>>508354867
ofc most of them don't read it, but the rabbis do, and they do what the rabbis say
it's how they stop themselves from fracturing into 10,000 denominations like Christianity has. when someone has a question about what a certain verse in the OT means, they just point to some section of the talmud where 500 years ago two dozen rabbis got together and argued over the meaning of the verse over the course of several days until they arrived at a consensus
it's also how they stop more jesus figures from showing up. the messiah is supposed to fulfill a bunch of autistic prophecies, but jesus lawyer'd most of them in order to make himself the messiah (like the messiah is supposed to bring a sword, obviously a metaphor meant to imply he would cause war, but jesus just told one of the apostles to go buy him a sword, and he waved it around a bit to show he literally brought a sword).
jesus is probably the main reason they made the talmud in the first place