ייִדישער מחשבֿה אויף דברים 29:12

Third, shared suffering is expressed in a feeling of shared obligation and responsibility. When the ‎children of Israel left Egypt, Moses and Aaron fell on their faces, pleaded before God, and said: ‎‎“Lord, God of Hosts of all flesh, shall one man sin and You direct divine wrath at the entire ‎congregation?” (Numbers 16:22).This prayer accomplished that which the “shepherds of Israel” ‎‎(Ezekiel 34:2) sought. The Holy One agreed with their action and only punished Korah and his ‎cohorts. However, God only demonstrated this loving-kindness momentarily. Forever after, the “I” ‎is ensnared in the sin of his fellow, if he had it within his power to reprimand, admonish, and bring ‎his neighbor to repentance. The people of Israel have a collective responsibility, both halakhic and ‎moral, for one another. The discrete units coalesce into a single halakhic-moral unity, with one all-‎encompassing and normative conscience and consciousness. The halakhah has already decreed ‎that “all Jews are sureties for one another” (TB Shavu’ot 39a), such that one who has already ‎fulfilled his personal mitzvah is not considered fully absolved thereby and may therefore fulfill the ‎obligation on behalf of others who have not as yet done so. The “I” is not exempt from its ‎obligation so long as his neighbor has not fulfilled that which is incumbent upon him. There is a ‎special covenant of mutual responsibility among the children of Israel. This covenant is expressed ‎in the blessings and imprecations pronounced on Mounts Gerizim and Ebal (Deuteronomy 11:29). ‎It is based upon the notion of peoplehood revealed to Moses in Egypt. Out of this concept grew ‎the covenant of mutual obligation. Moses, the dean of all prophets, in relating this covenant of ‎mutual obligation, emphasized: “For that He may establish you today unto Him as a people, and He ‎shall be unto you as a God” (Deuteronomy 29:12). He thus returned to the formulation of the ‎Covenant of Egypt. “And I will take you to Me as a people, and I will be your God” (Exodus 6:7). ‎Here the notion of shared fate was elevated from the plane of communal-political suffering to that ‎of halakhic and moral responsibility. We are all sureties for one another, as it is said: “And the ‎revelations belong to us and to our children forever” (Deuteronomy 29:28).‎¹²