The Gravity of Turning a Blind Eye to the Poor

 A verse in this week's Torah portion struck me as strange. I am referring to the second of the below two verses, but am quoting the first for contextual reasons:

You shall not abuse a needy and destitute laborer, whether a fellow countryman or a stranger in one of the communities of your land.

You must pay him his wages on the same day, before the sun sets, for he is needy and urgently depends on it; else he will cry to the LORD against you and you will incur guilt. (Deuteronomy 24:14-15)

When the Torah states, "You must pay him his wages," the connotation would seem to be that only a penurious wage earner is deserving of his salary in a timely manner, whereas a laborer who doesn't want for money, can be left high and dry until the employer sees fit to remunerate him for his services. 

Rashi, I saw today, answers my question by stating the following. Leviticus 19:13 indeed states: "You shall not defraud your fellow. You shall not commit robbery. The wages of a laborer shall not remain with you until morning." That, teaches Rashi refers to a worker who is not hard up for cash. That is one infraction. A poor person, though, deserves more sensitized and sensitive treatment and therefore, our parsha teaches that one who has impinged on the rights of the poor is in violation of two infractions, firstly, abusing the destitute, and secondly, withholding his wages. 

When the Torah seeks to teach us the severity of an infraction, it states that a person has violated multiple infractions when failing to adhere to the Torah's negative commands; the same goes for positive commandments - the more central and primal they are in the very fabric of our understanding of our fellow man and our orientation as sensitized Jews, the more the Torah seeks to reward us for fulfilling them, and assimilating them into our everyday life. 

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