There is no question the IDF is a fighting force of exceeding skill and courage. It is also true that, as is always the case in war, far too many innocents die. However, in the history of warfare, has there been a fighting force more willing, more determined, to see those on the other side not as the “other” but as individual human beings, worthy of dignity and respect?
If this importance of the individual finds expression in our relationships with all people, how much more so is it the case within the Jewish community! Certainly it is intrinsic to the lessons of Shoftim. Parshat Shoftim begins with the words: Shoftim veshotrim titen lecha” – judges and bailiffs shall you appoint in all of your gates.” The emphasis is on the singular. Lecha. For you. Only when the rights and liberties of individuals are protected and secured do the judges become legitimate leaders of a Jewish society.
The Likutei Yehuda points out that genuine and authentic leadership represented by the shoftim follows the theme of the festivals (at the end of Re’eh) that incorporates the concern for the underprivileged – the orphan, the widow, the ger. This is no mere coincidence. Wherever the Torah speaks of mishpat, it simultaneously teaches about tzedakah (Veshamru derech Hashem la’sot tzedakah umishpat; mishpat utzedakah beYaakov atah asita.) There can be no true and moral justice or meaningful leadership without concurrent concern for the individual, particularly for the individual whose life, safety, and security would otherwise not be guaranteed.
The Rambam writes in the second chapter of Hilchot Teshuvah (2), “Since the scapegoat, sair hamishtaleach, was an atonement for all Israel, the high priest made confession over it in the name of all Israel, as it is said “and he shall confess over it all the iniquities of the children of Israel.”
Rav Soloveitchik explains that since the sair is a korban tzibbur, the atonement it attains is a collective one. The individual is not forgiven directly but through the atonement granted to the tzibbur as a whole, and each individual Jew partakes of this atonement as a member of the klal. Each Jew is granted atonement on Yom Kippur as an individual, and indirect atonement through the channel of the general kapparah granted to the klal.
On Yom Kippur we pray, Melech mochail ve’ solaiach la’avonotainu – God who forgives our sins as individuals – vla’avonot amo bait yisrael –and the sins of the house of Israel. A collective.
To be a member of the Jewish community means to never lose a sense of individuality or of the value of the individual. It means to find the balance between “I” and “we.” The Jewish community, the tzibbur, is not simply a gathering of individuals, lost in the relentlessness of time. It is a wholeness, a mysterious singularity to which every single Jew belongs.