If you give me the siddur, I will buy you another one. Anyway, you don't read the commentary." She refused to sell it. He offered to pay a lot of money for the siddur, but she didn't agree to sell it. She explained, "Sometimes, a siddur becomes torn or frayed, and people can’t read the words. However, if this siddur gets frayed, the commentaries will be torn, but the words of the siddur will remain intact."
Reb Shmuel Minkes repeated this story and said this is the idea behind making gedorim and siyagim, fences and boundaries. These boundaries distance us from aveiros because even if we transgress a boundary, we have not committed the aveirah itself. But if we don't have any limitations or borders, we are liable for chas veshalom transgressing the mitzvos themselves.
A chassid of the Trisker Magid zt'l wanted to move to America because he thought he could earn a comfortable parnassah there. The Trisker Magid zt'l told him not to go. This happened over one hundred years ago when religious institutions and yeshivos weren't yet established in America. The chassid kept returning to his Rebbe, asking for the Rebbe's permission, but the Rebbe repeatedly refused.
The chassid said, "Why is the Rebbe afraid of America? Many good Yidden live there."
The Rebbe answered with a mashal: A talmid chacham saw an unlearned person holding a large siddur that was filled with secrets of Kabbalah. The talmid chacham told the unlearned man, "Let’s switch siddurim. It will be better for both of us. You will have a smaller siddur, easier to carry around, and I will have a siddur filled with Kabbalistic secrets."
The am ha'aretz refused to part from his large siddur. He explained, "If I have your siddur, and the first few pages of the siddur fall out, I have lost the Adon Olam. But with my siddur, even if the first pages of the commentaries fall out, I still have the Adon Olam."
The nimshal was understood. A person must make boundaries for himself. If he isn't cautious and moves to a place that poses great challenges, he might end up losing the Adon Olam, chalilah.
Dr. Bick, a maskil (of the Enlightenment movement), said to Rebbe Yehoshua of Belz zt'l, "Why do you take an extreme route? Wouldn't it be better to compromise and follow the middle path?"
The Rebbe took him to the window and showed him horses trotting in the middle of the road while people walked on the sidewalk. The Rebbe explained, "Animals take the middle road. I don't want to be like them."
Rebbe Yehoshua of Belz replied that they have a custom to cut their fingernails and burn them with three wood splinters on Fridays. "I will tell my chasidim that from now on, they could burn their nails with only two wood splinters. That is about the only compromise I can agree to." Immediately after saying this, Rebbe Yehoshua of Belz exclaimed, "Chas v'shalom! Even this, I will not compromise."
(It is explained that Rebbe Yehoshua never intended to compromise; he only expressed it this way to demonstrate the extent to which they will cling to the Torah and their minhagim.)
A chassid of the Kedushas Tzion of Bobov zt'l hy'd was engaged for marriage, and his kallah told him that she didn’t want him to wear a shtreimel. So, the chassid asked his Rebbe what he should do, and the Rebbe told him to at least wear the shtreimel for Kiddush on Friday night.
The chassid came up with a different solution. He wore the shtreimel throughout the week of sheva brachos. After the week, he continued wearing the shtreimel – even on weekdays. His wife told him again that she really doesn't like that he wears a shtreimel. So, he offered to compromise. He would only wear a shtreimel on Shabbos and yom tov and never during the week, and she was satisfied with this.
A chasan wasn't planning on wearing a shtreimel after his chasunah. Rebbe Yehoshua of Belz zy'a asked him about that. The chasan answered, “Clothing doesn’t mean anything to me. A shtreimel is a hat... What's inside the person is what's important.”
The Rebbe replied, "The Gemara (Gittin 60:) says, פה שבעל דברים בשביל אלא ישראל עם ברית ה''הקב כרת לא, 'Hakadosh Baruch Hu made a bris with Bnei Yisrael because of the Oral Torah.' It is the Oral Torah that creates the bond between Hashem and the Jewish nation. But what is the Oral Torah today? The oral Torah used to be Mishnah and Gemara, but these are already written. Today, minhagim are the Oral Torah. Customs are therefore important. Because of them, Hakadosh Baruch Hu makes a bris with the Jewish people."
One of the reasons customs are so important is because when one begins departing from them, one can never know how far he might fall. It states (Devarim 1:44), חרמה עד בשעיר. The Slonimer tzaddikim explained, "To veer away from a family custom, even by a hairsbreadth (בשעיר), leads to חרמה עד, destruction because he might end up falling away from Yiddishkeit entirely."
The Atzei HaChaim of Sighet zt'l said, "Those who sometimes go this way and sometimes that way with Torah observance are like the tumah of a cross." A cross, a וערב שתי, goes in both directions, and they do the same. Sometimes they are religious, and other times not. And this can occur, chalilah, when people don't set clear boundaries.
