DEUT45 It would be wrong to regard the many customs and observances that have been derived from Biblical Commandments as illegal additions coming under the ban of not adding to or subtracting from that which is written in the Torah [this verse]. This interdiction, as is plane from its context, applied only to individuals, not to the Sanhedrin or judges who were authorized to expand existing laws and to frame new ones, after they had carefully examined the changing conditions of the times. The stipulation was that they must conform to logical rules in harmony with the spirit of the Torah. R. Johanan b. Zakkai made new decrees after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. Basing himself on Deuteronomy xvii. 8-11, he invested the Sanhedrin he established with supreme authority to present to the perplexed and despairing people a Jerusalem reinterpreted and adapted to the catastrophic change that had taken place in their national life. Furthermore, the Talmudic sages themselves declare that so decisive should the decrees of a Beth Din be that even when they inform us "that our right hand is our left, and our left our right", we must listen to them. (Continued at [[DEUT703]] Deuteronomy 15:2 remission LEHRMAN 181-3)