VEZOS HABRACHA – HOW TO FULFIL ALL THE MITZVOS Yehonasan Gefen
Devarim, 33:4: “Moshe commanded us the Torah; It is the heritage of the Congregation of Yaakov.”
Makkos, 23b-24a: “Moshe commanded us the Torah” [the word] Torah is of a numerical value of 611: [The Mitzvos of] ‘Anochi’ and ‘Loh yehiyeh lecha’ they heard from the Mighty One (HaShem).”
The first verse that we teach our children is “Torah Tzivah Lanu Moshe, Morasha Kehillos Yaakov.” The Gemara notes that the Gematria of the word Torah is 611: The Gemara explains that there are 613 Mitzvos and two of them were taught directly by HaShem to the Jewish People at Har Sinai and the other 611 were transmitted from HaShem to Moshe Rabbeinu and he taught them to the Nation.
One seemingly superfluous element of the verse is the final clause, where the Jewish nation are called, ‘Kehillos Yaakov’ – the congregation of Yaakov – why are they not simply called Bnei Yaakov or Bnei Yisrael? The Ksav Sofer addresses this issue:
He points out that it is impossible for everyone to keep all the Mitzvos in the Torah because there are many that are inapplicable to groups of people, such as Mitzvos that pertain to Kohanim alone, or men alone. Yet we know that each Mitzva corresponds one part of the body, and for a person to reach spiritual shleimus (completion), he must somehow fulfil all the Mitzvos.[1] How can he do that? The Ksaf Sofer answers that since the Jewish people are one spiritual body so to speak, they can fulfil all the Mitzvos by combining together into one unity. As a support, he cites the verse before Mattan Torah: “And all the people answered together and they said, ‘everything that HaShem says, we will do’.”[2] They were conveying that only by being together in one unit, they could fulfil all the Mitzvos.
The Ksav Sofer adds that this also explains why the Torah could only be given when they were totally unified, as expressed by Chazal as, “K’ish echad b’leiv echad” – “like one man with one heart”. They could only properly receive the Torah if they were totally unified because only as a single entity could they hope to fulfil the whole Torah. He also uses this idea to explain Rebbe Akiva’s famous comment about the Mitzva of ‘V’ahavta lereyecha kemocha’ – that this is a Klal Gadol b’Torah – a great principle in the Torah. This means that if everyone is united together, only then is it possible to fully observe the Torah, and then it is viewed as if each individual performed the Mitzvos of the Nation as a whole.
With this yesod he addresses why the Torah refers here to ‘Kehillos Yaakov’ – the ‘Congregation of Yaakov’. The Torah is alluding to the fact that only when the Jewish nation are bound together as a Kehillah, can they fulfil the whole Torah.
