The purpose of this covenant was to enlist every Jew as a guarantor that his fellow Jews will observe the Torah.
As our Sages taught, “All of Israel are guarantors for one another,” meaning that every Jew bears personal responsibility for his fellow.
A guarantor is presumably in a better position than the person he is backing, which is what makes him more dependable than the person behind whose commitment he stands. For example, a wealthy person could serve as a guarantor for a poor person’s loan, but not vice versa. Hence, if “all of Israel are guarantors for one another,” it is evident that each and every Jew, from “the leaders of your tribes” down to “your water-drawers,” has a unique strength that qualifies him as a guarantor for the others.
This can be understood in light of the Alter Rebbe’s teaching that the Jewish nation is “one complete figure,” comparable to a human body, in which every limb and organ completes and complements the other.
The head and brain are ostensibly “superior” to the other parts of the body, yet the legs support and give mobility to the entire body, including the head. Similarly, every single Jew has a quality with which he, and only he, can serve as the guarantor for the rest of the Jewish nation, due to his extraordinary strength in that particular area.
—Likkutei Sichos, vol. 4, pp. 1140–1141
