Reading from a Torah scroll in accordance with Sephardi tradition. Photo: Sagie Maoz via Wikimedia Commons.

There is a well-known phrase in this week’s Torah reading, which is often misunderstood. In Chapter 13:1, as part of the great speech of Moses, it says, “These things which I command you today, you should keep them to observe them and not add nor subtract from them.” This is a repeat of an earlier statement in Chapter 4:2, which is in the plural, whereas this quote is in the singular.

In the Book of Devarim, Moshe gives a list of all the commands he has received, and that he wants to pass on to all succeeding generations. He says we should not try to remove any of the laws, nor should we add to them. Naturally, the rabbis set about trying to explain how to understand this, because there are so many things that were written in the Torah that we no longer adhere to, such as sacrifices, laws of purity, and tribal inheritance. And conversely, there are many things that we have added. Think of Purim and Hanukkah, and the second Day of Yom Tov.

Much has been written about this, and the difference between the two tenses. An obvious inference is that this is both a personal and a general command, to individuals and the authorities.

A common complaint one hears is that we have added on many extra refinements, customs, and strictures, often alien ones from outside of Judaism. Many observant communities may be completely unaware of what other communities do, let alone all the kabbalistic practices and therapeutic incantations. Aren’t these examples of adding?

The official rabbinic interpretation is that when it says do not add, it means do not add to an already existing law of the Torah — so you cannot add a Biblical festival, but you can add a non-Biblical festive day, as long as it does not mimic a Biblical one. Or if the Torah says there are four kinds of plants to be taken on Sukkot that we waive, you cannot add an extra couple of plants. And yet we think nothing of adding an extra day of Yo Tov to Rosh Hashanah and other Biblical festivals in the Diaspora.

One might say that we’ve adopted new practices because the circumstances have changed, and we don’t have a Temple anymore — or that we need to make the law more sensitive to new developments. We don’t allow people to get married in the simpler Biblical way anymore, but have added the Ketubah and the chupah because they protect the wife’s interests. Yet we keep on adding all kinds of different ritual customs and ceremonies that would be unrecognizable to Moses. Besides, it’s clear from the Torah itself that one is allowed to innovate within a framework of the law, which it says quite explicitly in next week’s reading from the Torah (Chapter 17:8-13). Indeed, the whole of the Oral Law is an addition to some degree.

I understand this idea of not adding or reducing to mean that there is the law and there is the spirit of the law, which adds another dimension. Words like “just,” “righteous,” “kindness,” “love,” and “charity,” cannot always be defined legally, but we know how important they are. We have to preserve the core of our tradition by clarifying certain things like amendments to Constitutions or Basic Laws in Israel today. The spirit of the law certainly requires this. The key, to me, is whether something preserves the spirit of the law.

Preservation might indeed involve adding or removing. But if the aim is to strengthen the people and their way of life, then it does not contradict the spirit of the law. But if it is simply to make life easier or to please other people, then it is destructive and chips away at the foundations. Imagine a legal system whose sole aim is to be popular and make life easy. That just doesn’t work.

I often wonder if we have gone too far with adding. Yet because the secular world has gone so far in removing moral limitations or reinterpreting them to make anything permissible, it is hardly surprising that the reaction is to tighten constraints rather than loosen them even more. It doesn’t have to be this way, but that’s where we find ourselves today.

The author is a rabbi and writer, currently based in New York.