חמורים דברי סופרים מדברי תורה ובכלל זה גם דעת תורה שבימינו
The words of the Rabbis are stricter than the words of the Torah and included in this is the Torah view of today
It is brought down in the Gemara (Berachos 4b), Whoever transgresses the words of the Chachamim is liable to death’, and this raises a question, there are many laws in the Torah that if one transgresses them they are not liable to death, why are the words of the Rabbis stricter than the words of the Torah? Some answer that the written Torah is categorized as 'מלך' – ‘King’ since the commands written in it are decrees of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, and the words of Chachamim are just fences and boundaries that distance a person from sin, and they are categorized as 'שומרי המלך' – ‘the King’s guards’, who protect the king from harm.
The way of the world is that the king cannot punish or sentence to death one who transgresses his decree without first having him stand in judgment and investigating all details of the sin. Then, only if clearly there is no way to exonerate him, does he have the right to sentence him. The matter is quite different when it comes to ‘the king’s guards’, they have the right to harm or kill anyone trying to approach the king without any investigation, as long as they suspect that someone hates the king and wants to do something bad to him. This means that the king’s guards though not as empowered as the king, still have the right to kill those rebellious to the king more than the king himself.
Based on our words, Chachmei Torah are in the position of ‘the king’s guards’, and they have the right to make one liable to death who transgresses their words, even if the Torah itself – which is like the king – does not make one liable to death for many sins. Nevertheless, we see from here that ‘the words of the Chachamim are stricter than the words of the Torah’. We must know that the words of the Rabbis are only fences that holy Chazal established for their time, rather, every Chacham in his generation makes a fence to stop a breach, and his decree is classified as ‘the words of the Rabbis’, and even on this they said that anyone who transgresses his word is liable to death.
