Judaism, said Mendelssohn, was not based on revelation but laws: precepts, ‘rules for life’. The epiphany on Sinai had given them a sacred aura, but they were above all a set of instructions for living, not a theology of salvation, neither did they carry with them any kind of dogma. None of the commandments in the Torah actually required a particular kind of statement of belief. For a brief period historically it was true that the Judaean state had allied itself to the Mosaic religion but that had ended with the destruction of the Temple and now those rules and moral guidance were the essence
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