Parashat Nitsavim
Nitsavim begins with a proclamation that all people are important, men and women, young and old, poor and rich, healthy and sick, because the entire Jewish community stood before God to enter a covenant with Him. At a time when most people did not count, and kings thought that they were gods; when other nations were hardly considered people, and slavery was the way of the land, our Jewish people recognized that every person has infinite value, that every person stands before God as an independent individual.
The idea of the equality of all people did not again appear in political thought for another three thousand years with the establishment of the United States. And even today we suffer with the concept of the underclass. The disenfranchised still have no voice, and often are considered throw away people
The concept of covenant is so sophiscated and happened so long ago, but yet has not entered the culture of the modern world. Ideas of equality chafe because they hold that all people are equal before God, because they hold that the skid row bum and the Harvard professor each are important before the Almighty.