NUM339 [Regarding] an anomaly in the Torah when the Ten Commandments were given [, w]hen God spoke to the Jewish people, each person heard the same message from God, but in a distinctive manner. That is why the first commandment of the Ten Commandments is stated in the singular, says the Midrash (Midrash, Pesikta Derav Kehana 12:27). Every person learns in a individual way and hears the Torah messages in a manner appropriate for him or her. And because every human being is distinguishable from others, each prophet, charged with delivering essentially the same message from God to the people, delivered it in his or her inimitable way (Sanhedrin 89a). Everyone has his or her "style," and people must be tolerant of those whose "style" differs from theirs. Moses, the leader of the Jewish people, learned this truth through forty years of leading the Jewish people. This is the reason that when Moses was about to die, he asked God to appoint a leader to succeed him who had the capacity to understand that each Jew requires a different type of leadership, depending on his or her temperament. When God chose Joshua, He made sure to inform Moses that the new leader indeed had this quality of understanding each person according to his or her specific needs. (Midrash, Bamidbar Rabbah 21:2; Rashi commentary on Numbers 27:18). In keeping with this perspective on the nature of human beings, the Mishna states that one of the most amazing aspects of man's creation is that there are many characteristics of the human being which are common to every person, but at the same time, there are features that make each individual unlike any other person created before or to be thereafter (Mishna Sanhedrin 4:5). Thus, some aspects of human kind unite all people, while there exist to be other components of the human make up that allow each person to remain different and special. The Rabbis understood this, so that even when they enacted laws, they understood that some people would not be able to keep these edicts. As long as most, but not all, of the Jewish people would keep them, an edict was enacted. (Bava Batra 60b; Maimonides, Hilchot Mamrim 2:5).