DEUT758 [] how deficient is the person lacking the virtues of mercy and chesed. He removes himself from the presence of the Holy One, blessed be He, the Source of compassion and grace, and the Torah accordingly designates him as belia'al, base. See what Chazal have commented (Yalkut Shim'oni) on [this] verse. "Lest there be a base (belia'al) thought in your heart, saying: The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand." Beware lest you withhold compassion, for anyone who does is linked to idolatry and removes from himself the Yoke of Heaven, since the term belia'al implies beli'ol, without the Yolk [of Heaven]. Now this verse does not refer only to the withholding of charity, but to refusing to grant free loans as well (as I have found the Gemara [Gittin 37a] to indicate; and the same is borne out by the Sha'are Teshuvah [The Gates of Repentance, Feldheim, Jerusalem] of R. Yonah, and the Sefer Hachinuch, Mitzvah 480. Yet because of our many sins, many people are remiss in this virtue. I therefore sought after the reasons for this neglect and found them to be two. First, people are ignorant of the subject as such; they are unfamiliar with its details, of the instances to which it applies, since the trait of chesed is involved in a variety of activities: in acts towards rich as well as towards poor, towards the living and the dead, in kindnesses performed with one's person as well as with one's material resources, as Chazal have taught (Sukkah 49b). ... The second cause is that people fail to realize the inherent greatness of this virtue, how mighty is the power it exerts on its exponents, how much good it bestows on them and all their affairs, both in this world and in the world to come, and in saving them on a great day of judgment.