Musar к Берешит 46:26

We always proceed from the premise that all of Israel is considered נפש אחת, a single soul, life-force. Israel as a whole is called by the title אדם. As a reminder of this fact the family members of Jacob, 66 in number, who moved from the land of Canaan to Egypt in Genesis 46,26 are referred to as נפש, soul, or person, in the singular. Just as a body possesses 248 limbs, so the Jewish national body, known as אדם, comprises a great number of parts. The Zohar refers to these parts as שייפא דגופא, shavings or splinters of a body There are, of course, different levels of importance among the various parts of a regular body. The same is true when we describe the parts of the body which make up the Jewish nation. There is a head, a heart, an eye, a hand, etc. However, just as all the parts of the body combine to make a whole human being, so all the parts of the Jewish nation combine to make it one unit. The unit created by these many parts in turn combines to form the chariot, מרכבה, of the spiritual counterpart of terrestrial man in the Celestial Regions. This celestial אדם is perceived as sitting on the throne which is one of the 248 spiritual limbs that form the root of the 248 positive commandments, which, if performed by terrestrial man, are his true source of life (אשר יעשה אותם האדם וחי בהם Leviticus 18, 5).

The entire nation is considered as if it were one person; this is why the Torah refers to the people as נפש, person (singular) already at the time Jacob descended into Egypt (Genesis 46,26, et al.). The significance of this lies in the fact that כי חלק ה' עמו, "that His people Israel are part of G–d Himself" (32,9). The remainder of mankind was divided into 70 nations, each one with a representative in the Celestial Regions, i.e. a horoscope presided over by a שר, "Minister," as we know from 4,19: "which the Lord your G–d assigned to all the nations; He took you and removed you from the iron crucible, from Egypt, to be for Him His very own nation, as is now the case" (4,20). The Jewish people's fortunes are not guided by intermediaries such as horoscopes. The 70 nations were divided from one another as we know from 32,8: "When the most High gave nations their homes and set the divisions of man, He fixed the boundaries of peoples in relation to Israel's numbers." The relationship (common denominator) between the "numbers" of Israel and that of the nations of the world is that Israel numbered 70 when they first went down to Egypt. The difference is only that the 70 Israelites that came to Egypt are all described as נפש, a single person. Any part of the Jewish nation is compared to the entire nation. Because Israel is part of G–d, it has an eternal future, as pointed out in Sanhedrin 90a: "Every Israelite has a share in the World to Come."

And in order to set one's mind at rest in this, I have thought it fit to introduce an exalted thought here which is rooted in the Yerushalmi adduced by Semag, that if one were walking on the road and struck one of his feet with the other and, in doing so, fell to the ground and hurt his body, his face and also that foot — aside from the fact that it would never enter his mind to take revenge of that foot by [desisting] from healing it, he would also harbor no hatred whatsoever against it. For what is the foot and what are his body and his face — they all are one [body], but divided into organs. Rather, he would reason that his sins caused this. Here, too, if it happened that his friend did not benefit him with a certain good that he asked of him, or even if he grieved or insulted him in some way, he should not avenge himself and harbor hatred against him. For who is his friend and who is he? Both are from one root, as it is written (I Chronicles 17:21): "And who is like Your people, Israel, one nation in the land?" And it is written [Bereshith 46:27): "All of the soul of the house of Jacob that came etc." It is not written "souls," to teach us that all the souls of Israel above are reckoned as one soul. It is just that each one is an entity in itself. As with a man in his entirety — even though, as a whole, he is one man, still, he has organs which are "heads" to him, like the head and the heart; and there are those beneath these, like the hand and the foot. And it is also into one rest that all of Israel will gather in the end — under the Throne of Glory — as it is written (I Samuel 25:29): "And the soul of my lord will be bound in the bond of life with the L-rd your G-d, etc." It is just that because in this world, where everyone is clothed in his own matter by himself, and because each of his affairs and undertakings is an entity in itself that a man imagines himself to be a distinct person and not "one" with his fellow Jew at all — but this is not so.