In this week’s parashah, Ki Tavo, Moshe teaches the children of Israel to tithe from their crops to support the poor. Morever, Moshe teaches them (it seems) to take credit for the mitzvah afterwards. He explains that, after tithing, each farmer must declare to God: “I have removed [the tithed produce] from my home. . .  I have done all that You commanded.”

The declaration seems presumptuous. How can anyone claim to have done all that God has commanded? Don’t we all fall short?

The Mikra M’forash explains that, when Israelite farmers followed Moshe’s instruction and declared after tithing, “I have done all that You commanded,” they were not boasting. In fact they were not talking about themselves at all. Instead they were reminding themselves of an important piece of Torah. They were recalling what Rabbi Akiva taught — that “Love your neighbor as yourself” encompasses all other mitzvot. What they were really declaring was that every act of caring for another person, such as the mitzvah that they had just performed, is all that God commanded. Every time we honor the image of God in another person, we are fulfilling the entire Torah.

We know well that faith can be a divisive force. The Mikra M’forash reminds us that the purpose of the Torah is the opposite: to challenge us to see the holiness in every human being.