DEUT760 Some of the Torah's severest condemnations were reserved for acts of omission--for that insidious moral paralysis which seems to infect people and stops them from stretching forth a helping hand or seeing a kind word or picking up the lost object. "Beware that there be not a base thought in thy heart" [this verse]. "Do not shut thy hand" [Deuteronomy 15:7]. "Thou shalt not see thy brother's ox driven away and hide thyself from them. … Thou mayest not hide thyself" [Deuteronomy 22:1-3]. Thus the individual who refuses a loan to a needy person is guilty of violating two commandments: (1) the transgression of omission, of not lending, and (2) the transgression of hardening one's heart.