Is this where Judaism got off track?
“Separate yourselves from the foreigners living in our land and get rid of your foreign wives.” The people shouted in answer, “We will do whatever you say.”
(Ezra 10:11)
…no Ammonite or Moabite was ever to be permitted to join God’s people. …When the people of Israel heard this law read, they excluded all foreigners from the community.
(Nehemiah 13:1-3)
Interestingly enough, God is (explicitly) absent in these two books. There is nothing in the text to indicate that Ezra and Nehemiah were prophets nor were their actions directed by a prophet. Moreover, there is no overarching narrative indicating that what they did “was right in the eyes of the Lord”. They were simply two very religious individuals who tried to do what was right as best they saw fit. And, like us, they were fallible.
So without taking away from their significant faith and accomplishments, these two major decisions (above) were to have lasting repercussions on the Jewish culture as demonstrated in the words of the Apostle Peter hundreds of years later:
“You yourselves know that it is forbidden for a Jewish man to associate with or visit a foreigner; and yet God has shown me that I am not to call any person unholy or unclean.”
(Acts 10:28)
Where is it written that a Jew was forbidden to associate with non-Jews? It was an excess of religious zeal which led to people breaking sacred oaths. It was an excess of religious zeal which led the nation to minimize their intended role in the world:
“My Temple will be called a house of prayer for the people of all nations.”
(Isaiah 56:7)