Some people here seem quite irked at this episode, and I’d like to know why. These men in Lakewood did not go around forcing their chumros on anybody else; they were merely machmir on themselves. What issue could anybody possibly have with that?
SL1:
“This is one of the causes of the modern day OTD syndrome. When instead of making logical and sensible rules like one may not browse indecent websites or use the internet at all we go overboard and make insensible and unreasonable rules like one may not even hold a smartphone, then eventually the rule will be questioned and abandoned totally. But if the rule was sensible in the first place then it is more likely to last. Anybody agree or disagree?”
I agree that making unreasonable rules leads people to abandon the rules entirely; however, that’s simply not what happened here. Nobody tried to enforce their chumros on anybody else here; they were only machmir themselves. And to do so is a beautiful thing that should be commended, not bashed.
more:
The very first Mishna in Avos says “uhsue siyug la’Torah”, make a fence for the Torah. To suggest that the Medrash about Chava is meant to tell us not to have chumros (or to have less chumros) is simply not true, and is a gross distortion of the values put forth by the Torah.