g the masses.

2. Those who define Judaism as a religion of law completely misunderstand
its nature and its historic forces. This is done by all those Christian
theologians who endeavor to prove the extraordinary assertion of the
apostle Paul that the Jewish people was providentially destined to produce
the Old Testament law and become enmeshed in it, like the silkworm in its
cocoon, finally to dry up and perish, leaving its prophetic truth for the
Church. This fateful misconception of Judaism is based upon a false
interpretation of the word _Torah_, which denotes moral and spiritual
instruction as often as law, and thus includes all kinds of religious
teaching and knowledge together with its primary meaning, the written and
the oral codes.(1136) In fact, in post-Biblical times it comprised the
entire religion, as subject of both instruction and scientific
investigation. True, law is fundamental in Jewish history; Israel accepted
the divine covenant on the basis of the Sinaitic code; the reforms of King
Josiah were founded on the Deuteronomic law;(1137) and the restoration of
the Judean commonwealth was based upon the completed Mosaic code brought
from Babylon by Ezra the Scribe.(1138) This book of law, with its further
development and interpretation, remained the normative factor for Judaism
for all time. Still, from the very beginning the Law of the covenant
contained a certain element which distinguished it from all the priestly
and political codes of antiquity. Beside the traditional juridical and
ritualistic statutes, which betray a Babylonian origin, it contains laws
and doctrines of kindness toward the poor and helpless, the enemy and the
slave, even toward the dumb beast, in striking contrast to the spirit of
cruelty and violence in the Babylonian law.(1139) In the name of the
all-seeing, all-ruling God it appeals to the sympathy of man. These
exhortations to tenderness increase in later codes of law under the
prophetic influence, until finally the rabbis extended them as far as
possible. They held that every negligence which leads to the loss of life
or property by the neighbor, every neglect of a domestic animal, even
every act of deceit by which one attempts to "steal" the good opinion of
one's fellow-men, is a violation of the law.(1140) Hence Rabbi Simlai, the
Haggadist, said that from beginning to end the Law is but a system of
teachings of human love,(1141) while another sage tried to prove from the
books