“Torah” – teaching–it teaches and establishes a way of life for the people.
The totality of life is found in and directed by the Torah.
These two elements together – the Jewish People and the Torah – form what is called “Judaism.”
To place the Torah into the framework of religion (whether this is done by those who reject it or by those who uphold it) is to ruin it.
It is to reject it as Torah and to turn it into something completely different – into simply one of the world s religions and faiths.
Conceiving of the Torah as religion is tantamount to confining it within a limited area and, what is more, divesting it of life entirely.
If a Jew is “religious,” he thereby denies the true meaning of Torah.
For the Torah demands of him to be a Yehudi – to give his whole life a special character, whereby everything is Torah.
–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz