Making a fence: do we really need 5,000 commandments?

For those readers who like to ponder a point and reflect on the perhapses and possibilities of life, Eternal Ethics from Sinai by Rabbi Yaakov Hillel can make quite scary reading. Rabbi Hillel’s detailed and forthright account of Pirkei Avot is not for spineless speculators or doubting Thomases. He writes for those who want confident, no-nonsense and reliably authentic orthodox pronouncements on the meanings of the mishnayot of Avot, for those who are troubled by questions but comforted by answers.

An example of what I mean can be seen in Rabbi Hillel’s approach to Avot 1:1, in which the Men of the Great Assembly advise us to “build a fence round the Torah”. Citing the Shelah HaKadosh he writes:

“Moshe Rabbenu gave our people the basic 613 commandments as he received them at Sinai, among them 365 negative commandments. He added a few precautionary decrees as necessary. In succeeding generations the Prophets, and later the Tannaim, instituted additional enactments and decrees in keeping with the needs of their times, a process that has continued throughout the centuries. An increasing number of humrot have become part of our accepted practice.

Why is this so? Surely we are not more pious than our saintly ancestors.

The imposition of additional strictures was essential precisely because of the ongoing deterioration in our nation’s spiritual level. A variety of decrees and restrictions were introduced not because we of the later generations are more meticulous in our religious observance, but because we face challenges more difficult than our ancestors ever knew. As we said, the closer we come to the era of Mashiach, the more virulent the attack of the Forces of Impurity.

At the time of the Giving of the Torah, 613 commandments were enough to keep the evil inclination at bay. Today we would need at least 5,000. Our only defense against the onslaught is humrot: the numerous stringent pious practices, customs, and observances that safeguard our fulfiillment of Hashem’s commandments. These stringent practices all attain the status of Torah-ordained commandments”.

On one level this trenchant summary of our position and of the utility of additional stringencies is unassailable. Almost every word of Rabbi Hillel can be sourced and supported by sound and respected rabbinical authority (I don’t know where the figure of 5,000 commandments comes from. Can anyone let me know?) But this should not preclude us from encouraging debate.

For one thing, the Torah itself cautions against adding anything to it. This does not mean that the rabbis have not been given a fair measure of discretion but, rather, that the rabbis themselves should be careful to do so only where and when a positive outcome can be predicted. We know that this has not always been the case: the Talmud itself records rabbinical decrees that were not accepted by the very people they were supposed to benefit.

For another thing, it is not only the rank and file corpus of the Jewish people that has declined. The same has happened to the rabbis. We no longer have a Knesset Gedolah (Great Assembly) or an authoritative religious court in the form of a Sanhedrin. In its place we have many individual rabbis who, though some are extraordinarily learned and exemplary in their piety, would never themselves claim to be a par with the Tannaim, Amoraim, Rishonim or even the Acharonim of earlier generations. Even the best and greatest of our rabbis, given their humility and their increasing distance from the sort of world in which most non-rabbis face their greatest challenges, lack the authority to make decrees that bind the entire body of the Jewish people. Where such attempts have been made, their acceptance has been patchy at best and may be said to have fostered division and dissent rather than a greater degree of piety or probity. If examples are needed, just look at the different customs and practices adopted even within the most committed communities towards smartphones, the internet and the pursuit of professional qualifications in secular institutions.

There is a final point to ponder. While an increase in humrot and restrictions may indeed achieve the desired result of keeping Jews within the flock, as it were, it also means that those who leave the flock are infringing an increasing number of rules of conduct that have achieved the status of Jewish law. Apart from the obvious impact that this will have on such judgement as they may face when their lives reach their end, there is also the worrying possibility that the increased quantity of laws and stringencies may serve as a bar to repentance and return to Jewish practice.

Rabbi Hillel is right. Fences round the Torah have an important part to play in preserving Jewish observance, culture and identity. But they must be the right fences, and they must not serve as a barrier to re-entry for those who have strayed “off the derech”.