וְהָיָ֣ה ׀ עֵ֣קֶב תִּשְׁמְע֗וּן אֵ֤ת הַמִּשְׁפָּטִים֙ הָאֵ֔לֶּה וּשְׁמַרְתֶּ֥ם וַעֲשִׂיתֶ֖ם אֹתָ֑ם.
והיה עקב תשמעון – את [אם] המצות הקלות שאדם דש בעקיביו תשמעון.
AND THE CONSEQUENCE WILL BE, IF YOU HEARKEN (The Hebrew text may be taken to signify if you will hear the heel, עקב) – If, even the lighter commands which a person usually tramples on with his heels (i.e. which a person is inclined to treat lightly), you will hearken to...
Why are there mitzvos that people take lightly and other that they take more seriously? Same G-d??!!! There are LOADS of people who would never dream of eating on Yom Kippur but are wantonly מחלל שבת. Others will never miss a minyan but have no issue being מבטל תורה or speaking לשון הרע. Why is that? Same G-d??!!!
For almost all of us the only TRUE reality is ourselves. Everyone else just plays roles in the movie where we are the protaganist [main character]. That is why we are no longer in touch with most or all of our friends from first grade unless we happen to have been with them for the rest of elemntary and high school and often beyond. When we move from one community ro the next we will lose touch with most or all the people in our former community. They played their role in giving us a social structure and now the people of the new community accomplish that. Even with people with whom we shared a room growing up i.e. brothers or sisters, we will often have little to do with later in life and just invite them to smachos b/c they are family but on a day to day basis we are far apart. How close we are will depend solely on how much a personal need we have to be close. We are the main actors and everyone else either has a important part or [in the vast majority of cases] they are like the extras in the movie. They just serve as backgrounds for our personal journey. When we interact with others we never experience what they are experiencing but rather everything about them is filtered through our own personal experience. When we see a black person it might elicit warm feelings because it reminds us of a favorite athlete or negative feelings b/c we are innately racist [or had bad experiences with people of that color] or mixed feelings etc. etc. - it all has nothing to do with the other person [whom we don't even know] but our own subjective world.
This is important to know b/c we learn that others judgments of us and the way they relate to us have faaaaarr more to do with them than with us. A TRULY great person loves, embraces and accepts every human being where they are. Most value judgments come from lacunas in our own souls and psyches.
Hashem too is [להבדיל] sadly and unfortunately an actor in our personal drama. He is an important actor [like our parents] but not the center of existence [the reason we can easily move on when our parents die is that when we needed them as children we had them but as adults we can manage on our own so the loss is usually bearable]. That is reserved for ourselves.
This is not the way is SHOULD be but [as I see it] that is the way it is. So who is Hashem?? What is His nature? Which mitzvos matter more, which less?? The answer is that we decide. Everyone has their own narrative. Thus, we can "trample" certain mitzvos with our heels. והיה עקב תשמעון. We can be super careful about something which is but a minhag and at the same time be totally neglectful of a מצוה דאורייתא. Examples abound.
The goal to make Hashem the main "protaganist" - or better, the only True Existence [as per Rambam תחילת יסודי התורה] - and ourselves actors - or better extras [as per Sanhedrin 111b] - in the "drama" of bringing כבוד שמים.
