EXOD699 The Torah does not view interest taking as an intrinsically evil action, akin to murder or theft, or a would have forbidden it altogether. After all, those acts that are intrinsically evil are forbidden irrespective of whether they are done to Jew or Gentile. If, indeed, Judaism does not view interest as inherently evil, why, then, was interest taking (or giving) forbidden among Jews? The author of the Sefer Hachinukh, which is devoted to explaining the ideological basis for the commandments, seems to sum up the general opinion of Jewish authorities. Commenting on [this verse], it comments: “According to the normal morality of the world one should be entitled to charge for the use of one's money. However, since the whole purpose of the mitzvot is to purify the Jew, [God] instructed us to give up that which is acceptable by normal moral standards.” Mitzvah 66. (One may see as a parallel the injunction on the Jew to refrain from eating non-kosher food in order to elevate his material needs to a higher plane. The eating of such food is not detrimental, per se, and so, at their discretion, Gentiles may eat or not of it.) Following this idea, the Torah Temimah (a twentieth-century commentator) writes (on Deuteronomy 23:21) that “Our refraining from taking interest from one another is similar to the regulations of many trade and other associations in which the members provide each other with special benefits. Such benefits are not available to outsiders. Yet there is nothing to prevent others from establishing similar associations and providing the same help.”