You might wonder how, after God destroyed their Temple, the rabbis had the hutzpah to fabricate an entirely new religion.
After all, in the Christian Old Testament, two Hebrews, Nadab and Abihu, tried to light the altar with their own Zippo and God destroyed them in a fire tornado.
Then, Uzzah was struck dead for touching the ark, despite trying to keep it from touching the ground. Heck, Korah thought he’d redefine priesthood and God had the ground swallow him and a few of his friends.
The lesson? Worship God how He explicitly commands you, and no other.
The command from God to the Israelites was direct: “What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it” (Deut 12:32).
But the Rabbis changed Passover and the other feasts to unrecognizable traditions, invented a Temple-free religion without priests, without sacrifice (except for the chicken-slingers), and without an altar. In fact, modern Judaism is one giant invention of the post-temple Pharisees, who crafted a religion that looks nothing like that of Moses’ or David’s.
They would not recognize it.
So, how do they have the gall to make their entire Temu-Hebrew bastard religion from scratch, when God demanded they do it EXACTLY as He told them (Exodus 25:40)?
Simple!
Jews believe they can overrule God.
The Talmud teaches that there is a council of Rabbis, some on earth and some in Heaven, who can change God’s rules and veto Him. And Makkot 23b indicates that living rabbis on earth have more authority to boss God around than the ones already in Heaven.
In Bava Metzia 59, a rabbi has an opinion, God contradicts Him, and he says, “Since the Torah was already given at Mount Sinai, we do not regard a Divine Voice.” They just chose not to listen to the Almighty.
Afterward, Elijah explains that when God was overruled by Rabbis, God cried out, “My children have triumphed over Me; My children have triumphed over Me.”
Their claim is that God gave the Law, but He gave Rabbis the right to interpret it, primarily in the Talmud, and so Rabbis have the ultimate say in Scripture’s meaning, and even God must abide by their rulings.
In Mishnah Sanhedrin 11:3, it demands that greater attention and trust must be placed in the rabbis than the Old Testament Scripture, “This is more severe with respect to the words of the Sages than to the words of the Torah.”
Shir HaShirim Rabbah, commenting in Mishnah Berakhot 1:3, says something similar, “The words of the scribes are dearer than matters of Torah.”
For Christians, it’s “God’s Word says it, and that settles it.” In Rabbinic Judaism, it’s “The Rabbis will take a vote and tell you if God’s Word settles it or not.”
For them, fabricating a new religion and calling it “Judaism” is no big deal. It’s not like God gets a say in it or not.
The rabbis have spoken.