Reflecting the words of our Sages, our singular and definitive response (Mishpatim 24:7) "kol asher diber Hashem na'aseh venishma" is translated by the Rashbam to proclaim that "all that Hashem has said we will do and all that He will ask of us in the future, we will study and observe". This declaration has long been celebrated for the unconditional commitment and absolute faith that it carries. Yet there is one disturbing feature of this moment which becomes apparent when comparing it to a similar pronouncement of a few days earlier. You see that the moment of "na'aseh venishma" according to Rashi, took place on the Thursday before matan Torah and followed Moshe's public review of our story from creation to Sinai. Just a few days before, on the Monday of that week, we similarly responded to Hashem's invitation to become His people and it is recorded (Yisro, 19:8): "The entire people responded together and they said, "Everything that Hashem has spoken we shall do…"
What do I find troubling? The Torah emphasizes the unity with which we responded on Monday by saying that we answered "yachdov - as one". Yet the Torah drops this specific description of our response on Thursday. Is it possible that in just a few days we already began to unravel? Gone was the unity that descended upon us as we came to Midbar Sinai, so powerful that we were said to have encamped as one, with one heart and as one person. Gone were the lessons that we thought we had absorbed through our mutual suffering and deliverance.
Even for us, a somewhat discordant group, that is a swift decline and one which is hard to accept. That is why the Chortkover Rebbe, quoted by the Potoker Rov (Beis Aharon) sees something entirely different and favorable here. He suggests that when it comes to performing mitzvos, simply na'aseh, we seem unified and in fact do all the same activities. Yet we differ in the way that we understand the mitzvos and in the manner in which they impact upon us and inspire us. Thus the "na'aseh" of Toraha is "yachdov" but the "nishma" of Torah will be as different as our hearts, minds and souls are from each other. The Rebbe suggests that our teffilin communicate this idea as well. The teffilin shel yad envelop several parshiyos in one undivided box to symbolize the similarity of our actions and the unifying force that they project on to us. The same parshyos when placed near our minds in the teffilin shel rosh are separated into four distinct compartments to represent the varied ways in which we understand our mitzvos and the color that is added to our people, who can then benefit from each other's thoughts and experiences.
Is that really so? Do we really come together as one indivisible group in the performance of our mitzvos? Do we all stand for the same prayers and pray from the same siddur, do we all eat the same kind and amount of matzo, shake the lulav in the same directions, allocate the same amounts of tzedaka to the same needs?
Perhaps there is another idea that is communicated through the omission of the "yachdov" on Thursday, also one that is not indicative of contrariness. In a remarkable passage of the Ohr Sameach (Hilchos TalmudTtorah chapter 1) Harav Meir Simcha, the twentieth century giant of Dvinsk, points out that the basic requirements of each mitzvah are indeed identical. Simply picking up the lulav in fact fulfills the mitzvah and the minimal amount of matzo is identical for all. Indeed, the minimal obligations and behaviors of any mitzvah can be a unifying force. However the minimal forms of any mitzvah are rarely practiced and he goes as far as suggesting that for this reason, minimal parameters of mitzvos are relegated to the oral law. We, who embrace mitzvos, each one in our own way and with our own spin, will rarely witness the minimal form of any mitzvah. Once we are committed to the "nishma" and understand the deeper aspects of any mitzvah we will choose favorites to emphasize and choose behaviors that make a mitzvah particularly meaningful to us.
I would suggest that the "yachdov" was lost after we studied the narratives of the distant creation and the not so distant patriarchs and the recent events of Mitzrayim. We then realized how differently we perceived the very same facts, how they touched us distinctively and inspired us idiosyncratically. Through the appreciation of meaningful Torah study we allowed ourselves to cede the "yachdov" and embrace, through the practice of the very same mitzvos, a depth that was private and personal.