S ome people feel they can relate better to mitzvos between man and his fellow and others would rather focus on G-d -oriented commandments. But really it’s all one package sensitizing us to the fact that we’re one family under Hashem’s umbrella.
We might have been led to think that mitzvos are divided into two categories: bein adam laMakom and bein adam l’chaveiro. A person might say “I’m not that religious; I don’t keep all the mitzvos between man and G-d but I’m careful about keeping the mitzvos between man and his fellow.” Or someone might say of another “Well he keeps the mitzvos between man and G-d meticulously but he’s not so concerned about mitzvos between people.” But they are both wrong because in reality the two categories are inseparable. There is a single concept of mitzvos and the division we hear so much about is only for the purpose of study.
This fundamental truth arises in part from a pasuk in this week’s parshah — or to be more precise from three words in the pasuk that seem out of place. The pasuk says:
“If a person sins and acts fraudulently toward Hashem denying to his fellow concerning a deposit or money given in hand or robbed or withheld funds from his fellow or found a lost article and denied it and swore falsely regarding any one of all these cases whereby a man may sin…” (Vayikra 5:21–22).
