In this week’s Torah portion, Nitzavim, there are several words in the Torah scroll with seemingly extraneous dots on top of each letter in the verse, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this Torah.”

The Talmud itself is bothered by these dots and comments:

“The verse states: ‘The hidden matters belong to the Lord our God, but those matters that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever [ad olam], that we may do all the words of this Torah’ (Deuteronomy 29:28).

Why in a Torah scroll are there dots over each of the letters in the words ‘to us and to our children’ and over the letter ayin in the word ‘forever [ad]’?

The dots, which function like erasures that weaken the force of the words, teach that God did not punish the Jewish nation for hidden sins until the Jewish people crossed the Jordan River. This is the statement of Rabbi Yehuda.

Rabbi Neḥemya said to him: And does God ever punish the nation as a whole for hidden sins committed by individuals?

But isn’t it already stated: ‘The hidden matters belong to the Lord our God…forever,’ indicating that the Jewish people will never be collectively held responsible for the secret sins of individuals?

Rather, the dots over the words teach that, just as God did not ever punish the nation as a whole for hidden sins committed by individuals, so too, He did not punish the entire nation for sins committed publicly by individuals until the Jewish people crossed the Jordan River.”

This argument in the Talmud as to whether the Jewish people are collectively punished for the hidden sins of individuals is perplexing. How could God hold us responsible for the sins of others, about which we have no idea and certainly no control?

The answer is the concept of Arevut. An Arev is literally a co-signer. The Talmud tells us that when the Jewish people stood at Mount Sinai, and again when they entered the land, they entered into a covenant not only with God but with each other. This covenant not only made Jewish people responsible for each other, but made them like co-signers to each other.

A co-signer is so responsible for another that if the person does not pay their loan the co-signer stands in their place and becomes responsible like the person themselves. And so, at least according to one opinion, even a sin we know nothing about, committed by others in secret, we are all responsible for, since the Jewish people, in this sense, are like one immediate family.

The other side of this coin of course is that we all gain from each other’s merit. We pray together on the holidays because alone we are all lacking, but together, like one person with one heart, the People of Israel can only be meritorious before God.