If the individual was responsible for obeying the Law, he must know what the Law is. So it must not merely be set down and copied, but taught. Hence it was during the Exile that ordinary Jews were first disciplined into the regular practice of their religion. Circumcision, which distinguished them ineffaceably from the surrounding pagans, was insisted upon rigorously, and the act became a ceremony and so part of the Jewish life-cycle and liturgy. The concept of the Sabbath, strongly reinforced by what they learned from Babylonian astronomy, became the focus of the Jewish week, and ‘Shabbetai’
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