In Torah there is brought twice a prohibition of adding or subtracting from the commandments.
I have had a problem in understanding this for along time. One explanation I heard from my learning partner in Uman is that rabbinical laws do not add to the Torah since they are not saying that they are adding. Rather they claim those laws are rabbinical so that is not adding.
This might seem to you a bit disingenuous. [They can add as long as they do not say they are adding. It would be like if a thief steals but that is OK as long as he does not say that that is what he is doing.]
The way I see this is this. The Pilgrims on the Mayflower made the "Mayflower Compact". That is there is such a thing as a community of people getting together and deciding that they are going to live under certain rules. So there would be no such thing as decrees of anything that is binding for all generations except the actual laws of the Torah. Other than that there just basic norms that are applicable to a particular time and place.
But this is a debate. Like in the city of R. Yose ha'Galili they went by his rulings even when that was against the general rulings on things even things from the Torah. [I recall this came up a few times. Like the meat of fowl with milk. But I recall it comes up more than that.] So the idea that there is a general right to add seems to be specific to place and time. Besides this there is the old argument even in the Gemara itself if once the reason for a decree disappears then the decree itself is null and void. Most Rishonim hold the decree is null, i.e, the Raavad and Tosphot.
But just to show the basic idea see Avot of R. Natan [a commentary on Avot by an amora. a sage of the gemara] on the mishna "to make a fence".
Also the idea that decrees are for the local communities that they were made for comes up in the Gemara often enough. Like with R. Yehuda Hanasi and R Yose in terms of milk with poultry
I have had a problem in understanding this for along time. One explanation I heard from my learning partner in Uman is that rabbinical laws do not add to the Torah since they are not saying that they are adding. Rather they claim those laws are rabbinical so that is not adding.
This might seem to you a bit disingenuous. [They can add as long as they do not say they are adding. It would be like if a thief steals but that is OK as long as he does not say that that is what he is doing.]
The way I see this is this. The Pilgrims on the Mayflower made the "Mayflower Compact". That is there is such a thing as a community of people getting together and deciding that they are going to live under certain rules. So there would be no such thing as decrees of anything that is binding for all generations except the actual laws of the Torah. Other than that there just basic norms that are applicable to a particular time and place.
But this is a debate. Like in the city of R. Yose ha'Galili they went by his rulings even when that was against the general rulings on things even things from the Torah. [I recall this came up a few times. Like the meat of fowl with milk. But I recall it comes up more than that.] So the idea that there is a general right to add seems to be specific to place and time. Besides this there is the old argument even in the Gemara itself if once the reason for a decree disappears then the decree itself is null and void. Most Rishonim hold the decree is null, i.e, the Raavad and Tosphot.
But just to show the basic idea see Avot of R. Natan [a commentary on Avot by an amora. a sage of the gemara] on the mishna "to make a fence".
Also the idea that decrees are for the local communities that they were made for comes up in the Gemara often enough. Like with R. Yehuda Hanasi and R Yose in terms of milk with poultry
