Love and mutual responsibility make it possible for each individual to observe all the mitzvot, as one person can perform a mitzva for others. The mitzva to love the Jewish people contains within it a special power that brings the redemption.

Observing all the mitzvot is impossible unless we augment one another:

Every Jew is obligated to fulfill 248 positive mitzvot, but it is impossible for each individual to do this. However, by means of the love that exists among the Jewish people, each individual’s 248 can be completed through the actions of his fellow. Therefore, the number 248 [resh-mem-ĥet] contains the same letters as the word raĥem, which is the translation of the word love into Aramaic. This alludes to the fact that the 248 mitzvot are completed for each individual through raĥem, through the love that exists between us.

Loving one’s fellow Jews hastens the redemption:

It is also known that when the attribute of love is fully manifest in the Jewish people, the redemption will come. Therefore, the verse states, “I will set redemption between My people and your people; tomorrow [lemaĥar]” (Exodus 8:19). [The word lemaĥar contains] the letters of leramaĥ, for 248, as well as the letters of leraĥem, for love. This means that in the merit of the 248 positive mitzvot that will be received at Sinai, and in the merit of the love that [the Jewish people] have for one another, “this sign [of redemption] will come to be” (Exodus 8:19). (Rabbi Yosef Ĥayyim, Ben Ish Ĥai, Year 1, Va’era)

Further reading: For more on unity as a means of bringing redemption, see above, p. 87.

When he was five years old, the Ba’al Shem Tov lost his father, the saintly Rabbi Eliezer. In the last moments of his life, when he lay on his sickbed, the father turned to his only son and gave him his final instructions: “My son! Do not fear anyone or anything in this world except the Holy One, blessed be He. Love every Jew with all your heart and soul, no matter who or what he is.” With this short will, the father provided his son with everything he needed for his journey through life.

The sigh that a Jew sighs over the pain of another Jew destroys the iron barriers of the accusing angels. The joy and the blessing of a Jew who rejoices in the joy of another Jew and blesses him are received by God like the prayer of Rabbi Yishmael the High Priest in the Holy of Holies. (Ba’al Shem Tov)

A soul may descend into this world and live for seventy or eighty years solely in order to provide another Jew with a material, or especially a spiritual, benefit. (Ba’al Shem Tov)

If only I could love the most saintly Jew as much as God loves the most wicked Jew. (Rabbi Shlomo of Karlin)

Instill in our hearts that each one of us see the virtues of others, and not their shortcomings, and may each one of us speak to others in the honest and appropriate manner before You, and may no hatred arise in us against others, God forbid. (Prayer of Rabbi Elimelekh of Lizhensk)

Further reading: For more on the soul’s descent into this world, see p. 226.