A man once asked two famous rabbis to teach him the entire Torah while standing on one foot. The first got angry and sent him away. The second said, “Do not do unto others that which is distasteful to you. The rest is commentary. Go and learn.”

I love the story, but with an apology to Hillel, I beg to differ. The perfect summary of the Torah’s message is this: “You must not remain indifferent.” (Deuteronomy 22:3)

Indifference appears on the surface to be neutral. Neither pro nor con, it seems inconsequential. And yet it is anything but. Elie Weisel put it best:

“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.”

This week’s Torah portion teaches about our relationship with other humans and pays special attention to our responsibility to animals. Deuteronomy is serious about their well-being. A donkey gets lost? Go find its owner. An ox and an ass are yoked together to plow your field? Not fair to the smaller animal. A mother bird is sitting on her eggs? Shoo her away before you take the eggs for yourself.

We love these examples. They’re simple. Easy. Rather sweet. But when it comes to human relationships, it gets complicated. Because people are complicated. And they don’t always behave as we’d like them to.

It is easier to ignore the homeless man on the sidewalk than to engage with him. Much easier to send a check to the homeless shelter, especially if they enclose a return envelope with their solicitation letter.

We get caught up in the minutia of our own everyday lives. Which can lead to an inward focus, which can lead to indifference. We don’t even notice it happening, until an event shakes us out of our complacency.

This week we observed the 23^rd anniversary of 9/11. That day shook us to the core. Like JFK’s assassination and the Challenger explosion, we remember where we were when it happened. We remember how our world was changed forever. And every year, we remember those who died.

The Torah repeatedly reminds us that we cannot remain indifferent to the needs of the widow, the orphan, and the stranger who dwells among us. Nor can we remain indifferent to the needs of anyone in our communities… even those we don’t know, and those we don’t agree with.

Weisel taught, “Our obligation is to give meaning to life and in doing so to overcome the passive, indifferent life.”

We give meaning to our lives by understanding our relationship with the world around us — with nature, animals, and other humans. We give meaning by acknowledging that we are part of something much larger than ourselves.

I wrote recently that both scientists and artists believe we are made from stardust. But maybe that’s too distant, too vague. And let’s be real, I’m not dust. I’m flesh and bone. I’m a person.

But there is something about me, about each of us, that is impossible to define, impossible to touch.

Call it what you like: Essence, spirit, soul, personhood, humanness. Even God.

I once had a tee shirt that declared: “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

Which brings us back to stardust, or something equally amorphous.

But this I know: We each have a choice to make during our lifetime. As a Jew, I am taught that it is not a choice, it is a commandment: To be more than ourselves. To look beyond. To be human and humane, and to never, ever, be indifferent.