Parshas Vaeschanan

"Wow !! This painting is absolutely wonderful."
"You're right, it's great. If he would put a little more red on top, it
would be perfect."

"You shall not add to the words that I have commanded you, nor subtract
from them." (Divorim 4:2) Many people ask, that it is understandable that
you can't subtract from the Torah, because you won't be fulfilling all of
the commandments, but what is the problem of adding our own laws ? Rav
Yaacov Neiman zt"l, said, that G-d's Torah is perfect: If we add to it, we
are showing that we are filling in something missing.

If it ain't broken--don't fix it !!

Have a great Shabbos !!

Rabbi Chaim Flom

Dear Rabbi Flom,
So the obvious question is, what are mitzvos d'rabanan, g'darim, etc?
Sincerely,
Mark

Dear Mark,
You are asking a very important question. I will give a basic answer to the question.
There is an argument on how one "violates" the commandment of "do not add to the Mitzvos", but basically, if it is added explicitly as Torah and not a Rabbinic Mitzva. (ie.We have 613 Torah laws, not 614.) The Gemara in Shabbos 23a asks "How can we make a bracha on a Rabbinic law saying 'Who has commanded us with His laws', if it is Rabbinic?". The Gemara gives 2 similar answers (I am not going to discuss the differences.) 1)The Torah Divorim 17:11 says "Do not deviate from what they (the "priests and judges") say" or 2) Divorim 32:7 "ask...your elders and they will tell you". These are how we know that the Prophets and Rabbis were empowered by the G-d to make certain safeguards. The prototype of safeguards are in the Torah. For example,a Nazir (one who makes a vow to abstain from wine and a few other laws) is told (Numbers 6:3-4) that he can't eat grapes or any part of a grape.
I hope that this was helpful.
Chaim Flom