This is the intent of the words of Rabbi Elazar, the son of Rabbi Shimon, when he says – The world is judged according to its majority. He is referring to the role of the Israeli nation to prepare the world to undergo a certain process of refinement, until the people of the world become worthy of taking upon themselves the service of God to no less than the extent to which the people of Israel were worthy at the time they received the Torah. This level of refinement is considered – in the language of our sages – that they have attained the majority of merits [spiritual refinements] so that they outweigh the side of demerit, which is the contaminated self-love.

Clearly, if the amount on the merit side of the scale – which represents the higher comprehension of the nature of loving the other96 – is large and is greater than the amount on the side for the contaminated demerit, then the people with such merit are prepared to make the decision and give their assent by saying, “We will do, and we will hear,” as Israel said. But before that, before they obtain a majority of virtues, self-love certainly prevails and determines that they refuse to accept the yoke of [the service of] God.

And this is what our sages intended when they said [Kiddushin 40b]: Whoever does a single commandment is blissful for having tipped the scale to the side of merit for himself or herself and for the whole world. That is, in the final accounting [when the world will be judged to be on the side of merit], the portion of merit of an individual member of Israel is included as the amount that tips the scale. Similarly, when weighing sesame seeds, one can add one seed at a time to one side of the scale until the point where it outweighs the other side. Here each seed surely provides a measure towards the tilting of the scale, and without that seed, the scale would have remained balanced. So this saying of the sages states that, in the same manner as the sesame seeds, a single act of an individual member of Israel tilts the scale for the whole world to the side of merit. When all is over and the scale that measures the whole world tips to the side of merit, then each individual will have had a part in the deciding weight; and without this part there would not have been the final reckoning.

Thus, you find that Rabbi Elazar, the son of Rabbi Shimon, does not dispute the words of our sages that all of Israel are guarantors for one another. Rather, Rabbi Elazar, the son of Rabbi Shimon, speaks of the future correction of the whole world,97 whereas our sages speak of the present when only Israel has accepted the Torah.