Is rabbinic Judaism the same as the faith of the Bible — or has it replaced God’s Word with human tradition?
“Rabbinic Judaism Is Not Biblical” (Proven Once and for All in 62 Minutes)
This full-length documentary uncovers the dramatic shift from the covenant given to Moses and the prophets to the system of oral law, rabbinic rulings, and traditions that define Judaism today.
Discover how:
• The Pharisees built a new religious system after the destruction of the Temple.
• The Oral Torah and rabbinic authority redefined Jewish identity.
• God’s appointed times were replaced by a man-made calendar.
• The words of men came to override the Word of God.
This is not a message of hate, but a call to truth.
The God of Israel still speaks through His written Word — calling His people back to covenant faith and the Messiah who came to restore what was lost.
Important note from the maker of the video: “ The reason I wear a mask is because I am persecuted in my country for my faith. This mask protects my life.”
Transcript:
What if the religion known today as Judaism isn’t what you think it is? What if the faith of the Bible, the faith of Abraham, Moses, and the prophets has been quietly replaced? Not by a foreign invader, not by another god, but by a system built within a system of laws, rulings, and traditions that now claims divine authority. Today, millions believe that rabbitic Judaism is the true continuation of the scriptures, that the sages speak for God, that the oral law was given at Sinai, that the rabbis define who is Jewish, what counts as obedience, and even who belongs to the covenant. But is that what the Bible teaches? This film takes you on a journey across history and scripture.
From Mount Si to Babylon, from the prophets to the Pharisees, from the written Torah to the traditions of men, you’ll discover how the original faith of Israel was prophetic, not rabbitic. How the Pharisees introduced a new legal system never authorized by God. How rabbitic authority gradually replaced biblical identity, truth, and even time itself. And how the Messiah himself stood against this system and called his people back to the word. This is not a story of hate. It’s a call to truth, to examine the foundations, to hear the voice beneath the noise, to rediscover the faith that was and still is rooted in scripture and covenant. Because the question isn’t just what is Judaism. The question is, what does God really want? Welcome to the rabbitic takeover.
When tradition replaced Revelation, my name is the prophet 33 and I bring you the word of God. The reason I wear a mask is because I am persecuted in my country for my faith. This mask protects my life. Let’s continue.
When you hear the word Judaism, what comes to mind? Perhaps you picture black hats and prayer shaws, Talmudic study, kosher laws, Sabbath rules, dozens of daily blessings, and hundreds of commandments, detailed, precise, and endless. But what if I told you that none of this existed in the days of the Bible? What if the Judaism of Abraham, Moses, and David looked nothing like the Judaism we know today? No rabbis, no oral Torah, no synagogues, no hakic system. What if biblical Judaism was something far more direct, far more powerful, and far more personal? In this video, we’re going back to the source, to the Hebrew Bible itself, to discover what the faith of ancient Israel really looked like. Because if we want to follow the truth, we have to start where the truth was first revealed.
When we imagine holy people, we tend to picture them as religious, carefully observing rituals, reciting prayers, and following endless religious rules. But when we open the Bible, we see something very different. Abraham didn’t follow hundreds of rabbitic laws. Moses didn’t check halic rulings before doing God’s will. David didn’t carry a prayer book or ask a rabbi for permission to worship. They didn’t need to because the faith of the Bible wasn’t about performing religion. It was about walking with God. It was personal, direct, and based on trust, obedience, and covenant, not on systems of man-made authority. Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. Moses spoke with God face to face. David, when he sinned, didn’t recite a formula. He cried out, “Create in me a clean heart, oh God.” That’s what faith looked like. Not religious conformity, but real relationship. These men didn’t wear the symbols of piety or follow oral traditions. They simply listened to God’s voice and followed. That’s the heart of biblical Judaism and it’s a far cry from the system we see today. In today’s world, Jewish worship happens everywhere in synagogues, yeshivas, and homes with daily prayers, blessings, rituals, and rabbitic rulings for almost every situation. But in the Bible, it wasn’t like that at all. Worship was centered in one place, the tabernacle and later the temple in Jerusalem. It was there and only there that sacrifices were offered, that the appointed feasts were celebrated, and that the nation gathered in the presence of God. Outside the temple, worship wasn’t about rituals. It was about life, lived in faithfulness to the covenant. There were no synagogues in every town, no daily prayer services, no long lists of what was or wasn’t kosher according to the rabbis. And when the people strayed, God didn’t send more laws. He sent prophets. Prophets weren’t legal scholars or interpreters of tradition. They were messengers sent to call the people back to what was already written. “Wash yourselves. Make yourselves clean,” said Isaiah. “Stop doing evil. Learn to do good. seek justice, defend the oppressed. That was biblical worship. It wasn’t built on volumes of law or managed by committees and rabbitic courts. It was about covenant loyalty, about obedience from the heart, and it was rooted not in tradition, but in truth.
One of the most common claims in rabbitic tradition is that the Torah can’t be understood on its own. That without the oral law, without rabbis, and centuries of interpretation, the commandments are too vague to follow. But that’s not what the Bible says. Over and over the scriptures describe God’s commandments as clear, accessible, and understandable. Deuteronomy 30 says, “This commandment that I give you today is not too difficult for you, and it is not far off. No, the word is very near you in your mouth and in your heart so that you can do it.” The Torah wasn’t hidden in codes, and it didn’t require expert interpreters. It was written so that all could read it, remember it, and live by it. And when you read the commandments, you see exactly that. Do not steal. Honor your parents. Do not bear false witness. Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. These aren’t mystical ideas. They’re practical, moral, and direct. But rabbitic tradition took these simple commands and built thousands of laws around them. The Sabbath commandment was expanded into 39 categories of forbidden work. The command to wear fringes became pages of rules about colors, knots, and measurements. Eating unleavened bread at Passover became a complex system of cleaning, checking, and certifications. Instead of trusting God’s word, people became dependent on human rulings. But that was never God’s design. He gave his Torah to be lived, not debated, to bring life, not confusion, to be kept, not endlessly redefined. His words were meant to be near. And they still are. If you ask an Orthodox rabbi today how we’re supposed to understand the Torah, he won’t just point you to the Bible. He’ll point you to something else, the oral Torah. According to rabbitic tradition, when God gave Moses the written Torah on Mount Si, he also gave him an unwritten Torah, a vast collection of laws, explanations, and legal rulings passed down verbally from generation to generation. This oral Torah, they say, is essential because without it, the written Torah is incomplete, even impossible to obey. But there’s a serious problem with that claim. The Bible never mentions it. From Genesis to Malachi, there is no reference, not even once. To a second secret Torah passed down orally, not from Moses, not from Joshua, not from any priest, king, or prophet. Instead, we hear the opposite. Write these words. Read them aloud. Teach them to your children. Do not add to them. Do not take away from them. The written Torah is the only Torah God ever commands. He never tells his people to follow an oral system. He never says, “Ask the rabbis.” He says, “Listen to my voice.” So where did the oral Torah come from? It emerged hundreds of years later after the temple was destroyed when rabbitic leaders needed to redefine Jewish life in exile. They claimed to carry ancient traditions from Sinai. But those traditions don’t appear anywhere in the Bible itself. The truth is simple. If God gave an oral Torah at Sinai, Moses forgot to mention it. And the prophets never knew about it. So what does all this tell us? That the Judaism of the Bible was never about rabbitic law. Never centered on tradition, authority, or endless debate. It was centered on God, on covenant, on faithfulness to his written word. The deeper we go into scripture, the more clearly we see the difference between the religion of the rabbis and the faith of the prophets. And if we want to return to the truth, that’s where we begin.
What we’ve seen is clear. The faith of the Bible was not about rabbis, rituals, or endless rules. It was about walking with God, hearing his voice, trusting his promises, and living according to the written covenant, not human traditions. There were no layers of interpretation, no oral Torah, no gatekeepers of truth, just the word of God and the call to obey it with a willing heart. That was biblical Judaism. And the further we’ve drifted from it, the more we need to return not to modern systems or man-made authority, but to the simple, powerful, timeless truth of scripture itself. Because that’s where the story of faith really begins. If someone asked you, “Where does Judaism come from?” Most people would probably answer from the Bible, from Moses, from Mount Si, from the Torah. But here’s the problem. The Judaism practiced today with its rabbitic courts, halaka codes, and oral traditions looks nothing like the faith described in the Bible. In fact, much of what’s considered Judaism today doesn’t come from the Bible at all. It comes from somewhere else, from a different place and a much later time. In this video, we’re going to trace the real origins of rabbitic Judaism, not based on tradition, but on history. We’ll look at when it began, why it developed, and how it became the dominant religious system of the Jewish world. Because if we want to understand what Judaism is today, we first need to understand what it used to be and what happened in between.
In the year 70 CE, everything changed. The Romans invaded Jerusalem, burned the temple, crushed the priesthood, and in a single devastating blow, the entire structure of biblical worship was gone. No more sacrifices, no more altar, no more place to gather three times a year as the Torah commanded. The system that had defined Israel’s faith for centuries, the one centered on God’s presence in the temple, was suddenly over. And with it, the people of Israel were left with a crisis. What now? The prophets were gone. The priests were scattered. There was no king, no sanctuary, no center. For a time there was silence. And in that silence something new began to take shape. A different kind of leadership emerged. Not from the temple but from themies. Not from priests but from sages. Not from Jerusalem but from outside it. This was the beginning of a new religious framework. One built not on the presence of God but on the authority of man, not on divine revelation but on interpretation. And over time, that framework would become the dominant force in Jewish life, eventually replacing the biblical faith it once followed. After the destruction of the temple while Jerusalem lay in ruins, one man stepped forward with a bold and unexpected plan, Rabbi Yohanan Benzakai. According to rabbitic tradition, he escaped the siege of Jerusalem by faking his own death, hiding in a coffin, and having his students carry him out of the city. Once outside, he was brought before the Roman general Vespatian. And when given the chance to make a request, he didn’t ask for the temple to be spared, for the sacrifices to be restored, or for the altar to be rebuilt. Instead, he said, “Give me Yavn and its sages.” Yav was a small city in Israel west of Jerusalem, which would soon become the center of rabbitic activity. That single request changed the course of Jewish history. Yav became the new center of Jewish life, not because God had chosen it, but because the rabbis did. There was no ark of the covenant there, no altar, no divine presence, no prophets. But there were scholars. And those scholars began to build a new version of Judaism. They collected oral traditions, debated legal rulings, and formed a new kind of leadership, one that didn’t need the temple to function. From that point on, rabbitic authority began to replace priestly service. interpretation began to replace revelation and the voices of the sages began to speak in place of the voice of God. This was not a restoration of the old. It was the construction of something new. And over time, this new structure born in exile far from the temple would define Jewish life for the next 2,000 years.
In the Bible, when God wanted to speak to his people, he didn’t go through scholars, form committees, or hold legal debates. He sent prophets. Men like Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah didn’t offer opinions. They delivered messages beginning with one unmistakable phrase. Thus says the Lord. That’s how truth was revealed directly, clearly, with divine authority. But after the destruction of the temple, the prophets were gone. And into that silence stepped a new kind of leader, the rabbi. The rabbis didn’t claim to be prophets or to hear directly from God. Instead, they built a new system based not on revelation but on interpretation. They studied, debated, and disagreed and slowly developed a religious culture in which human reasoning replaced divine speech. In this system, multiple opinions could be considered true as long as they came from the right source. And a rabbitic ruling didn’t have to match scripture. It only had to match precedent. Over time, rabbitic rulings were treated not just as commentary but as binding law. The result was a dramatic shift in authority. In the biblical world, God spoke and the people listened. In the rabbitic world, the sages spoke and even God, they said, had to agree. This wasn’t just a change in leadership. It was a change in the very source of truth. And it laid the foundation for a religion that would look very different from anything we see in the Bible. As rabbitic authority grew, so did the system it created. What began as interpretation became legislation. What began as discussion became law. And what began as a response to crisis became a full religious transformation. Over time, the rabbis built layer upon layer of rulings. Rules for the Sabbath, rules for prayer, rules for food, for clothing, for daily life. Not just based on the Torah, but often far beyond it. New categories of holiness were created. New barriers were raised and new identities were formed. Not by covenant with God, but by conformity to rabbitic law. Eventually, this system took on a life of its own. The written scriptures became secondary. Study of the Torah was filtered through the Mishna and the Tolmud, and rabbitic rulings became the standard for what was considered Jewish, even when they contradicted the plain meaning of the Bible. Those who challenged this authority were pushed aside and groups that followed the written word without accepting rabbitic tradition like the Sadducees, the Essenes or the early followers of Yeshua were declared heretics. What started as an effort to preserve identity and exile became a new religion, one that replaced temple with text, prophets with scholars, and the voice of God with the voice of man.
After the destruction of the temple and the rise of rabbitic leadership in places like Yavn, something even more significant happened. The center of Judaism moved not just spiritually but geographically. It left Jerusalem and settled in Babylon. There, far from the land of Israel, a new form of Jewish life began to take shape. One that didn’t revolve around the temple, the prophets, or the covenant God made at Si, but around the teachings of the rabbis. Over the course of several centuries, Babylonian sages compiled the text that would become the foundation of rabbitic Judaism, the Talmud. The Talmud was not a commentary on the Bible. It was a new world of legal arguments, rabbitic rulings, and imagined conversations filled with debate, disagreement, and layers of tradition. It didn’t explain what the Torah said. It often created entire systems the Torah never mentioned. And yet, the Talmud became the central authority. Its rulings shaped daily life. Its logic overruled scripture. And its traditions define Jewish identity for generations. Even today, if you walk into an orthodox yeshiva, you’ll rarely see people reading the Bible. They study the Talmud, memorize the rabbis, debate the debates, and treat those debates as divine. But here’s the truth. The Talmud wasn’t written by prophets. It wasn’t spoken by God. And it didn’t come from Mount Si. It came from Babylon. And with it a new religion was born. One rooted not in revelation but in exile. What began as a response to national crisis became a total reinvention of Jewish faith. The destruction of the temple left a void. And into that void stepped a new voice. Not the voice of the prophets, not the voice of God, but the voice of the rabbis. They built a new system, a new center, a new identity. And over time, that system came to define Judaism for millions. even though it didn’t come from the Bible, even though it didn’t come from Sinai, and even though it didn’t come from the mouth of the Lord. If we want to know what true biblical faith looks like, we can’t start in Babylon. We have to return to the mountain, to the covenant, to the voice of God himself. That’s where truth begins. I want to take a moment to thank everyone who has already become a channel member through YouTube memberships. Your support truly helps me continue creating this content and building a spiritually meaningful community. If you feel connected and would like to support the vision, you can join by clicking the link in the description. It’s simple, secure, and handled directly by YouTube. Thank you for being part of this journey.
In the world of traditional Judaism, there’s one idea that stands above almost everything else. The belief in a second Torah, not the one that’s written, but one that was supposedly spoken. It’s called the oral Torah. According to rabbitic teaching, when God gave the written Torah to Moses on Mount Si, he also gave him an unwritten set of explanations, rules, and traditions passed down verbally from generation to generation. This claim is not minor. It forms the foundation of rabbitic authority because if God truly gave a second Torah one that wasn’t written down, then the rabbis are the only ones who can interpret and preserve it. But here’s the question. Did God actually give an oral Torah or is that idea something that came later long after the Bible was written? In this video, we’re going to ask that question honestly, look at what the Bible says and what it doesn’t and discover whether the oral Torah is truly from heaven or just a tradition of men. The claim of an oral Torah is central to rabbitic Judaism. According to the tradition, when God gave the written Torah to Moses at Mount Si, he also gave him a second Torah, one that wasn’t written down, but passed orally through the generations. This oral law, they say, is just as authoritative as the written one. In fact, some claim it’s even more important because it explains what the written Torah really means. But there’s one major problem. The Bible never mentions it. From Genesis to Malachi, there is not a single verse that says Moses received two Torah. There’s no mention of an unwritten law given alongside the written one. Not by Moses, not by Joshua, not by David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, or Ezra. Over and over, the message is the same. Write these words. Teach them. Read them aloud. Do not add to them. Do not take away. The Torah is written. It is public. It is accessible. The idea of a secret oral law passed down quietly from one generation of scholars to the next is completely foreign to the Bible itself. And yet it became the foundation of rabbitic Judaism. Why? Because once the prophets were gone and the temple destroyed, a new authority was needed. And the easiest way to justify that authority was to claim it had always been there hidden. But it wasn’t. The prophets didn’t know about it. The scriptures don’t mention it. And Moses never spoke of it. If God had given a second Torah, wouldn’t he have told us?
If the Bible never mentions an oral Torah, then where did the idea come from? The answer lies in history. Not at Mount Si, but centuries later. After the destruction of the second temple in 70 CE, Jewish life entered a deep crisis. There were no sacrifices, no priesthood, no prophets, and no central place of worship. In that vacuum, the rabbis stepped in. They began to preserve traditions, expand interpretations, and issue rulings to govern daily life in exile. Eventually, these teachings were collected into two major works. The Mishna around 200 CE and later the Talmud up to 500 CE. These texts form the core of what is now called the oral Torah. But notice the timeline. That’s more than one, 200 years after Moses, more than 600 years after Ezra, and hundreds of years after the last prophet. So, if this oral law really came from Sinai, why was it never written down until the second century? Why didn’t any biblical figure refer to it? Why is it completely absent from the scriptures? The truth is, the oral Torah didn’t come from Mount Si. It came from the rabbiticmies of exile. It wasn’t revealed by God. It was developed by men, often with good intentions, but without divine authority. That doesn’t mean everything in it is false. But it does mean we can’t treat it as equal to the written word of God. Because once we give man-made tradition the same authority as scripture, we lose the ability to hear God’s voice clearly. If the oral Torah truly came from God, then it should never contradict the written Torah. After all, God doesn’t contradict himself. But when we examine rabbitic tradition honestly, we find something troubling. Many rabbitic laws don’t just go beyond scripture, they reverse it. For example, with Shabbat, the written Torah commands us to rest on the seventh day and not to do mala work. But it doesn’t define 39 categories of forbidden labor or forbid carrying keys or pushing a stroller on the sidewalk. Those rules came from the rabbis, not from the Bible, and often burden people with fear instead of inviting them into rest. With fringes, tit numbers 15 says simply to wear fringes on the corners of garments as a reminder of God’s commandments. Yet, rabbitic law adds rules about knots, colors, lengths, and fabrics, and even declares titin valid if they’re not tied a certain way, though the Torah says no such thing. With conversions, the Torah commands that a foreigner who joins Israel is to be treated as a native born. But rabbitic imposes strict multi-step processes involving a be it den declarations and rituals that are absent from scripture, leaving many sincere believers rejected by tradition rather than by God’s word. These are just a few examples and there are many more involving food, holidays, purity and prayer where rabbitic rulings override or distort what God actually said. The real question is not whether tradition has value but whether it has authority. And when human tradition contradicts divine instruction, we have to choose. Do we follow the voice of the rabbis or do we return to the voice of the Lord?
Throughout the Bible, God warns his people again and again. Don’t replace his words with your own and don’t follow human traditions that lead you away from his voice. This isn’t a new problem. It’s as old as religion itself. In Isaiah 29:13, God says, “These people draw near to me with their mouths and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their fear of me is based on human commandments learned by wrote.” In other words, they sound religious, but they’ve replaced relationship with ritual and traded the living word of God for man-made systems. Jeremiah 7:22 is even more direct. When I brought your ancestors out of Egypt, I did not speak to them about burnt offerings and sacrifices. But I gave them this command. Obey me and I will be your God and you will be my people. The problem was never that people weren’t religious enough. The problem was that they listened to men and stopped listening to God. And this same warning appears in the New Testament. When Yeshua, Jesus, confronted the religious leaders of his day. He quoted Isaiah and said, “You nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.” Mark 7:13. He didn’t rebuke people for failing to follow rabbitic laws. He rebuked the leaders for replacing God’s word with their own rules. They added layers of commandments, created burdens God never gave, and put themselves between the people and the scriptures. Sound familiar? The danger isn’t in tradition itself, but in elevating tradition above the word of God. That’s when religion becomes idolatry. So where does this leave us? The Bible never mentions an oral Torah. The prophets never taught it. Moses never spoke of it. And Yeshua openly challenged those who built their authority on tradition. What we call the oral Torah may contain historical insights, cultural wisdom, even moments of beauty, but it does not carry the authority of scripture. And when tradition is treated as equal to God’s word, the result is always the same. confusion, control, and distance from the voice of the shepherd. But God has not left us in the dark. He gave us his word, written, preserved, and public. He commanded his people to write it, read it, teach it, and obey it. Not to filter it through human systems, or bury it beneath layers of legal debate, but to live by it in spirit and in truth. So the question is simple. Will we continue to follow a system built on silence, a tradition that claims divine origin but never appears in the scriptures? Or will we return to what God actually said? The choice is ours and the invitation is open. Come back to the written word. Come back to the God who speaks and walk with him. Not through the voice of man, but through the truth he gave us from the beginning.
Most people assume that rabbitic Judaism is simply the continuation of the Bible. that the rabbis are the spiritual heirs of Moses and that their traditions faithfully preserve what God originally gave. But what if that’s not true? What if the rabbis didn’t just interpret the Bible but replaced it? What if the system that defines Judaism today with its layers of oral law, hahic rulings and sacred texts outside of scripture is not the natural outgrowth of biblical faith, but something entirely different. In this video, we’ll examine how rabbitic tradition gradually overtook the written word of God. How it elevated man-made authority, silenced alternative voices, and reshaped the definition of what it means to be Jewish? Because if we care about truth, we need to ask an honest question. Is today’s Judaism the same faith we see in the Bible, or has something along the way been lost? In the Bible, authority comes from one source, God’s voice. He speaks through prophets, gives written commandments, and calls his people to listen, obey, and live by his word. But in the centuries after the destruction of the temple, that authority shifted. Without sacrifices, priests or prophets, a new kind of leadership emerged, not rooted in revelation, but in interpretation. The rabbis claimed to carry an oral tradition from Moses, positioned themselves as the rightful interpreters of scripture, and slowly their rulings became binding even when they went beyond or against the plain meaning of the Bible. Over time, a new idea took hold that the rabbitic sages had the final word. The Talmud itself records this shift in the famous story of the oven of Aknai, Babamesia 59b. Rabbi Eleazar insisted he was right about a matter of ritual purity and miraculous signs confirmed his position. A carob tree uprooted itself. A stream of water flowed backward and even a heavenly voice declared, “The law follows Rabbi Eleazar.” But the other rabbis refused. They answered with a new principle. “It is not in heaven.” Deuteronomy 30:12. In other words, once the Torah was given, even God’s own voice could not overrule the authority of rabbitic interpretation. And so they excommunicated Rabbi Eleazar and upheld their collective ruling. This was not humility. It was the rise of a new authority, not based on what God said, but on who had the power to say what God must have meant. And as rebbitic authority grew, the scriptures were no longer the foundation, but became one voice among many filtered, redefined, and sometimes overridden by the rulings of men. This wasn’t just a change in leadership. It was a shift in the source of truth. And that shift still shapes Judaism today.
When any system claims to speak with ultimate authority, it doesn’t just teach its own view, it must also silence every competing voice. And that’s exactly what happened in the rise of rabbitic Judaism. In the centuries following the temple’s destruction, there were still many different groups within the Jewish world. The Sadducees, who clung to the written Torah and rejected oral traditions. The Essenes, who withdrew from society and followed a strict priestly reading of scripture, and the earliest followers of Yeshua, Jews who believed the Messiah had come and called Israel back to the written word. Each of these groups challenged the authority of the rabbis and over time one by one they were pushed out. The Sadducees disappeared. The Essenes vanished into history and Jewish followers of Yeshua were expelled from the synagogues labeled as heretics, traitors, and idolattors. The rabbis didn’t just shape a new Judaism. They defined who was allowed to belong. If you accepted their traditions, their oral laws, and their authority, you were in. If you followed only the Bible or questioned their rulings, you were out. It didn’t matter whether you believed in the God of Israel. It didn’t matter whether you honored the Torah. What mattered was whether you submitted to rabbitic interpretation. And so, for the first time in Jewish history, faithfulness to God’s word became secondary to faithfulness to human tradition. This wasn’t just about doctrine. It was about power. If rabbitic tradition truly honors the Bible, then its rulings should always support or at least reflect what the scriptures actually say. But in many cases, the opposite is true. Over time, rabbitic authorities created laws that not only added to God’s word, they redefined it. Take the Sabbath. The Torah commands rest on the seventh day, saying not to work, but without listing endless technicalities. Yet, rabbitic law created 39 categories of forbidden labor with countless subruules about what you can carry, how far you can walk, and what objects you can touch. Instead of rest, the Sabbath became a legal minefield. Instead of joy, it became fear of making a mistake. Or consider kosher laws. The Bible commands not to boil a young goat in its mother’s milk, a specific and symbolic instruction. But the rabbis expanded that into a complete separation of all meat and dairy with two sets of dishes, hours of waiting between meals, and restrictions that have no basis in the written Torah. The same happened with Teil and Msuzo. The Torah says to bind God’s words on your hand and between your eyes, a poetic call to live by his commandments. But rabbitic law turned that into black boxes with exact measurements, formulas, and inspections, as if the physical object, not the heart, was what mattered. Even conversions were reshaped. The Bible welcomes the foreigner who joins Israel and honors God’s covenant. But rabbitic conversion requires submission to oral law, rabbitic courts, and traditions that didn’t exist in biblical times. So, what happened over the centuries? The rabbis didn’t just explain the Bible. They replaced it step by step with a new system. A system that made tradition the authority where man speaks over God. And once that happens, faith becomes a religion of control, not a relationship of covenant.
What happens when tradition becomes the authority? Over time, the very definition of Judaism changes. Instead of being defined by covenant with God, it’s defined by conformity to rabbitic law. Instead of measuring faithfulness by the scriptures, it’s measured by loyalty to human rulings. And that shift has serious consequences. Even today, there are countless people who love the God of Israel, who read the Torah, who honor his commandments, and who seek to live according to his word. But because they don’t follow rabbitical or accept the authority of the sages, they’re told they’re not really Jewish. Some of them believe in Yeshua as the Messiah, others simply read the Bible for themselves. But either way, they’re excluded, not by God, but by a man-made religious system. This is how tradition replaces truth. It changes the standard. It redefineses who belongs, not according to scripture, but according to power. And the tragedy is that the Jewish world has been handed a religion that looks ancient, but often contradicts the very book it claims to uphold. And so, a new kind of exile has taken place, not just from the land, but from the word. But it’s not too late. The scriptures are still here. The voice of God is still calling. And the truth hasn’t changed. Rabbitic Judaism today is often assumed to be the faith of the Bible. But history tells a different story. After the temple fell and the prophets went silent, a new religious system emerged. Not built on revelation, but on rulings, not rooted in scripture, but in tradition, not led by God’s voice, but by human authority. Over time, that system redefined the very meaning of faith, creating boundaries God never set, elevating opinions over obedience and excluding many who sincerely walk with the God of Israel simply because they do not follow the traditions of men. But God is still speaking. His word has not changed and his covenant has not been cancelled. If we want to walk in truth, we must return to the foundation, not to the layers of interpretation built in exile, but to the scriptures given in the land, not to the rulings of rabbis, but to the voice of the living God. Because in the end, only one authority lasts forever. And it’s not man-made tradition. It’s the word of the Lord.
In the Bible, God gave his people a calendar, not just a list of dates, but a rhythm for life. He called them moadim, appointed times, sacred moments set by him, not by man. From Sabbath to Passover, from the feast of weeks to the day of atonement, God declared, “These are my appointed times.” They weren’t traditions. They weren’t symbolic. They were wholly anchored in creation, rooted in covenant. But today, the calendar observed in Judaism is not the same one given in scripture. It’s a rabbitic calendar calculated centuries later with rules and postponements never mentioned in the Bible and in some cases moving God’s appointed times to different days entirely. So what happened? In this video, we’ll explore how the biblical calendar was replaced, why it matters, and what it reveals about the difference between God’s authority and man’s tradition. When God gave Israel his appointed times, he also gave them a calendar. Not the kind we use today, but one that was simple, visible, and rooted in nature. It wasn’t mathematical or complex, and it didn’t rely on a centralized rabbitic court to issue rulings. In Exodus 12, God says, “This month shall be for you the beginning of months,” referring to the springtime and the first sighting of the new moon. In Leviticus chapter 23, he gives specific dates for each feast. On the 14th day of the first month is the Lord’s Passover. On the 15th day, the feast of unleaven bread. The seventh month, on the first day, a Sabbath rest, a memorial of blowing. None of this depended on calculation. It depended on observation, on when the new moon was actually seen in the sky, and when the harvest ripened in the land. In other words, the biblical calendar was dynamic and local, tied to the land of Israel, requiring watchfulness rather than spreadsheets, honoring the creator’s design rather than human control. There was no need for postponements, formulas, or a centralized bureaucracy to declare, “Today is holy. God had already declared it, and his people simply had to look, listen, and obey.”
As the centuries passed and the temple was destroyed, Jewish life moved farther away from the land and from the way God had set his calendar. In the absence of the priesthood and biblical observation, a new system emerged, the calculated rabbitic calendar developed in stages. First through scattered rulings and later formalized by Helu in the 4th century CE, this calendar no longer relied on citing the new moon, but instead used math. a 19-year cycle, predetermined leap years, and fixed months. Most significantly, it introduced something the Bible never allowed, postponements. If a holy day fell on an inconvenient day, like a Friday or Sunday, the rabbis moved it, literally changing the dates of God’s appointed times to better suit rabbitic rules and concerns. Imagine that Passover no longer fell on the 14th of the first month, but on whatever day the calendar dictated, the feast of trumpets commanded for the first day of the seventh month, might be pushed forward or back. The biblical rhythm rooted in nature and simplicity was replaced by a human-made system that overrode God’s timing. Today, nearly all of Judaism follows this calendar. Yet most have no idea it is not the calendar of Moses but the calendar of the rabbis. And when man takes control of time, he also takes control of worship. In the Torah, God’s appointed times are crystal clear. Not just holidays, but holy days set by God, defined by God, and filled with prophetic meaning. Yet over time, rabbitic tradition didn’t just change the calendar. It redefined the feasts themselves. Passover once marked by the sacrifice of the lamb at twilight on the 14th day of the first month and eaten that night with bitter herbs and unleavened bread in remembrance of deliverance was transformed after the temple’s destruction into the seder a ritual meal of symbols songs and invented customs. Some elements are beautiful but many have no basis in the Bible. The lamb is missing. The date is often adjusted and the focus has shifted from covenant to culture. Shàuot, which in the Torah marks the end of the harvest season, counted from the day after the Sabbath during Passover, was redefined by the rabbis with a fixed date and recast as the giving of the Torah at Sinai, though scripture never says so. Yum Tua, the feast of trumpets commanded as a day of blowing the chauffear, was renamed Rush Hashana, turned into a New Year’s Day filled with customs foreign to the Bible. Little by little, the original feasts rooted in covenant and prophetic truth were replaced by man-made tradition. They still exist in name, but their meaning has shifted, and with it, the deep connection to the heart of God’s calendar has been lost.
Some might ask, if the rabbitic calendar is off by a few days, does it really matter? Isn’t it enough to celebrate the spirit of the feast? Even if the date is humanmade, but that question misses something deeper because God didn’t give Israel a calendar for convenience. He gave it for covenant. When God sets a time, it’s not random. It’s prophetic. The feasts of the Lord point to real events in salvation history. Passover, the death of the lamb, unleavened bread, the sinless life laid in the grave. First fruits, the resurrection. Shàuot, the outpouring of the spirit. Yum tua, the coming trumpet blast. Yum kapor, the final day of atonement. Sukkot, the coming kingdom. Each appointed time is a shadow of what is and what is to come. And each one matters precisely because of its timing. When man changes the calendar, he not only changes the day, he distorts the picture, confuses the rhythm, and disconnects the symbol from its fulfillment. God’s appointed times are invitations to meet with him, to remember what he has done, and to prepare for what he is about to do. They are not ours to move. The rabbitic calendar, for all its tradition and order, cannot replace the authority of the one who declared, “These are my appointed times.” So yes, it matters because when we return to God’s timing, we return to his voice. And when we honor his calendar, we align our hearts with his unfolding plan. The calendar may seem like a small detail, but in the Bible, time is sacred. From the very first chapter of Genesis, God marks time with purpose. The sun, the moon, and the stars were given for signs and appointed times. The calendar is not just about counting days. It is about aligning with God. But somewhere along the way, that alignment was broken. The biblical rhythm based on observation, simplicity, and covenant was replaced by rabbitic calculation, postponement, and control. God’s feasts were reshaped. His timing was changed, and a man-made calendar took the place of divine instruction. Today, most people follow this system without question, assuming it has always been this way and trusting the traditions they inherited without realizing how far they have drifted from the scriptures. But it is not too late to return. The word of God still speaks. The appointed times still point forward and the invitation still stands. Come back to my calendar. Come back to my rhythm. Come meet me on the days I have chosen. Because when we walk in God’s time, we walk in his truth.
What does it mean to be a Jew? In the Bible, the answer is simple. A Jew is someone descended from the people of Israel, a member of the covenant God made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But today, the question isn’t so simple. Because over time, rabbitic tradition redefined the answer. It’s no longer just about disscent. It’s about conversion according to rabbitic law, about accepting the oral Torah, about recognizing rabbitic authority. In other words, being Jewish today doesn’t just mean being part of Israel. It means submitting to a specific religious system. And if you don’t, you may be told you’re not really a Jew. But who gave the rabbis the right to redefine identity? In this video, we’ll explore how the definition of Jew changed over time, how tradition replaced covenant, and why it still matters today for those inside and outside the camp. In the Hebrew Bible, the question of identity is clear. God made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their descendants became the people of Israel. They weren’t chosen because of tradition, law, or religious performance, but because of a promise. Moses later gave the Torah to the nation, but being part of Israel didn’t depend on rabbitic approval. Because rabbis didn’t exist. You were part of the people through descent. And if you weren’t born into Israel, you could join through faith by choosing the God of Israel and keeping his covenant. Ruth the Moabitis said, “Your people shall be my people and your God my God.” And she was accepted into Israel. No rabbitic court required. There were no oral laws to accept, no exams, no rituals created by men. In fact, the Torah specifically warns not to add to the commands God gave. The standard for joining the people was not religion, but covenant loyalty to the God of Israel. So, when did that change? When did identity become a matter of hala? When did rebbitic courts claim the authority to decide who belongs?
After the destruction of the second temple in 70 CE, Judaism entered a crisis not just of worship but of identity. With no priesthood, no sacrifices, and no prophets, a new class of leaders stepped forward. The rabbis, they claimed continuity with Moses. But in reality, they introduced something new. Over time, they didn’t just interpret the Torah. They claimed authority over who was part of Israel. The result was that Jewish identity became tied to rabbitic control. To be recognized as a Jew, you had to be born to a Jewish mother according to rabbitic law. Or if you were a convert, you had to go through a rabbitic court, accept the oral Torah, and pledge allegiance to rabbitic halaka. Without those things, even if you believed in the God of Israel, loved his word, and kept his commandments, you were told, “You’re not one of us.” This wasn’t how it worked in the Bible. Their identity was tribal, ancestral, and covenantal. There were 12 tribes, not just one religion, and there was room for diversity. Prophets, priests, kings, even foreigners who joined the people. But under rabbitic Judaism, Israel became a closed system. The rabbis became the gatekeepers claiming the power to include and to exclude and anyone who challenged their authority whether Sadducee, Samaritan or follower of Yeshua was pushed outside the camp. This redefinition still affects the Jewish world today. Who counts as a Jew? Who is allowed in synagogues? Who is buried in Jewish cemeteries? Who is accepted by the state of Israel? In many cases, the answer isn’t based on scripture, but on rabbitic rulings. But if those rulings didn’t come from God, what gives them the right to define his people? In the first century, the earliest followers of Yeshua were Jewish. They worshiped the God of Israel, went to the temple, and kept the Torah. They didn’t see themselves as leaving Judaism, but as living out its fulfillment. For to them, Yeshua was the promised Messiah. Not a break from the covenant, but the climax of it. Yet, as rabbitic authority grew, something began to shift. The rabbis drew clear boundaries around their version of Judaism, and anyone who didn’t accept their teachings, especially the oral Torah, was excluded. That included the followers of Yeshua. Even though they were Jewish by birth, lived by the scriptures, and continued to worship the God of Abraham, they were declared heretics. The birka hamunimum, a special curse inserted into the synagogue prayers against so-called heretics, widely understood in the first centuries to target the followers of Yeshua, cast them out of communal life. Their voices were erased from rabbitic texts. And over time, they were labeled something else entirely, not Jews, but Christians. This wasn’t just a theological dispute. It was an act of identity control. The rabbis took a whole stream of Jewish history, faithful men and women who followed the Messiah, and cut them out of the narrative. Even today, many Jews assume that belief in Yeshua disqualifies someone from being Jewish. But that idea doesn’t come from Moses, the prophets, or God. It comes from a man-made tradition that elevated religious power over covenant truth. And if we want to recover biblical identity, we must ask, who really has the right to define who belongs to Israel?
For many people today, the question of Jewish identity seems like an internal matter, something for rabbis and communities to debate among themselves. But the truth is, this issue affects far more than just the Jewish world. Because when identity is redefined by human tradition, the door to God’s covenant gets distorted for everyone. There are Jews by birth who love the God of Israel, study his word, honor his commandments, but because they believe in Yeshua, they’re told, “You’re no longer one of us.” There are non-Jews who have come to love the God of Abraham who want to graft into Israel as scripture describes, but they’re told, “You’re not welcome unless you convert through rabbitic law.” And there are millions of Christians around the world who are beginning to rediscover the Jewish roots of their faith only to be told they’re stealing something that was never theirs. But none of this comes from the Bible. In scripture, God never gave rabbis the power to define his people. He never said belief in the Messiah excludes you from Israel. He never created a legal system to keep seekers out. What he did give was a covenant, a calling, an invitation to be part of his people through faith and obedience. The tragedy is that today many are excluded not because God rejects them, but because man has built walls he never authorized. And so we must ask again, who is a Jew? Who belongs to Israel? And who gets to decide? The answer isn’t found in rabbitic rulings. It’s found in God’s word. In the Bible, identity is rooted in relationship. Israel is a people chosen by God not because of their performance, but because of his promise. He called them his firstborn, gave them his Torah, and made a covenant that no man could cancel. But over time, that identity was redefined. Rabbitic tradition replaced covenant with control, creating man-made conditions for belonging that God never required. Suddenly, being Jewish meant more than dissent or faithfulness. It meant allegiance to rabbitic authority and the rejection of anyone who didn’t fit the system, even those who walked in covenant, even those who believed in the Messiah. This redefinition didn’t just affect theology. It divided families, erased voices, and confused generations about who they are and whose they are. But here’s the truth. No tradition has the power to rewrite God’s promises. No court can revoke what God has called holy. And no system can cancel the identity God gives through covenant and faith. If you’re part of Israel by birth and walk with the God of Israel, your identity stands. If you’re a Gentile who joins yourself to the Lord, scripture says you will not be cut off. What matters is not man’s approval, but God’s calling. Because in the end, identity isn’t determined by tradition. It’s determined by truth.
At the heart of rabbitic Judaism lies a bold claim that when God gave the written Torah to Moses, he also gave an unwritten tradition, an oral law. This oral law the rabbis teach was passed down through generations and eventually written in the Mishna and Talmud. It is said to explain the written Torah, fill in its gaps and guide daily life. But in practice, something deeper has happened. The oral law hasn’t just explained scripture. It has often overruled it. In many cases, rabbitic rulings contradict the plain meaning of the Bible, and yet they’re treated as binding, even more so than the text itself. This elevation of tradition above revelation didn’t begin with Moses. It began with men. In this chapter, we’ll examine the origins of the oral law, how it came to dominate Jewish life, and what happens when human interpretation takes the place of divine command. Because if God’s word is no longer the highest authority, then whose voice are we really following? Ask a rabbi what the Torah is, and you’ll likely hear this. There are two parts. The written Torah and the oral Torah. Both were given to Moses at Mount Si. Both are equally authoritative and both are required for proper understanding. But when we open the Bible itself, that claim is nowhere to be found. The Torah, meaning the first five books of Moses, never mentions an oral law given alongside it. It never tells Israel to obey an unwritten tradition. It says again and again, these are the statutes and judgments which the Lord commanded Moses to give to the children of Israel. Not these are the rules plus an oral system you’ll hear about later. In fact, God commands Israel to write everything down. The book of the law was read publicly, copied by kings, stored in the Ark of the Covenant. Joshua was told to meditate on it day and night. The prophets called Israel back to the written word, never to an oral tradition. So where did the oral Torah come from? Historically, the system we now call the oral law was developed by the Pharisees. They believed they had authority to interpret and expand the Torah. They created fences around the law, additional rulings to prevent disobedience. Eventually, these traditions became extensive and after the destruction of the second temple, the rabbitic sages compiled them into what we now know as the Mishna and later the Talmud. But here’s the problem. What began as human interpretation became divine law. And over time, that human tradition wasn’t just honored. It was elevated above the written word of God. In the next section, we’ll explore exactly how that shift happened and why it still shapes Jewish life today.
In the Bible, God’s word is supreme. Moses warned, “You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it.” Deuteronomy 4:2. The prophets called Israel back to the written covenant and the standard was always as it is written. But in rabbitic Judaism, a quiet shift took place. The rulings of the sages, originally just interpretations or customs, came to be treated as divine law. By the time of the Mishna and Talmud, the rabbis weren’t just explaining the Torah. They were issuing binding decisions. Sometimes even when those decisions contradicted the plain meaning of scripture. One rabbitic principle says, “A court has authority to uproot words of the Torah.” Another says, “If the sages tell you right is left and left is right, listen to them.” This wasn’t just theory. It shaped Jewish practice. For example, the Torah says to write God’s words on your doorposts. But the rabbis added detailed laws about muzas, size, placement, blessings, none of which appear in scripture. The Torah says to rest on the Sabbath, but the rabbis created 39 categories of forbidden work and thousands of laws based on them. The Torah commands fringes on garments, but the rabbis added exact string counts, color requirements, and blessings, turning simple obedience into ritual complexity. And in many cases, if scripture and rabbitic tradition conflict, the tradition wins. This elevation of oral rulings above the written word has enormous consequences. It means that human voices, however sincere, can override the voice of God. It means that someone trying to follow the Bible may still be told they’re disobedient if they don’t also follow the rabbis. And it means that the authority of scripture is no longer supreme. But what happens when the Messiah steps into this system? What does he say about tradition versus truth? When Yeshua of Nazareth walked the hills of Judea and Galilee, he didn’t come as a rebel. He came as a teacher of the word, a faithful son of Israel. But his greatest conflict wasn’t with Rome. It was with the religious leaders of his own people, specifically the Pharisees. Why? Because he upheld the written Torah while they elevated the traditions of men. Time and again, Yeshua confronted them with a piercing question. Why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? Matthew 15:3. He rebuked them for nullifying the word through oral rulings. For example, God said to honor father and mother, but the Pharisees created a loophole, corban, allowing people to withhold support from their parents if it was dedicated to God. Yeshua called it what it was, man-made hypocrisy. They built elaborate systems around handwashing, Sabbath observance, and ritual purity, often condemning those who didn’t follow their specific rules. But Yeshua exposed the heart. You clean the outside of the cup, but inside you are full of greed and self-indulgence. Matthew 23:2. And yet Yeshua never rejected the Torah. He said, “Do not think I came to abolish the law or the prophets. I came to fulfill Matthew 5:17. He upheld the written word and called Israel back to it. But in doing so, he directly challenged the authority of the oral law. That’s why the religious leaders hated him. That’s why they accused him of blasphemy. And that’s why they plotted his death. Not because he broke the Torah, but because he exposed the system that had risen above it. And the same choice remains today. Will we follow the commands of God or the traditions of men?
After the destruction of the second temple in 70 CE, a major shift occurred in Jewish life. The priests were gone. The sacrifices ceased and the temple lay in ruins. In that vacuum, one group rose to define the future of Judaism. The rabbis heirs of the Pharisees. They claimed authority to interpret scripture, to preserve tradition, and to guide the people without a temple. But over time, something deeper happened. The written word faded into the background while rabbitic rulings multiplied. Thousands of oral laws were debated, codified, and enforced. And what started as fences around the Torah became walls that obscured it. The rabbis didn’t just shape practice. They claimed the power to legislate truth. In the Talmud, there’s a famous story. A rabbi receives a heavenly voice supporting his opinion, but the others reject it. They say the Torah is not in heaven and the voice of the majority wins. The implication, even God doesn’t get to overrule the rabbis. This wasn’t the faith of Moses. It wasn’t the spirit of the prophets and it certainly wasn’t the way of the Messiah. But it became the norm. To this day, rabbitic Judaism treats the oral law as equal or even superior to the written Torah. And anyone who questions that system is often dismissed, excluded, or labeled a heretic. But if we want to return to biblical faith, we have to ask, can God’s truth be found under layers of man-made tradition? Or do we need to clear away the rubble and return to the foundation? Because the question isn’t just historical, it’s personal. Whose voice will we follow? From Sinai to the present day, God has called his people to one thing above all, to listen to his voice. But throughout history, that voice has often been drowned out by the voices of men. The oral law as taught by rabbitic tradition was not given at Mount Si. It was built slowly, layer by layer through centuries of interpretation. And while some of it may reflect wisdom or insight, much of it goes far beyond what God commanded. In many places it contradicts the written word, in others it obscures it, and too often it replaces it. The rabbis claimed authority to interpret Torah, but in practice, they claimed something more, the right to legislate truth. But God never gave that right to men. He gave us a written word, clear, tested, and preserved. He gave us prophets who never added laws but called people back to the covenant. And he gave us the Messiah who confronted human tradition and restored the heart of the Torah. The question today isn’t whether tradition is helpful. The question is, what happens when tradition becomes the standard and God’s word takes second place? In a world filled with voices, will we follow the crowd or return to the source? The scriptures are still open. The invitation still stands. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
We began this journey with a simple question. Is the religion known today as Judaism the same as the faith revealed in the Bible? We trace the path from the Torah of Moses to the traditions of the Pharisees, from the voice of the prophets to the rulings of the rabbis, from covenant identity to legal definitions, from God’s appointed times to man-made calendars, and from the authority of scripture to the authority of tradition. Each step along the way, something vital was lost. The written word was replaced. The voice of the Lord was silenced. And the people of the covenant were told they no longer belonged unless they bowed to a system God never commanded. But through it all, one voice still calls out to return to me. Return to my word. Return to the covenant I gave not by man’s authority but by my spirit. You do not need rabbitic approval to belong to God. You do not need oral tradition to understand his commands. And you do not need man-made systems to walk in his truth. The gate is open. The invitation is real. And the Messiah has come not to create a new religion, but to restore what was lost. The time has come to choose tradition or truth, system or scripture, religion, or the voice of the living God. The faith of the Bible is still alive, and it is calling you home. If you’ve made it this far, thank you for watching and being part of this journey with me. Now, I invite you to check out this recommended video right here. And if you’re hungry for more eye-opening content, hit the subscribe button and let’s keep learning
