Rabbi Roodyn

Having established the importance of the family unit in the newly formed free society, Rav Hirsch goes on to explain how those families join together to one another to form the ideal Jewish state.

In other state-building systems it is considerations of necessity that bind people together, such as mutual need or weakness. The fact that we people each other means that it serves their interests to help others, as they in turn will be helped by others. This is essentially a social contact theory based on self-interest.

The Divine system of state building is also based on mutual need but from another angle entirely. This is a need that comes from abundance, a need to do ones duty as the pasuk says, ‘if the household is too small for one lamb, then he and his neighbour who is close to him should take according to the added number of souls…’ In the Torah’s system of state building, it is not the poor who need the rich, but the rich who need the poor. The one whose household is too small to take in the blessings G-d has bestowed upon them has to seek  out his neighbour so that he can provide him with additional people to benefit from the abundance.

Put succinctly, Hashem can provide for the poor without the rich, but without the poor, the rich cannot achieve life’s purpose. In the Jewish state, it is not considerations of personal need, but rather a sense of duty and mitzvah that joins households into a community.