A word of Torah:

       After last week’s description of the receiving the Torah at Sinai, this week’s portion is filled with many laws. According to tradition, there are 613 mitzvot—commandments. The Ramban, the 13^th century Bible commentator, has this interpretation of one of them: “Do what is right and good in the sight of God that it may go well with you” (Deut. 6:18):
      At first Moses stated that you are to keep God’s statutes and testimonies that God commanded you, and now Moses is stating that even where God has not commanded you, give thought, as well, to do what is right and good in God’s eyes, for God loves the right and the good. Now this is a great principle, for it is impossible to mention in the Torah all aspects of people’s conduct with their neighbors and friends, … But since God mentioned many of them, such as “do not go about as a talebearer among your fellows” (Lev. 19:16) …. and the like—Moses reverted to state in a general way that, in all matters, one should do what is right and good, including even compromise and going beyond the requirements of the law. Other examples are…. that one’s conversation with people be pleasant. Thus, people should seek to refine their behavior in every form of activity, until they are worthy of being called “right and good".
      For me, this commandment is the “everything” commandment, the one that includes everything not covered by the other 612 commandments. As the Ramban says, it is impossible to mention in the Torah every aspect of people’s relations with each other. Even if there is no specific commandment the general principle is you should always do what is right and good. Nowhere is there a commandment that your conversation should be pleasant, but that is an essential activity of human beings and is crucial to a caring society.
     There are no limitations on what the Torah asks of us. In this way, there really is no such thing as religious aspects and secular aspects. All activity, all life is part of Torah. In each moment and in every activity, we should strive to do what is right and good. If we do, the verse goes on to tell us, it will be good for us. We create our own spiritual environment. It can be an environment so polluted with negativity that it is hard to breathe or an environment redolent with the scent of the wonders of the Garden of Eden.