Pharisees

The Pharisee party consisted of those loyal to tradition, and who developed rabbinic scholarship that further explained many of the laws and teachings of the Torah. They struggled to wrest power away from the rival Sadducees during the Hasmonean period. Their sincerity and piety however won over most of the Jews, such that they were eventually victorious in determining the course of subsequent Jewish history.

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There are seven types of [false] Pharisees: the Shechemite Pharisee, the Nakfaite Pharisee, the Miktzoite Pharisee, the Machobaite Pharisee, the Pharisee for the sake of a profession, the Pharisee who was obligated by marriage, the Pharisee driven by lust, and the Pharisee driven by fear.

Avot DeRabbi Natan 37:4

There are seven kinds of religious people: Religious on the shoulder, religious on credit, religious balancing, religious “what is the deduction,” religious “I shall do it when I realize my guilt,” religious from fear, religious from love. Religious on the shoulder, he carries his deeds onhis shoulder. Religious on credit, “give me credit that I can perform commandments.” Religious balancing, he commits one sin and observes one commandment and balances one against the other. Religious “what is the deduction,” what I have that is what I am using to deduct for doing a commandment…

Jerusalem Talmud Berakhot 9:5:7

§ It states in the mishna: And those who injure themselves out of false abstinence [perushin] are people who erode the world. The Sages taught: There are seven pseudo-righteous people who erode the world: The righteous of Shechem, the self-flagellating righteous, the bloodletting righteous, the pestle-like righteous, the righteous who say: Tell me what my obligation is and I will perform it, those who are righteous due to love, and those who are righteous due to fear.…

We learned in the mishna: Similar to this decree of Shabbat, the Sages issued a decree that the zav may not eat with his wife, the zava, even though they are both ritually impure, because by eating together they will come to excessive intimacy and become accustomed to sin. It was taught in a Tosefta that Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar says: Come and see to what extent ritual purity was widespread in Israel, as we did not learn: The ritually pure may not eat with the ritually impure woman…

Shabbat 13a:2-3

Rabbi Yehoshua says: A woman desires to receive the amount of a kav of food and a sexual relationship [tiflut] rather than to receive nine kav of food and abstinence. He would say: A foolish man of piety, and a conniving wicked person, and an abstinent woman [perusha], and those who injure themselves out of false abstinence; all these are people who erode the world.

The mishna continues: The garments of an am ha’aretz, one who is not careful with regard to the laws of ritual purity, are considered impure with the ritual impurity imparted by the treading of a zav. That is considered a primary level of impurity for individuals who are scrupulous with regard to impurity [perushin]. The garments of perushin are considered impure by the treading of a zav for priests who eat teruma…

walking, leaning on his walking stick, the shaft of the spear. And once he reached the tribe of Simeon he said: Where did we find that the tribe of Levi is greater than that of Simeon? If all the members of your tribe submit to the temptation of the women of Moab, I may do so as well. After hearing that statement, the members of the tribe of Simeon said: Allow him to enter; like us, he too is entering to attend to his needs and engage in intercourse with the Moabite women…

Sanhedrin 82b:1

Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai said to them, they had to (חיבתם) deem holy writings as being capable of imparting impurity, for otherwise [the people] would use them as floor-coverings for their livestock. (See Yad. 4:6.) The Boethusians said, "We complain against you, Pharisees. Just as the [inheritance rights of the] daughter of my son are derived from the rights of my son which are derived from his rights, behold, [with respect to] the inheritance of my daughter which are derived from my own rights, is it not logical that she should inherit me?" He said to them, "No…

Tosefta Yadayim 2:9

The Sadducees say: we complain against you, Pharisees, because you say that the Holy Scriptures defile the hands, but the books of Homer do not defile the hands. Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai said: Have we nothing against the Pharisees but this? Behold they say that the bones of a donkey are clean, yet the bones of Yohanan the high priest are unclean. They said to him: according to the affection for them, so is their impurity, so that nobody should make spoons out of the bones of his father or mother…

Mishnah Yadayim 4:6

§ Having mentioned the prohibition against plastering, which is a sign of mourning over the destruction of the Temple, the Gemara discusses related matters. The Sages taught in a baraita (Tosefta, Sota 15:11): When the Temple was destroyed a second time, there was an increase in the number of ascetics among the Jews, whose practice was to not eat meat and to not drink wine. Rabbi Yehoshua joined them to discuss their practice. He said to them: My children…

Bava Batra 60b:11-12

She said to him: Even though women such as myself are the wives of Sadducees, who do not follow in the ways of the perushim, they are scared of the perushim and they show their blood to the Sages when an uncertainty arises. The garments of the High Priest are therefore pure, as the Sadducee wives properly observe the halakhot of menstruation. Rabbi Yosei says: We are familiar with the wives of Sadducees more so than everyone else, as they are our neighbors…

Niddah 33b:19-20

And there was one person present, a scoffer, a man of an evil heart and a scoundrel called Elazar ben Po’ira. And Elazar ben Po’ira said to King Yannai: King Yannai, the hearts of the Pharisees, the Sages, are against you. In other words, they harbor secret resentment against you and do not like you. The king replied: And what shall I do to clarify this matter? Elazar responded: Have them stand by wearing the frontplate between your eyes. Since the frontplate bears the Divine Name, they should stand in its honor…

Kiddushin 66a:9

A predatory woman. That is one who sits and makes fun of the words of the Torah: “She said, you shall come to me … and he slept with her that night.” Rebbi Abbahu said, one could think that this was the [divine] intention. He only knew that she was doing this only to produce more tribes.

Jerusalem Talmud Sotah 3:4:10

FOLLOWING closely upon the victory of the Hasmoneans over the Greek armies and their Jewish proteges, there began a dispute over the interpretation of the commandments of the Pentateuch concerning which many of the scholars held varying opinions. These disputes were frequently so serious that they constituted a threat to the existence of the nation. Out of these disputes there emerged three main tendencies which eventually crystallized into three different parties: the Pharisees, the Saducees and the Essenes…

The Jewish Spiritual Heroes, Volume I; The Creators of the Mishna, The Three Main Parties of the Talmudic Period; The Pharisees, The Sadducees, The Essenes 1-18

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