There is a kind of tendency in the religious world to add tons of restrictions that the Torah does not require and to ignore plenty of prohibitions that the Torah forbids. This, of course, is against the verse in Deuteronomy chap. 4 verse 2 that commands us not to add nor subtract from the commandments. And it is also against the approach of the Gra and the general Litvak world. However, this tendency has seeped in the Litvak world today. And while I was in the Mir in NY, I barely noticed this tendency because at that time I was interested in following the stricter opinion about any question in halacha--law. But after some time, I began to notice this. Of course, there is nothing wrong with taking the strict opinion about any particular law. But the problem is that lots of restrictions are made up out ''of whole cloth'' [as the expression goes].
