Parashat: Ve’etchanan

Ve’etchanan
Deuteronomy 3:23–7:11

“And now, O Israel, give heed to the laws and rules that I am instructing you to observe, so that you may live to enter and occupy the land that יהוה, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. You shall not add anything to what I command you or take anything away from it, but keep the commandments of your God יהוה that I enjoin upon you.”

— Deuteronomy 4:1-2

Moses enjoins the people to follow all of God’s laws that he has taught them during their time in the wilderness, and warns them to neither add nor take away from these laws. 13th century French commentator Chizkuni (Rabbi Chizkiah ben Manoach) notes that this verse served as a response to those who opposed the work of the early Rabbis, claiming that they had added many additional laws beyond those stated in the torah. The rebuttal of the sages, Chizkuni says, is that the warning not to subtract from the laws of the Torah appears twice, each time in connection with idolatry. When it comes to any of the other commandments, however, the sages are not only entitled but encouraged to surround the Biblical laws with “fences,” in order to protect the people from violating the Biblical laws.

— Rachel Petroff Kessler