After ensuring that the Jewish people have taken the steps to remain loyal to Hashem, through the eradication of idolatry, the establishment of a centralized place of worship to unite the people, and the refusal to be ensnared by external or internal temptations to leave Hashem’s path, Moshe begins ch. 14 with the following declaration: Banim Atem l'Hashem Eloheikhem - you are children unto your God (Devarim 14:1). To appreciate the nature of the commandments that we have been given, we must understand special status we have been granted.
The next several commandments help us to internalize and demonstrate this new state – prohibitions against shaving oneself, against self-mutilation, or displaying excessive grief due to a state of mourning.(Rashi explains that as God is always present, we can never feel a sense of complete loss). The Torah then repeats For you are a people holy to YHVH your God; it is you YHVH has chosen out of all the peoples on earth to be His people, His treasured possession. Rashi points out that as such, we are to appear noble and dignified, not disfigured and covered with scars. The Torah continues with the laws of kosher foods, a reminder of our separate status.
However, the status of Hashem’s children created another bond between the Jewish people – that of brothers. As such, Moshe has placed upon us another obligation – the responsibility to care for one another. The remainder of the parsha deals with different manners in which this sense of family, of community, manifests itself through the daily ritual and everyday living. These include (but are not limited to) the following commandments:
Ma’aser Ani (the tithe of the poor): "Then the Levite can come ... and the proselyte, the orphan, and the widow ... so they may eat and be satisfied." (Devarim 14:29)
Tzedaka (charity): "You shall not harden your heart or close your hand against your destitute brother. Rather, you shall open you hand to him." (Devarim 15:7-8)
The obligation to forgive loans at the shemitta year, plus the obligation to loan funds to the needy before the onset of the shemitta year: "Beware lest there be a lawless thought in your heart saying, 'The seventh year approaches, the remission year,' and you will look malevolently upon your destitute brother and refuse to give him ... and it will be a sin upon you." (Devarim 15:9)
Even the presentation of the holidays in the following chapter is done so with this aspect in mind – “Rejoice before YHVH your God - you and your sons and your daughters, your male and female slaves, the Levites resident in your towns, as well as the strangers, the orphans, and the widows who are among you - at the place that YHVH your God will choose as a dwelling for his name (Devarim 16:11, see also v. 14)”.
Courtesy of Yeshitva Har Etzion - www.etzion.org.il