[alexvoda]

As I said elsewhere, he just replaced one superstition with another superstition.

You are correct that the meaning of that passage is to critique hypocrisy, but in doing so, the nugget of actually valid advice that was accidentally embedded inside a superstition, was extirpated.

Jews 2000 ago, did not have notions of sanitation. They did not have germ theory. They happened to stumble upon a healthy practice and superstitions were built around that practice. They never had statistics or the scientific method to determine the effect of washing hands. Someone simply did so, managed to avoid some disease, then told others that by doing so managed to stay in God's grace. And so, a healthy practice became a ritual. Time passed and the origin of the ritual was forgotten. Jesus comes, and rightfully tells everyone that said ritual is irrelevant for God. Instead here is a bunch of other different superstitions.

[alehander42]

All of this is really not very relevant to the New Testament. Sadly I feel people back then had in some ways a better grasp of symbolism, proverbs and Scripture than us today.