קדושים תהיו, “you shall strive to attain holiness.” The meaning of this verse is made clear in verse four where the Torah adds that “you must not turn to idols, etc;” even if the purpose of your preoccupation with idols is to understand why they are completely useless, so that you think that what you do is לשם שמים, “for the sake of heaven,” do not do so! Seeing that only the Lord is holy, there would be no point in studying other nations’ ideologies.

ואלוהי מסכה לא תעשו לכם, “do not make for yourselves a molten deity.” What is the meaning of the word: “for yourselves” in this verse, seeing that we have been forbidden to make such images for gentiles? What G–d means here is: “do not make it for others, neither accept what others have made for you as deities.”

לא תלין פעולת שכיר, “do not withhold the wages of a day labourer overnight.” Torat Kohanim on this line asks the rhetorical question: “how do I know that the same rule applies to beasts which have laboured for you? The word שכיר followed by פעולת, “labour of,” shows that it applies not only to human beings who have laboured for you, but as well to animals and the soil that has worked for you.? When this verse is discussed in the Talmud, there is no reference to the soil.

וערלתם, the expression ערלה basically describes an infant, which during the first three years of its life is totally illiterate. After that it begins to learn to speak intelligently; in other words, it produces some “fruit,” during that year, and during the next year it learns how to read and write, i.e. to understand parts of the Torah. Subsequently such youngsters begin to make contributions to civilised society. (Compare Talmud, tractate Baba Batra folio 21, where a youngster is described as having to study Torah from the age of six as he is mature enough). Compare also Ethics of our Fathers chapter 5 Mishnah 21 where a youngster of five years is described as ready to study the written text of the Torah.