Next most reasonable facsimile

ChZL replaced the brit Sinai with halacha. 

In a world where the covenantal partnership has been abrogated halacha is the next most reasonable facsimile that embodies a relationship with a divine being. The Christians devised a different facsimile; the Muslims, yet a third one. 

All have fundamentally altered the basic covenantal relationship the Chumash describes as specified by the treaty at Sinai, which treaty was constituted of the treatises at Sinai and the institutions of covenant that were detailed at Sinai, which institutions were comprised of the mishkan and the laws of sheviit and shemitta and yovel and the proportions of valuation of cherem that complete the exposition that began in parashat Terumah.