In a 2001 lecture on Numbers 30-31, Dennis Prager says: The purpose to continuing Judaism is to touch humanity with God’s message, but if you separate yourself from humanity, how do you bring God’s message to it?
How does a Jew touch humanity and stay within the Torah-based system of observance? It is almost not doable if one stays within Orthodox observance. There are exceptional individuals who have immersed in that system and yet interrelate with humanity, but it is almost impossible.
The Orthodox have going for them the argument that every attempt at non-Orthodoxy has failed. And continues to fail. Jews have not been able to persevere as Jews outside of Orthodoxy because of assimilation. Do Jews need, by virtue of their small numbers, a system of separation? I vote no but I have no evidence to support my claim.
A self-imposed obligation is co-equal according to the Torah to one imposed by God. If you take an oath to God of self-imposition, it is as if God instructed you to do so.
We have a subtle message from the Torah here discouraging people from taking on more religious obligations than God gave them. The Torah doesn’t want you to take vows. That’s why the punishment is so severe.
