The Aims of a Zealous Pharisee

Chapter TWO LIKE BIRDS HOVERING OVERHEAD: THE FAITHFULNESS OF THE GOD OF ISRAEL
The Aims of a Zealous Pharisee

Part of the answer to this question is easy; part is more controversial. The two outer limits are easy. First, personal purity. This has been sufficiently explored in many other places. Second, the ultimate goal of God’s coming fulfilment of his promises. The two join up: keeping Torah in the present is one of the means by which that goal will be reached, one of the signs that one belongs already to the age to come. For many Pharisees, maintaining personal purity to the required standard, and working in whatever way possible for the coming of God’s kingdom, will have been the main aims of one’s life. If there were substantial Pharisaic communities in the Diaspora as well as in the holy land itself, which is disputed, then the Torah will have loomed even larger, making up for being away from the Temple.453 In such a case, as well, Torah-observance was likewise accentuated because this was what enabled the ‘wall’ to be maintained between God’s people and the idolatrous pagan world.454...