1Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, 2’Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands before they eat.

can this verse be read to mean that jesus had washed his hands since the pharisees to not accuse him of breaking the tradition of the elders?

maybe someone will argue, “but jesus then justifies their breaking of their tradition,” but does he?

quote:
Even this version does not abrogate the Torah. As Crossley writes: ‘”the saying ‘there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile’ (Mk 7.15) and the statement ‘he declared all foods clean’ (Mk 7.19), can be read as a critique of the views associated with establishing the transmission of impurity from hands to food (via a liquid) to eater. In other words, from this perspective, all foods permitted in the Torah were clean to eat and hand-washing was unnecessary” (p. 16). The ethical teaching in Mark 7:20-23 also strikes me as quite consistent with the conception of purity at Qumran; there must be an inward cleansing first of the soul, an individual with the stains from the mud of wickedness “will not become clean by the acts of atonement, nor shall he be purified by the cleansing waters” (1QS 3.4). Similarly, John the Baptist (according to Josephus) reserved baptism only for those who have achieved an inner purification of faithfully pursuing righteousness (δικαιοσύνῃ προεκκεκαθαρμένης). Jesus argues that foods that are already clean to eat according to the Torah cannot make a person unclean but rather defilement lies inside a person guilty of moral sins. Washing hands will not make a person corrupt on the inside clean.