is it fair and reasonable to say that the sages set the rules for and made

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James

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judaism the faith it is today? were the sages the people that set all the guidelines for judaism explaining how a jew should live as well as explaining about the rules by giving their own interpretation of the rules which i guess to an extent to varying degrees influence modern day rabbis when deciding how people in their community should live as well as when giving advice on jewish issues

also how did the the sages find out about all the rules, i assume they were passed down the generations and they thought that they should write them down as well as explain them
 
The measure of the earthly success of a faith is how big it is. Judaism is now cornered into a little pocket of arid desert in the Middle East. It's almost like a museum artifact now.
 
Deuteronomy 4:1:
"And now, O Israel, hearken unto the statutes and unto the ordinances, which I teach you, to do them; that ye may live, and go in and possess the land which the LORD, the God of your fathers, giveth you."
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"hearken" (in modern English "listen to" - "Shema" - ie: he here references the oral teachings.
"I teach you" - "Anohi Melamed" - this refers to the explanation by Moses of all the details of what is in the Torah. The word Talmud comes from this - a noun version of the verb "to teach"

Moses gave the written Torah, set up the Jewish judiciary and legislature and then taught the detailed explanations of what was in the writing.
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The people he taught passed this teaching and it continues to be passed to the present day.
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However, Judaism has laws that are called "D'oraita" and "D'rabanan"
The first are directly transmitted from the Sinai covenant
The second are laws made by the legislature (the rabbis) according the principles and authority coming from the Sinai covenant
(even a law from Moses may be "D'rabanan" if it was a law he made according to his position as the legislative leader as opposed to a law that he received from Sinai)
All properly educated Jews are always fully aware which law is which.
 
Rules are made out of the need solve a social problem. They were made back then to solve problems that were abundant and probably causing heavy burdens on the people at the time. Just like we make rules now. They come from a need to have order in that specific way sociologically. Reading the old books clears that up. They didn't make rules just out of thin air. The rules were for specific reasons that are also pretty clear in the Old Testaments. And yes, the Sages did play a large role since they were usually the old folks of the township who had the experience to guide and help the younger generations with their traditions and new developments.
 
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