Collectivism v. Individualism: Food for Thought

Today, I'll be brief. Our week's Torah portion opens with what's called machatzit hashekel, the obligatory half shekel donation for the sacrifices brought in the mishkan, Hashem's desert tabernacle. 

There are two striking precepts about this donation that I feel can open a portal into how we view collectivism, and obligation to another.

Though the debate in Israel over socialist, collective living is long over - Golda Meir of blessed memory was initially denied entrée into a kibbutz because singles were preferred seeing that children would diminish from per capita output - it would seem that these two precepts were part of what helped Israel create a collective ethos of collective responsibility.

Firstly, like in the mishkan, everyone was expected to give exactly the same. A wealthy person and poor person were equal; neither could diverge or deviate from the absolute obligation to give of one's own resources, the striving being to create parity, and equality to the extent possible. Thus, in the desert, whenever a sacrifice was brought, the rich and poor person knew that he had an equal share. 

 Secondly, and really an offshoot of the first tenet or precept, it was vital for the amalgamation, and cohesion of the Jewish people that they knew, regardless of background, religious level, tribal affiliation and stature, that each and every person had a shared goal, something they did together. 

With society as individualistic as it is today, and people's resources so disparate, and especially now, with our lives so pixelated and fragmented, and little interface in our shared experience, it would seem that besides prayer service on Yom Kippur - it would be vital to find some agent of shared experience, something that the Jewish people as a whole could each do, each, perhaps, even on his own, but in a way that brings together our people, creating a life where there's something we share. Perhaps that's the source of the famous Jewish teaching: "If only every Jew kept 2 Shabboses, then it would beckon the Messianic era." What else do we have today, that each and every Jew can do together?