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JUDAISM DISCOVERED 28 MICHAEL HOFFMAN
document spells out that way, in massive, tedious, repetitive detail, case by
case by case, as does the Talmud of Babylonia." 3
The Pharisees were originally only a sect within Israel. They were not
the dominant force. The majority of the Israelites rejected the oral law which
is what the Talmud is--the oral tradition of the elders committed to writing
after the crucifixion of Christ and the destruction of the Temple. The great
mass of Israelites, the Am-ha-aretz were not Pharisees and were oblivious to
the orally transmitted traditions of the elders and were thus regarded as
ignoramuses by the Pharisees. The Pharisees did not yet have a hold over the
majority of the people of Israel; though the Pharisees did represent a potent
underground current of corruption that had existed within Israel since the
time of the Golden Calf. It is interesting to note in this regard that the rabbis
teach that the Israelites did not sin in their worship of the golden calf. Rabbi
Zalman Melamed of Bar Ilan University in Jerusalem writes:
"...we can classify the sin of the Golden Calf as not a true 'fall'; it was not
substantive, but just a result of confusion, a foolishness that overtook a
nation impatiently awaiting its leader, Moses. In one rabbinic passage, in
fact, our (Talmudic) sages compare the sin of the calf to an unfaithful wife's
intimacy with a eunuch! In other words, the sin was not substantive..." 4
Another example of the rabbis' theological casuistry is even more
egregious. Chazal at BT Avodah Zarah 4b state that the Jewish people only
worshipped the golden calf to give a theological "opening" (pischon peh) 5 to
future baalei teshuvah (Judaics who never knew Judaism or who gave up
Judaism and who subsequently join, or return, to the fold). If this seems too
far-fetched, Rashi concocted an alternate escape clause: blaming the worship
on incitement by the "erev rav," a racially "mixed multitude of clever troublemakers
and rabble-rousers who used sorcery and accompanied the Jewish
people when they left Egypt." Hence, a spell was placed on Jews and that is
why they worshipped the golden calf. Bottom line: it wasn't their fault. Sound
familiar?
In contradiction to this rabbinic assertion, the reader will recall the
famous scene in the Book of Luke when the Pharisees, using their sly ability
3 Jacob Neusner, Rabbinic Judaism: Structure and System (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Augsburg
Fortress, 1995), pp. 205, 209.
4 www.yeshiva.org.il/Shiurim/shaleshides/rzmelamed/Ekitissa61.htm
5 Literally, "opening of the mouth."