(From the Chofetz Chaim on the Torah pp. 179-180)
The Power of Numbers
The people of Israel is blessed that, “Five of you will chase a hundred and a hundred of you will chase ten-thousand (Vayikra 26:8).” Rashi asks the obvious question, “The arithmetic does not work out. Five to a hundred is a one to twenty ratio, so a hundred should only be able to chase two thousand. How do they manage to chase a hundred thousand?” His answer: there is a vast difference between a small group fulfilling the Torah and a large group fulfilling the Torah.
You see, said the Chofetz Chaim, the power of numbers. When a large group is involved in Torah and mitzvot in a communal way it is so much more powerful and far-reaching.
The Chofetz Chaim once built a speech around this theme at a gathering of Vaad Hayeshivot (an organization started in Eastern Europe to strengthen and finance yeshivot).
It is the way of business partners, he began, to periodically evaluate their successes and failures and analyze their causes, in order to plan future business projects.
The people of Israel became partners in Torah at Mount Sinai, when they received the Torah “as one man with one heart.” As partners, we must periodically gather in order to evaluate the state of Torah in our generation. We must try and assess what we have done right, see where we went wrong, and analyze the causes of both.
He then noted how the great Lithuanian Jewish community of Minsk once had thirty full Batei-Midrash where the sound of Torah was heard day and night. The state of Torah had then digressed there to the degree where serious Torah learning was limited to within the walls of the yeshivot. He went on to inspire the assemblage to support and increase Torah study, in order to bring back the power of the group, the power of numbers.
[Prepared by Eliezer Kwass]
