Perushim / Pharisees
During the latter part of the second century BCE there came into prominence among the Jews two important sects or parties, the Perushim or Pharisees, and the Zedukim or Sadducees. The Perushim or separatists were simply later exponents of a tendency older than the time of Ezra. This tendency had its beginnings in the earliest impulses of the common people among the Jews, ideas about every Jew being a priest, to regard the devout observance of the laws of Yahweh as the supreme aim of individual and national life.
They believed the Jews could realize this aim only by holding themselves aloof from all foreign innovations and by emphasizing those elements and customs of Jewish life that marked off the Jews as a distinct and peculiar people. They insisted upon all political undertakings, all public transactions, every national act being tried by the standard of religion. The Pharisee objected to the cruel rule of these Roman tyrants, who oppressed them, and who tried to prevent the practice of faith.
In both of these positions they were opposed by the Sadducees. They differed further from the Zedukim or Sadducees in accepting and throwing the weight of their influence in favor of the oral law of the scribes and many beliefs not set forth in the Pentateuch, such as the doctrine of the resurrection and the belief in the existence of angels and future rewards and punishments. Just as the kinship of the Pharisee was with the Stoic, the kinship of the Sadducee was with the Epicurean. Many of the most prominent of the scribes were Perushim, but the Perushim were in no sense a teaching order. Rather they constituted a religious sect or party which included men of every rank and occupation. Their educational importance grew out of the support they gave to the cause of Judaism and to the teachings and educational efforts of the Soferim. In the Pharisee's opinion, one of the most important teachings of the faith is that one does not require to be rich or powerful to be a good religious Jew.
With all his faults the Pharisee was a man to be respected, if not admired. The common people adored him and took him for the model saint. Narrow, bigoted, and intolerant he undoubtedly was, but he was intensely religious; and if he sometimes kept his morality and his religion in water-tight compartments, not allowing them to mix, he did nothing more than many religionists in all ages have done. They did not believe that the laws were intended to be obeyed without explanation, and so they possessed regulations, which had been handed down from generation to generation. They may make the observance of the laws a little more irksome, but, at any rate, they made them understand them better, and they appeared more reasonable to carry out.
The contrast between the Pharisee and the Sadducee was marked. Where the Pharisee was narrow the Sadducee was broad; where the Pharisee was bigoted the Sadducee was tolerant; where the Pharisee was scrupulous, the Sadducee was indifferent; while the Pharisee took his religion seriously the Sadducee took his lightly; while the Pharisee was satisfied with his religion the Sadducee was satisfied with his life; while the Pharisee had a sense of the spiritual realm the Sadducee had only a world-vision - all his thoughts and aims and hopes being bounded by this terrestrial ball.
The Pharisees followed the spirit of the great teacher Hillel in thinking that, if for some reason they cannot worship in the Temple, it is better to pray in a Synagogue than not at all, so long as the prayer was to God; better, too, that one should pray to the Almighty in the home than offer no prayers at all.
Second Temple Judaism was distinguished by its factionalism: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Zealots etc. Of these, only the Pharisees survived. In addition to the three groups identified by Josephus (Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes), Judaism was further divided into numerous religious sects and political parties. With the destruction of the Temple and the commonwealth in 70 C.E., all that came to an end. Only the Judaism of the Pharisees--Rabbinic Judaism--survived. When their national sanctuary was razed to the ground, when their state came to an end, the Jews flocked round the Pharisees and the Torah, "the portable fatherland," as Heine called it. The Rabbis thus established their authority.
By the 19th Century the Ashkenasim in Palestine wre divided in reference to communal administration into Perushim and Chassidim. The origin of the name ''Perushim" had been much discursed and many erroneous derivations have been given. Christian authors mostly identified the name with the "Pharisees" of the time of the second temple. That this is a wrong explanation is proved by the fact that the "Perushim" are now opposed by the "Chassidim" who, in reference to the distinguishing feature of the ancient Pharisees viz. their adherence to the oral tradition were at one with the Perushim. Up to the end of the 18th century Ashkenazim who lived in these parts . together with Sephardim were known only by the name of "Ashkenasim", the appelation Perushim being quite unknown.
The title Perushim was assumed in opposition to the sect of Chassidim from whom they have separated. After the end of the 18th century the Rabbis of Lithania and White Russia, with the celebrated Gaoii Eliahu of Wilna at their head, had in vain tried to bring the Chassidim back from the error of their ways, they sent out messengers to all the Jewish communities, warning them against any intercourse with the Chassidim whom they had excommunicated, and this separatiou from the Chassidim was expressed by the name of Perushim.
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