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Thought for the Day: This is the Entire Torah -- Don't Treat Your Fellow Jew in a Manner You Would Not Like to be Treated

The two tablets on which the (so-called) Ten Commandments were delivered had precisely the same dimension. Each tablet was inscribed with five of the commandments; Five regarding the Torah's expectations regarding our individual and collective relationship with HaShem; five regarding the Torah's expectations regarding our individual and collective relationship with our fellow Jew. See how egalitarian we are? Equal billing for "religious" obligations and for "interpersonal" obligations. The Torah sees them as equally binding. Beautiful.

However, anyone who has said kiddush has surely noticed (should surely have noticed) that just in the commandment about Shabbos there are already more letters than all the last five commandments put together. In fact, if you count (and you know I did -- what a nerd), you will find there are 533 letters on the first tablet and only 87 on the second. (Yes, indeed... they add up to 613 + 7; we can talk about that sometime, if you like.) The Mabit says that it is clear to him that the text filled the space available. That means that the HaShem choose a font six times larger to instruct us regarding our obligations in interpersonal relationships versus our relationship with HaShem.

In case you need an example of why that is so important, I (with some embarrassment) bring you personal example from my own life this morning. I spent a nice sum of money to buy a beautiful esrog this year; I didn't blink an eye. I am already planning how much matzah to buy for Pesasch this year. I stop work every Friday afternoon in order to accept Shabbos properly. I wouldn't think to have a deficient lulav, to eat chametz during pesach, or to work on Shabbos. Those are Torah obligations, after all.

Yesterday morning I was having an important discussion with a friend. Another person came over to interrupt -- didn't even say excuse me -- and proceeded to talk about some trivial matter. This morning that same person was having an important discussion with his friend, and I had something important to tell him, but he was ignoring me. I thought -- heck, I can interrupt him; why not? He interrupted me yesterday. Than I thought, no... I won't stoop to his level. They I thought... Oh no... first thoughts of revenge, then caught myself and only found myself holding grudge. 

Same guy who eats only hand shumra matzah and enjoys the cold weather on Sukkos to show how much he loves mitzvos. Yikes... that's why we need those big letters, and to put it in perspective:

(1-5): There is only One G-d

(6-10): Love your fellow Jew as you love yourself.

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