The academic study of religion, flourishing in Western universities since World War II, has struggled to fully integrate Judaism within its comparative frameworks. While religious studies examines humanity's efforts to construct worlds of meaning, as defined by Jonathan Z. Smith, traditional Jewish learning has remained largely isolated from these methodological approaches. Drawing on analysis of cultural and institutional conditions necessary for secular, humanistic religious inquiry, this research reveals that religious studies as a discipline thrives predominantly in English-speaking universities, particularly in North America, where the separation of church and state enables neutral academic investigation. Neither conventional Torah study nor Wissenschaft des Judentums has substantially engaged with comparative religious studies methodologies. Yet examining Judaism through religious studies frameworks offers essential insights unavailable through purely historical or philological approaches, illuminating the inner spiritual life of the Jewish people as a religious phenomenon. This perspective enables scholars to understand Judaism as a religious statement about human meaning-making that can be analyzed alongside other traditions while preserving its distinctive characteristics.