A good description of this is 'Jewish History, Jewish Religion' by Israel Shahak.

“According to Hadas, a crucial feature of the Platonic political system, adopted by Judaism as early as the Maccabean period (142-63 BC), was ‘that every phase of human conduct be subjected to religious sanctions which are in fact to be manipulated by the ruler’. There can be no better definition of ‘classical Judaism’ and of the ways in which the rabbis manipulated it than this Platonic definition.” [29] What this meant Shahak referred to with the following quote from Plato’s Laws,

The principal thing is that no one, man or woman, should ever be without an officer set over him, and that none should get the mental habit of taking any step, whether in earnest or in jest, on his individual responsibility. In peace as in war he must live always with his eyes on his superior officer… In a word, we must train the mind not even to consider acting as an individual or know how to do it.[30]

Shahak continued, “If the word ‘rabbi’ is substituted for ‘an officer’ we will have a perfect image of classical Judaism.