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Eikev 7:12, וְהָיָה עֵקֶב תִּשְׁמְעוּן אֵת הַמִּשְׁפָּטִים הָאֵלֶּה וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם וַעֲשִׂיתֶם אֹתָם וְשָׁמַר ה’ אֱלֹ-ךָ לְךָ אֶת הַבְּרִית וְאֶת הַחֶסֶד אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּע לַאֲבֹתֶיךָ: And it will be, because you will heed these ordinances and keep them and perform, that the Lord, your God, will keep for you the covenant and the kindness that He swore to your forefathers.
תִּשְׁמְעוּן (you will listen) is written in plural, but לְךָ (for you) is written in singular. Why does the subject of the pasuk (verse) change?
There is a famous story in Gemara Shabbos 31a. A gentile once approached Shamai and offered to convert if Shamai would teach him all of Torah while he (the gentile) was standing on one leg. Shamai threw a piece of rubble from a building at him, interpreting the gentile’s words as mockery. The gentile approached Hillel and put forward the same request. Hillel said “וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ כָּמוֹךָ”: you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
We need to understand the premise of the gentile’s question. Clearly, his request to learn Torah on one leg is an absurd request to ask of the greatest Rabbis alive. In addition, Hillel’s response also requires some explanation. How does his answer include all the mitzvos, such as Shabbos, tefillin, bris mila, mezuzah etc.?
Sefer Beis Shmuel quotes the Arizal, who states that every Jew must perform every single one of the 613 mitzvos, or their soul returns in another form (gilgul) to complete the missing mitzvos.
Bamidbar 22:28, וַיִּפְתַּח ה’ אֶת פִּי הָאָתוֹן וַתֹּאמֶר לְבִלְעָם מֶה עָשִׂיתִי לְךָ כִּי הִכִּיתַנִי זֶה שָׁלֹשׁ רְגָלִים: The Lord opened the mouth of the she-donkey, and she said to Bilam, “What have I done to you that you have struck me these three times?“ The key to our understanding lies in the word רְגָלִים. Although it is usually interpreted as ‘legs’, it is interpreted as ‘times’ in the verse above.
The aforementioned Arizal begs for an explanation. It is impossible to accomplish all 613 mitzvos; many are mutually exclusive (ie – specific to gender, age, kohanim (priests), levi’ites, kings, during the time of the Temple etc.). Does this mean that everyone comes back as a gilgul many, many times so that they could fulfill each and every mitzva in the Torah? No. This was precisely what the gentile was asking – teach me Torah on one רגל – in one lifetime, with no gilgul.
Shamai beat him with a part of a building as an allusion. A building has many floors. Unless it has many floors, it’s not called a building. Torah has many, many levels, and many, many mitzvos. Unless you accomplish them all, you haven’t fulfilled your role in this world. Shamai was telling the gentile that the Torah cannot be actualised in one lifetime; it is impossible to be able to fulfill each and every mitzva.
Hillel pushed the idea of achdus (literally, unity). His directive of וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ כָּמוֹךָ meant that once you have achdus, the rest of the Torah just details specific actions you need to carry out. By uniting into one, we become כאיש אחד בלב אחד – as one man with one heart. If one person performs a mitzva, the rest are included in his mitzva. (Just as when a man dons tefillin we don’t say that his arm or head is wearing tefillin, we say he is wearing tefilin – he is one entity.) In three simple words, Hillel explained to the gentile how to perform Torah instructions. Since we are all united, and our mitzvos are shared with the rest of Klal Yisroel, together, as a unit, we are able to fulfill all 613 mitzvos!
The pasuk says, וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם וַעֲשִׂיתֶם (keep them and perform) in the plural form, which we can understand to mean that we need to keep and perform the mitzvos in unity. וְשָׁמַר (will keep for you – singular) connotes that one cannot perform all of the mitzvos, but each person must keep what they can, and will be rewarded as such!
Sefer Divrei Shaul quotes a Gemara in Uktzin that says that the only receptacle for G-d’s blessing is peace, as it says in Tehillim 29:11, ה’ עֹז לְעַמּוֹ יִתֵּן ה’ יְבָרֵךְ אֶת-עַמּוֹ בַשָּׁלוֹם: The Lord shall grant strength to His people; the Lord shall bless His people with peace. עֹז (strength) is the Torah. We can ask our original question of how we can each person can fully perform the mitzvos of the Torah. The answer is as we said - through unity - and the only way to achieve true unity is through shalom (peace). Via shalom and achdus, we can come together and fulfill the Torah in it’s entirety.
This explains why it was necessary to be כאיש אחד בלב אחד at Har Sinai (Mount Sinai – the giving of the Torah); without the unity, there would be no point in receiving a Torah we could not fulfill.
In conclusion, we are all considered to have done all the mitzvos, but how are we rewarded? Reward for mitzvos is not given in this world, so where do we see this manifested? The only reward we get is according to the exertion that was put into performing the mitzva.
According to what we now know, we have a great answer. עֵקֶב תִּשְׁמְעוּן is plural, as performance of mitzvos is collective when we are united. The subject changes to singular - לְךָ – to refer to the reward that is personal, based on the effort and exertion you personally put in when fulfilling mitzvos.
Rav Dessler refers to beis Shamai (lit. house of Shamai – his school of thought) as din (judgement), and beis Hillel as rachamim (mercy). Rav Zevin refers to them as potential vs actual, while others bring the idea of shomayim (heaven) and oretz (earth). Most of the machlokes (disputes) between Hillel and Shammai are along a fixed criterion. Shammai ruled on how things ought to be l’chatchila (in Heavenly ideal), and Hillel ruled based on metzius (what we have before us). Shamai was saying that l’chatchila, each of us must perform all 613 mitzvos, and return numerous times in a gilgul. Hillel said that one can get around this l’chatchila with the b’dieved of achdus!
Disclaimer – this is not a license to do as we please with the mindset of, ’we love Jews, so therefore we have achdus so I can do what I like and technically be fulfilling all the mitzvos still!’ This is wrong. This concept only applies to mitzvos that are impossible for us to fulfill personally (mutual exclusivity as opposed to “I don’t feel like it”).