It is told about Rebbe Zusha of Anapoli who had a daughter, and when she reached marital age, they hired the tailor of the city to sew her a wedding dress for the daughter of Rebbe Zusha. When the important day arrived when the dress was ready, the rebbetzin came to get it and she sensed that the tailor was sad. The rebbetzin was curious as to what happened, and it was explained to her that the daughter of the tailor was also engaged and also needed to enter the chuppah, but the tailor’s financial situation was difficult, and he did not allow himself to sew a dress for his daughter when he was sewing dresses for other kallahs... the mercy of the rebbetzin prevailed and she told the tailor to keep the dress for his daughter, the kallah, and so the rebbetzin returned home emptyhanded.
When the rebbetzin told her husband, the Rav, what happened to her – he asked her if she paid the tailor for his work? “No”, replied the rebbetzin, “I did not take the dress from him.” But Rebbe Zusha did not agree with her, and he told her, “The tailor worked for us thinking the whole time that he would be paid for his work. So, hurry, and go pay the tailor for his work!”
With the mitzvah of 'ביומו תתן שכרו' – ‘You shall pay his hire on its day’ (24:15) in our parsha there is a detail and an explanation, 'ביומו תתן שכרו ולא תבוא עליו השמש' – ‘You shall pay his hire on its day, the sun shall not set upon him’. The Torah explains to us why it is so important to pay a worker his wages on time: 'כי עני הוא ואליו הוא נושא את נפשו' – ‘for he is poor, and he risks his life for it’. Rashi explains, ‘To get this payment, he risks his life, he went up a ramp or he hung from a tree.’ That is, he worked hard all day, and even risked his life with dangerous work, and all for the sake of receiving his wages at the end of the day, therefore, it is very important to pay him his wages on its day.
Aside from the very mitzvah of 'ביומו תתן שכרו' – ‘you shall pay his hire on his day’, we learn an important thing here, the holy torah teaches us that when we come to think about someone else, we must enter his head and think like he does. To try to understand him, what is he thinking, what is going on with him. When we think like this, our whole outlook is different. This applies not only to a worker but also to our parents, to our children, the friends and everyone around us, always enter the head of the other person, then 'לא יהיה בך חטא' – ‘there will be no sin in you’.
-Tiv HaTorah – Ki Seitzei
