Who were the Jewish people known for their love of Torah?

Answer 1

pharisees

Answer:

The Jewish group that concentrated on the study, teaching and application of the Torah in everycentury was and is the Torah-sages and their many disciples, from Abraham down to today.
The word "Pharisees," which is based on a Greek misspelling used by Josephus, doesn't convey the meaning which it should. It actually refers to the Sages of the Talmud. (The Hebrew word "p'rushim," to which he referred, means people of temperance; the opposite of epicurean.)
Josephus talks of three groups among the Jews in late Second-Temple times: Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. This may convey the mistaken impression that the Pharisees were just one "sect" among others, when in fact Josephus himself admits that the Pharisees (Torah-sages) with their disciples constituted the majority of the Jewish people.
Although the Christian Testament portrays them poorly, in fact the Pharisees were very egalitarian. They believed that all men were created in God's image and that all had the same rights, and the same right to an education, etc. They were devoted to the study and teaching of Torah and the education of all people, regardless of status in society. They detested hypocrisy and actively sought it out and criticized it whenever they encountered it. The Pharisees were the only movement to survive the destruction of the Second Temple and were the ancestors of modern Judaism.
Our traditional Jewish beliefs today, including the afterlife and the resurrection, are traditions continuing from the Prophets and the Sages of the Talmud ("Pharisees").