כי תצא
The Passuk says, “If one finds the lost object of his fellow Jew he must return it, and not hide himself”. Rashi explains this passuk to mean, do not make believe that you didn’t see it.
I once heard that there is something else included in this mitzvah of “not hiding oneself”, and that is that a person has to develop feelings for his fellow Jew. If he doesn’t develop these feelings, he won’t even see the lost object. The Passuk is commanding us to “feel” for our fellow Jew, thereby being sensitive to his loss and noticing it. The Passuk means to teach us that in all aspects of life we must empathize with our friends’ problems and issues.
Rav Shach always said that the main mitzvah of Tzedaka and Chessed is to “notice” and feel the lack in your friend. When a person doesn’t give tzedaka, he is referred to in Chazal as a מעלים עין one who hides his eyes. This seems to be saying that one who doesn’t give Tzedaka, doesn’t see his friend. Here again, is the requirement by Chazal to be sensitive to our friends needs.
When it comes to Avrohom Avinu’s great Chessed with the 3 Arabs, it says, “וירא והנה שלושה אנשים ניצבים עליו וירא” the word “vayar” is used twice. This passuk exemplifies the entire chessed of Avrohom Avinu. When the passuk says that he “saw”, it means to say that Avraham “saw” in a global way what their needs were. This word “Vayar”, portrays how Avraham preformed chessed his entire life.
We find that Chazal themselves looked for עצות to develop this midah. The Gemoroh in Brachos דף נ”חsays that when בן זומא would stand on Har HaBayis and he would see a large gathering of Jews, he would say, “Blessed is God who created all these people to serve me”. Was this Gaava? I once heard from R’ Simcha Zissel from Kelm, that he was training himself to have recognition of the need for each and every Jew in Klal Yisroel. He was recognizing that each and every Jew is responsible for something… this one makes my shoes, this one delivers the food… Through this, he would develop kinship with every single Jew.
R’ Yochanan ben Zakai says in Brochos דף י”ז that nobody preceded him in saying Shalom. Why was he so careful about this? He was sensitizing himself to the existence and importance of every other human being.
The Chinuch, on the passuk גר לא תונה… כי גרים הייתם בארץ מצרים, asks why does Torah add an explanation for this mitzvah not to afflict the Ger because we were strangers in Egypt? He answers that the Passuk wanted to help us develop empathy for the Ger and should therefore be sensitive to their plight as we were also Gerim in a foreign land. The Passuk is teaching us to develop feelings for others by putting ourselves in their situation.
In truth, to develop strong feelings for our fellow man is a very great task. However, we should be aware that this is really in our nature and this should make it easier for us.
The Passuk says בראשית מ”ו כ”ו “כל נפש דבית יעקב הבא מצרימה שבעים. …. The Midrash point out that the Passuk is calling all 70 people in the singular “Nefesh”. This is because all of Klal Yisroel are connected “כאיש אחד “. Similarly at Har Sinai, we see that the Jews were referred to as “one man” and Chazal learn out that they were with one heart. Even though the Torah refers to Klal Yisroel later on regarding יציאת מצרים in the plural (ויסעו ויחנו), that was only because of the division they suffered through the difficulties of Egypt. However, the essence of Klal Yisroel has always been one. Therefore we see that it is in our nature as Jews to empathize with our friends as much as we care about ourselves because in essence we are all one.
This time in Ellul, the task of “coming together” is especially important. This can be seen through the Gemorah יומא פ”ה which says that Yom kippur only helps for sins בין אדם למקום , but does not help for Sins between friends until one appeases his friend. In addition, the Haftorah of Yom Kippur brings down that all of our fasting will not be accepted until we rectify the sins between our fellow man. We should all be זוכה to מחזק ourselves in this great Mitzvah of being sensitive to our friends’ needs and feelings and doing only true kindness towards our fellow Jew.