lesschumras:
Lesschumras’ post was deleted, as well as quotes of it
Your question implies that Torah can’t protect. So here is the gemarah in Sotah 21a
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and later on the daf…
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So obviously the zchus of Torah did protect them. So you have to say, as much as the zchus of Torah protected them, there was still that many more gzeiros out. But had it not been for the protection that they did have, it would have been all the more worse.