The Pharisees not only had to keep the laws of the Torah, but also obey all the laws written to explain the laws of the Torah. For instance, it was determined that tying a knot on the Sabbath constituted work. But there was an exception. A woman could tie a sash around her waist to remain modest. So this exception led to a loophole. If a man needed to get water from the well on a Sabbath and the bucket wasn’t tied to the rope, he couldn’t tie the rope; that was work. But he could tie one end of a woman’s sash to the rope and the other end to the bucket. That’s a loophole.