Pentateuchal Judaism was brought to Jerusalem, by Ezra, by introducing the Pentateuch to Jerusalem as law, after the upper class of Jerusalem returned from exile. Pentateuchal Judaism created a socially constructed world based on boundaries and strict rules that, when followed, deemed members pure and part of the society. The society created by Pentateuchal Judaism was one that focused on distancing itself from the rest of the world. Pentateuchal Society viewed people of the world in one of two ways; either they were part of the true Judaic Society, through following the rules set by the Pentateuch and remaining what was considered pure, or they were an outsider of the faith. Those considered to be outsiders of Pentateuchal Judaism were attacked by the actions the Pentateuchal Jews took towards them. The Pentateuchal Society created boundaries, defining its society, around the Pentateuchal concept of cleanliness and adhering to the practices of the Pentateuch.
The concept of cleanliness in the Pentateuchal Society was very well defined, and contained multiple degrees of cleanliness. Purity and cleanliness were considered interchangeable, therefore the more “clean” one was considered, the more pure, while the less clean, the less pure, and vice versa. Purity, and therefore cleanliness, could be judged on many different aspects of the world, such as location, books, and even animals.
Location was based on concentric realms of increased purity (Lightstone, 4.3). This essentially means that the center of the Temple is the most clean, with a decreasing amount of cleanliness equivalent to the distance from the center. Therefore the center of the Temple is the most pure, then the Temple itself, then Jerusalem, then the Land of Israel.
The explicitly defined rules illustrate barriers throughout the Pentateuchal Society; citizens had to prove themselves to be clean and