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The nation is enjoined to be holy. Many prohibitions and positive commandments are taught: Prohibitions: idolatry; eating offerings after their time-limit; theft and robbery; denial of theft; false oaths; retention of someone's property; delaying payment to an employee; hating or cursing a fellow Jew (especially one's parents); gossip; placing physical and spiritual stumbling blocks; perversion of justice; inaction when others are in danger; embarrassing; revenge; bearing a grudge; cross-breeding; wearing a garment of wool and linen; harvesting a tree during its first three years; gluttony and intoxication; witchcraft; shaving the beard and sideburns; and tattooing.
Positive: awe for parents and respect for the elderly; leaving part of the harvest for the poor; loving others (especially a convert); eating fruits from a tree's 4th year in Jerusalem; awe for the Temple; respect for Rabbis, the blind and the deaf. Family life must be holy. We are warned again not to imitate gentile behaviour, lest we lose the Land of Israel. We must observe kashrut and thereby maintain our unique and separate status. |
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