In Parshas Va’eschanan the Torah mentions the Issurim, the prohibitions, of Bal Tosif and Bal Tigra (4,2). One is not allowed to add to the Torah, and one is not allowed to diminish and take away from the Torah.  In the next posuk, the Torah mentions the terrible aveirah of Ba’al Peor, where Am Yisrael succumbed to one of the most disgusting forms of Avodah Zarah. The linkage is striking, the pesukim flow immediately from Bal Tigra and Bal Tosif to Avodah Zarah.  The meforshim discuss the connection.  I want to share Rav Hirsch’s approach to the connection between the pesukim. 

Rav Hirsch writes:

The immediate transition from Bal Tosif and Bal Tigra to the warning reference, to the annihilation of idol worshipers seems highly didactic.  It proclaims the fact that every denial of the inviolable Divinity of the Torah, even regarding one single mitzvah, setting man’s opinion as being equal to the Mitzvos of Hashem, is equivalent to a general defection to polytheism

The idea (I think) is as follows[i].  Once a person says ‘I can change the Torah,’ add a mitzvah or take away a mitzvah, then the person is basically saying that the mitzvos depend on my own thinking, whatever I believe in.  If a person decides one mitzvah is not for him, then it turns out the other 612 mitzvos that he is doing is only because they make sense to him.  So really, he is not really serving Hashem, he is actually serving himself!  He is going through life doing whatever he thinks makes sense.  And this leads to dropping other mitzvos, and this can eventually lead to Avodah Zarah. 

Rav Hirsch refers to the episode (Shmuel 1 Perek 15) where Shaul did not fully follow Hashem’s command regarding Amalek, and Shmuel gives him mussar and tochacha.  Rav Hirsch explains that instead of Shaul ‘strictly fulfilling the command which lay clear and definitely before him’, he allowed himself to do both more and less than he was commanded.  Less in that he did not execute Agag and more in that he kept some of the best animals to offer to Hashem, as if that is better than what Hashem commanded him, to wipe them all out.  ‘So that Shaul had definitely transgressed the warnings of Bal Tosif and Bal Tigra.’ Shmuel then gives Shaul the following mussar:

Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice.  To pay attention is more than the fat of rams.  For disobedience is the sin of witchcraft and pressing your own arbitrary powers forward is the cult of idolatry…

Rav Hirsch explains disobedience, which leaves Hashem’s command unfulfilled because it, in your opinion, does not fit with some other factor is, at its base, no other sin other than allowing sorcery to decide whether to do an act commanded or approved by Hashem. 

This is really a major yesod in Torah hashkafa.  We have to constantly remind ourselves that we do the mitzvos because Hashem commanded them.  We sometimes do not understand a mitzvah or a mitzvah might be difficult for us, but we have to do it anyway.  Sometimes a person says to himself, r”l,

‘This mitzvah is not for me.  I do not understand it, it does not make sense, so I am not going to do it.’ 

One has to understand that this is a very serious, grievous error.  We can not pick and choose the mitzvos.  When one picks and chooses the mitzvos, he is putting himself at the center. He is the decider, and then in essence, he is doing what he wants, as opposed to fulfilling the command of Hashem. 

I once heard the following mashal from my rebbe Rav Ahron Lichtenstein shli”ta. He was contrasting Avodas Hashem to shopping.   Avodas Hashem, he said, is a theocentric activity, where Hashem is at the center.  Man responds to the Call of Hashem; that is the essence of yahadus. Shopping, on the other hand, is a homocentric activity; man is at the center.  Each person decides he wants this shirt and not that shirt, this skirt and not that skirt.  And Rav Ahron said very sharply, “Judaism is not a department store, you can’t pick and choose the mitzvos.” 

That is exactly the message of Bal Tosif and Bal Tigra. And the Torah is warning us that if one violates this message, then there are terrible, terrible consequences it can lead to[ii]. 

We all have to work on being mekabel on ourselves to do the mitzvos of Hashem that He commanded, and we have to avoid choosing our own way against what Hashem commanded.

[i] Rav Hirsch himself develops another idea as well regarding the link to Avodah Zarah.

[ii] This is exactly one of the (many) mistakes of the Conservative and Reform movements.  When a group decides that a certain Mitzvah does not fit into their modern way of thinking, and therefore drops the mitzvah because it seems old fashioned and outdated, so that group is stating that they decide which mitzvos will be done.  Then that group has left the mesorah.  And once you make that break form the mesorah, then we see in the Torah what it could lead to. That is exactly what happened in the Reform and Conservative movements.  Even if in the beginning some of the changes seemed relatively small, but there was a fundamental break. They were dropping mitzvos and lavim.  And once the break from the mesorah is made, then we see nowadays what it can lead to. 

I remember in tenth grade, my rebbe, Rabbi Hyatt shli”ta, drew a picture on the board.  He drew a wide arrow heading left to right, and then he drew a line that was approximately a 15 degree turn from the main arrow.  The wide arrow represents the mesorah. The line, he explained, represents the first generation of Reform or Conservative Jewry.  What is significant, he explained, was they left the broad arrow of the mesorah. Then, the next generation dropped further from the mesorah. Why? Because the next generation decides on their own what makes sense to them- which mitzvos make sense and fit in the modern world.  And it is only natural that once you are deciding for yourself, so the second generation might decide that other mitzvos do not make sense.  So, the next generation was 15 or 20 degrees off from the first angled line.  Therefore, the second arrow off the mesorah was already 30 or 40 degrees away from the mesorah.  And by the fourth or fifth angled arrow, it was literally going in a completely different direction than the original arrow of the mesorah.  A very powerful picture. And that picture, that message, is captured in Rav Hirsch’s comments here regarding the connection between Bal Tosif/Bal Tigra and Avodah Zarah.