Shabbat.

Let the believer sit on the Sabbath day, set aside all other concerns, meditate or try to understand the meaning of it. What is its significance? What work, correction, tuning, or purification is the Sabbath meant to perform in the soul? Why the principle of Shabbat is so crucially important? Why is it written that on this day the Holy One also rested, and not just man? Surely the Almighty does not tire, so why does He need to rest?

The Temple service, conversely, is a public, communal, and less personal work. There, the God of Israel does demand precision, uniformity in execution, and ritualism. That is why there is meticulous detail there.

Under the Pharisees, these concepts are lost. Thus, in place of God’s clear presence; they had to declare that their authority overrides that of the Torah given at Sinai, and even that of God Himself. Otherwise, how could they explain why Moses, for example, didn’t write in the Torah: ‘Although I am writing “You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk,” you must know that an Oral Torah was also given, and there it means something completely different? Furthermore, the prophets—who over long chapters in the Bible rebuke the nation for a variety of crimes and sins—never once mentioned or referenced any ‘Oral Torah,’ any issue with mixing meat and milk, or any other later rabbinic laws developed by the Pharisee. They rebuked the nation and detailed their sins always and exclusively regarding this or that commandment only from the written Law of Moses. Additionally, no other Jewish text external to the Torah mentions the existence of an Oral Torah until the time of the Pharisees. But from the Pharisaic period onward, in all their writings, the focus is almost exclusively on the ‘Oral Torah,’ while the original Torah is barely mentioned and rarely studied.

It is important to add that the historical distortion I am describing was not without purpose. The God of Israel allowed this distortion to occur for His own reasons. The Pharisaic movement arose shortly before the destruction of the Second Temple and enabled the people of Israel to endure the exile, surviving as a nation and a culture. In the absence of a Temple and the Shekhinah, it managed to preserve the original Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings. However, today Israel has returned to its land, and it is clear that the time has come to correct these exilic distortions and return to the original Judaism in order to restore the God of Israel and His Shekhinah to His people.

It must be understood that two thousand years ago, God went into exile from His people, and we have yet to emerge from this ongoing exile, even though we are sitting in the Holy Land. This is an absurdity. The exile is meant to end, and the time has come. All biblical prophecies inextricably link the physical return to Zion with the return of God to dwell among the people, and this absurdity must cease. According to biblical prophecies, the Temple is supposed to be built even before the coming of the Messiah. The Messiah will not come if there is no Temple! Therefore, the hope held by some—that the Messiah will be the one to solve all these problems, including the political issues surrounding the building of the Temple—is a false hope.

It is crucial to understand that exile means God is not present. Therefore, from a spiritual perspective, we have returned to a pre-Sinai state. Today, we are in a situation as if God brought us out of slavery in Egypt—which, for us, is the two-thousand-year exile—and brought us directly to the Land of Israel without the event at Mount Sinai. But the land gives us no directions, because we do not yet have a prophet (it is as if Moses has not yet been born). We have no Torah, no Temple or Tabernacle; we have not yet sanctified and purified ourselves, and the Shekhinah is not with us. We are a nation of slaves that left Egypt, whose connection with the God of Israel and His Torah is weaker than ever.

Therefore, in principle, today, there is no spiritual point in ‘observing Shabbat’, just as they were not obligated to before Mount Sinai. The action that will help us spiritually is not even to ask to return to the Mount Sinai revelation, because the Torah has already been given; it is written and clear. Rather, we must ask to fill this Torah with substance. Then the Land will be filled with substance, the Chosen People will be filled with substance, and the private individual will be filled. To fill the Torah with the living substance it is meant to have, we must ask, cry out, pray, and beg for a Temple, a righteous priest, the renewal of the covenant, a true prophet, and the presence of the God of Israel among us through these functions, because this is the Torah.

We must return to seeing Him personally and clearly, just as the Israelites once saw the pillar of fire and cloud, or just as they saw Moses meeting face-to-face with God, or when seventy of the elders of Israel met with Him and sat to eat and drink with Him (it is highly recommended to read this description in the original text: Exodus 24:9-11, because it perfectly illustrates the spirit of the matters I am discussing).

Just as a man who divorces his wife and wishes to take her back after a period of time will clearly declare his intentions and renew the covenant with her according to ceremonial rules and in the presence of witnesses, the God of Israel took this step when He returned the nation to its land. Now, it is up to the bride—Israel—to accept the invitation and seek to be sanctified in a clear ceremony with the God of Israel. The rules of this ceremony are clear and detailed in the Torah from Sinai, but observing the ‘commandments’ between man and God and maintaining Jewish worship according to Rabbinic-Pharisaic law contributes nothing to this. The ceremony requires a priest, a prophet, a Temple, a sacrifice, etc. However, the Pharisaic rabbis are neither prophets nor priests, and to this day they have not even managed to erect a portable Tabernacle of fabric and wooden boards, like the one the Israelites had before they could build a permanent Temple.

Despite everything that has been said, I realize that these matters may not be entirely clear to everyone. If a Jew wishes to connect to their Judaism, to their roots, through Shabbat or a holiday—should they observe them according to the rabbis? Or perhaps according to the Torah alone? How does one do this when the Torah’s details are so sparse? here are no prophets, no Temple, and no Shekhinah. The answer is simple, and I will expand upon it in the second part. There, I will bring an example from the Bible, from the Book of Ezra and Nehemiah, which recounts how the priests and leaders of that time guided the people, who had just returned from the Babylonian exile, to celebrate the holiday of Sukkot. Based on that example, we will be able to understand the principle for today. After all, the comparison between the events in Ezra and Nehemiah and our situation today—having ourselves recently returned to the Holy Land from the global exile—is clear and self-evident.