Justice, justice shall you pursue (Deut. 16:20)
Not only must righteousness be actively pursued, but the path to achieving it must also be virtuous and honorable. This is in contradiction to the commonly held notion that “the end justifies the means.” (Reb Bunim)
You shall be perfect with the L-rd your G-d (Deut. 18:13)
It is customary to make the verbal declaration before praying: “I hereby accept upon myself the positive commandment of ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Prayer is considered to be an offering before G-d - an offering of the soul. In the days of the Holy Temple, an animal offered for sacrifice had to be perfect and without defect; in the same way, when a Jew prays, he must also be whole of limb and without blemish. As all Jews are metaphorically part of the same body, if a person rejects his fellow Jew for whatever reason, it is his own self that becomes crippled. (Ohr HaTorah of the Tzemach Tzedek)
For man is like a tree of the field (Deut. 20:19)
Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, founder of Chabad Chasidism, once remarked to a Torah scholar during his first private audience: “The Torah states, ‘For man is like a tree of the field.’ A tree that does not bear fruit is a barren tree. A person can be fluent in the entire Talmud and still be ‘barren,’ G-d forbid. A Jew must produce ‘fruit.’ For what benefit is there in your learning and Divine service if you do not bear ‘fruit’ - if you do not cause your light to shine upon another Jew?”
