Rabbi Tzvi Abramoff
“Do you know how to ride a bike?” Zalman asked his friend Dovy.
“Well, I can’t really do it myself,” answered Dovy.
“You mean you need training wheels?” asked Zalman.
“No, of course not,” said Dovy.
“So what do you mean you can’t ride yourself?” persisted Zalman.
“Well, my legs do the pushing, while my feet hold onto the pedals. My hands do the steering and my eyes are the ones that keep an eye on the road. Even my ears need to help, to hear if there’s any traffic behind me. And, don’t forget, my shoulders are what let me lean heavily on the handlebars.”
“What are you talking about?!” exclaimed Zalman, exasperated. “All of your body parts are just part of you. That’s called riding a bike by yourself!”
Similarly, the Ohr Hachaim Hakadosh explains the passuk in this week’s parsha, (ויעשו בני ישראל ככל אשר צוה ה’ את משה כן עשו (לט,לב(that even though no single person donated and built everything for the Mishkan, since Klal Yisrael, as a single unit, built it together, it’s considered as if each person did everything himself.
He adds that this is also the case with the 613 mitzvos of the Torah. It’s not possible for one person to fulfill all of them. Some are meant for kohanim, some for the king, etc. But we can all be considered to have fulfilled it all via each other. This, he says, is a reason why we have to love every Jew like ourselves – because we’re all working for each other. We’re all a single unit! Like the different limbs of one body!
