Footnote

a “The nature of the difference [between Jesus and the Pharisees] is made clear only in the light of the two opposing understandings of God. For the Pharisees, God is primarily one who makes demands; for Jesus he is gracious and compassionate. The Pharisee does not, of course, deny God’s goodness and love, but for him these were expressed in the gift of the Torah [Law] and in the possibility of fulfilling what is there demanded. . . . Adherence to the oral tradition, with its rules for interpreting the law, was seen by the Pharisee as the way to the fulfilment of the Torah. . . . Jesus’ elevation of the double command of love (Matt. 22:34-40) to the level of a norm of interpretation and his rejection of the binding nature of the oral tradition . . . led him into conflict with Pharisaic casuistry.”​—The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology.