Illustration Credit: Elad Lifshitz, Dov Abramson Studio

That sounds nice, but you might be surprised that the idea here is that we are responsible whenever another person does something wrong, even if it wasn’t our fault!

We learn this from Parashat Behukotai, where it says (Vayikra 26:37): וְכָשְׁלוּ אִישׁ בְּאָחִיו

—Each person will stumble over their neighbor. A midrash says this isn’t talking about actually tripping over other people’s feet, but rather about responsibility: Each person is responsible for the mistakes their fellow Jew makes. This idea is called עֲרֵבוּת (areivut).

One nice part of areivut is that we can help each other out! You are able to perform a mitzvah on behalf of another person, even if you’ve already performed that mitzvah yourself, because all Jews are connected to one another. This idea comes up in the Talmud (Bavli Rosh Hashanah 29a-b; see Rashi there) and Rambam summarizes it this way:

This is not true for all berakhot. You can’t say a berakhah over food for someone else if you aren’t eating that food yourself!

But for mitzvot it’s ok. You can say a berakhah over food multiple times if that food is a mitzvah! So, on Shabbat, a person can say Kiddush over wine (or grape juice) lots of times for lots of other people, even if the person saying the blessing isn’t drinking that wine (or grape juice). The Ra”n says this is because “every Jew is responsible for one another, and if your friend hasn’t fulfilled their mitzvah, it’s like you haven’t fulfilled yours” (Rosh Hashanah, Ri”f 8a).

If you ever get the chance to make Kiddush for someone, remember that it’s all thanks to our parashah and the idea of areivut!

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