LEV814 The Sefer Hachinuch, in discussing the ideology behind all biblical precepts, writes: “The Torah tells us [in Leviticus 19:36] that ‘Just weights and measures shall you have.’ Even though this is included in the general commandment not to cheat one another, the Torah mentions each type of weight and measure separately in order to emphasize the enormity of the crime.” In the same verse in Leviticus, God reiterates that “I am the lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt”; explains the Sifra (an extended legal commentary on Leviticus), because God took the Jews out of Egypt precisely in order that they should take upon themselves the mitzvah of just weights and measures. The sages of the Talmud reiterate the connection: “The God who distinguished between the seed of the first born who died in the plague and the other Egyptians, a distinction based on the most intimate knowledge, shall surely punish he who soaks his weights in salt in order to cheat [in secret].” Talmud Bavli, Baba Metzia 61b. In the same vein, Rashi, the quintessential commentator on the Bible, linked the abuse of weights and measures to physical calamity of great proportions. Discussing the attack of Amalek on Israel just after leaving Egypt, the first unprovoked action against Israel after the miracles at the Red Sea, he notes the proximity of the verse obligating the Jew to eternally remember Amalek [Deuteronomy 25:17] to the restatement in Deuteronomy of the above verse prohibiting false weights and measures. “If you falsify weights and measures,” notes Rashi, “be concerned about awakening the enemy.” Mere moralizing, however, does not exhaust the Jewish treatment of any problem, so our sources are replete with legal and communal enactments to prevent economic abuse through fraudulent weights and measures.