I wish we would stop comparing others to Pharisees in an attempt to denigrate them. Most scholars recognize that the gospels' portrayal of the Pharisees was based on the experience of new Christians after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70CE and was read back into the life of Jesus by Matthew in an exercise in vaticinium ex eventu. In particular, I think it's more self-serving than historical to compare traditionalists to Pharisees, who were actually the more "liberal" group within pre-rabbinic Judaism.