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Thursday

י"ח אדר ב’ התשפ"ד

Thursday
י"ח אדר ב’ התשפ"ד

חיפוש בארכיון

Mitzvah 496) Not to deviate from the words of the wise

Parshas Shoftim

“You shall not deviate from the word that he tells you to the right or to the left!” (Devarim 17:11)

It is a negative commandment that one may not argue with the masters of transmission (may they rest in peace), and that one must not change their words or deviate from their commandments in all of the topics of the Torah, and about this it says “You shall not deviate from the word that he tells you to the right or to the left!”.

Amongst the roots of this commandment are that since the opinions of people are different from each other, and they will never agree when speaking about their opinions, it follows that if each person would interpret the Torah according to his own logic there would be an abundance of arguments as regards the explanation of the commandments and the one Torah would become like many. Hashem therefore commanded us to conduct ourselves in the fulfilment of the commandments according to the true interpretation as transmitted to our early wise men (may they rest in peace). In each and every generation we must also listen to the wise men in that generation who listened to and received their words and who “drank the water” of their holy books, and worked day and night with much travail to try and understand the depths and profundities of their logical arguments.

This commandment (to listen to the words of our earlier wise men and our present men who are great in the wisdom of the Torah and the judges in our generation) applies in all places and at all times, both to men and to women.