WHEN YOU TAKE A CENSUS OF THE ISRAELITE PEOPLE ACCORDING TO THEIR ENROLLMENT, EACH SHALL PAY THE LORD A RANSOM FOR HIMSELF ON BEING ENROLLED, THAT NO PLAGUE MAY COME UPON THEM THROUGH THEIR BEING ENROLLED. THIS IS WHAT EVERYONE WHO IS ENROLLED IN THE RECORDS SHALL PAY: A HALF-SHEKEL BY THE SANCTUARY WEIGHT... THE RICH SHALL NOT PAY MORE AND THE POOR SHALL NOT PAY LESS THAN HALF A SHEKEL WHEN GIVING THE LORD'S OFFERING AS EXPIATION FOR YOUR PERSONS.

(Shemot 30:12-15)

 

The Half-Shekel

This [they]... shall pay - Not with the amount of what he actually does for the common good, but with the symbolic expression of what he knows is his duty, has he to approach God in the moment when he is to pass-over out of the ranks of the uncounted into the circle of those counted... But the symbolic expression of the duty to work for the common weal is a half-shekel per person. Objectively, actually, even the most complete and most perfect work of any single individual is never the whole of the work, can never accomplish everything, the work of any single person will always remain a fragment, it requires an equally devoted sacrifice on the part of his brother to establish a whole. No individual is asked to do the whole, as it states in Avot 2:21, "It is not for you to complete the work." But it must be a contribution to the whole, weighed on the scales of the Sanctuary. The shekel must be one of twenty geras, and that which the individual gives must be ten, in itself, subjectively, a rounded whole. As far as the giver is concerned, it must be a whole, his whole, conscientiously weighed out. However small a fragment what he does may be, in relation to all that has to be done, he may leave nothing out, no power, no ability, no possessions, that could further the happiness of the whole may he keep back, although "It is not for you to complete the work" nevertheless "and neither are you free to disengage from it."

(R. S. R. Hirsch on Shemot 30:13, following Levi translation)

 

 

Did We Succeed?

Yonatan Orich

The final days of the Tabernacle's construction: Flushed with excitement, the Chosen People turns its eyes to the House of its glory, its Holy of Holies, the home of its God. The pomegranate-ornaments are set in their proper places, the tarps wave in the wind - and Moses, the leader, arrives. The people stand before Moses - the nation's material "father" - like a small child holding out his first artistic work to his father, asking in its heart: "Did we succeed? Did we understand, chisel, and cut in accordance with God's word?" Moses perceives the beauty of the completed work, feels the people's excitement and shares in it, turns to them and says: You have succeeded "May it be God's will that the Divine Presence shall dwell in the product of your hands" (Rashi, Shemot 39:43).

As is his custom, Rabbi S. R. Hirsch delves between the lines of the leader's speech, deriving great meaning from them that remains significant for today's Jews, as it had been for those who stood by the Tabernacle. Verse 3 describes the event: And Moses saw all of the work, and they had performed it as the Lord had commanded, so they had performed it, and Moses blessed them. Moses looks at the people and at their completed work, and finds two significant points:

 

They had performed it

Moses does not view the completed Tabernacle merely as a physical house of God. He does not look at the holy objects, but rather looks into them. In those vessels, Moses sees the days that led to their completion. He sees the people's spirit of volunteerism, the contributions made by every Jewish heart, the team work, and the solidarity of individuals working side by side towards the realization of a shared goal. Moses sees the nation. He sees its unity and strength, its devotion to purpose. In our day, Moses looks down from above upon our army, and wants to see similar qualities: unity, perseverance, readiness to volunteer and tremendous devotion. In these days of calls to refuse to follow orders, which endanger the army, democracy, the nation, and the state - we must remember and take care, and persevere in our commitment to the shared goal. Our strength is in our unity, our perseverance, our readiness to give. Let us all look towards the same goal, let us unite the Jewish People, love the Jewish People, and know how to resolve contentious issues through democratic means. In these days when the Land of Israel is undergoing a difficult surgical operation to save its life and for the sake of the hope of peace - we must increase love for fellow Jews. We must love the settlers, understand their distress, see to their well-being, and pray for them. God forbid that our authentic desire for peace with our neighbors should give rise to hatred and war between Jewish brothers.

 

As the Lord had commanded, so they had performed it

Together with the above, and no less important - Moses sees absolute obedience to God's will. No personal interests, no differential treatment, no desire for one Jew to outshine his brothers. All are "as one man with one heart" with a strong will to execute God's commands down to the slightest detail. That is the Torah's purpose in giving us chapter after chapter of detailed description, worthy of the technical plans for a new communications satellite. The Torah means to show the reader that the Israelites did as they were commanded; that the only interest they considered was the divine command.

That is meaning of being a servant of God. "Negate your will before His will" (Avot 2:4) - so Rabban Gamliel tells us. As servants of God we must concentrate on one goal - the will to uphold God's word, his commandments, statutes, and laws. Of course, God's word is sometimes ambiguous and dependent upon human understanding. However, the written and oral Torah supply us with enough criteria to distinguish in most cases between God's word and personal interests.

In conclusion, I shall touch upon Moses' blessing. Rashi's comments cited above say that Moses blessed the people with the words, "May it be God's will that the Divine Presence shall dwell in the product of your hands: May the favor of the Lord, our God, be upon us; let the work of our hands prosper, O prosper the work of our hands. (Tehillim 90:17)." Let us try to find a deeper meaning in that verse from Tehillim, a message that Moses relayed to the people on the day of the Tabernacle's consecration.

Moses prays for the future of the Jewish People. Moses sees the path which combines freedom with discipline as God's promise for happiness. To walk the tight-rope between freedom and discipline - that is the goal of a servant of God - the central message of Moses' blessing. Moses asks, let the work of our hands prosper, O prosper the work of our hands. The work of our hands - that is the freedom granted the Jew. O prosper the work of our hands - that is the discipline, the commandments and laws. This combination - the middle way - is the object of Moses' prayer. If only the Jewish People would learn to combine divine discipline with this freedom, as Moses hoped. On the one hand - the freedom granted us by God to develop. On the other - we are certainly obligated by many laws and boundaries to be disciplined. It would seem that to a secular person or to a Christian, this must appear to be an enormous contradiction; how can one be both free and bound at the same time?

Rabbi S.R. Hirsch speaks of how the tzitzit are designed: Partially formed by knots, but ending in free and unencumbered strings. So it is with us Jews: Only when we tie ourselves with commandments, with statutes and laws, with the Jewish halakhah - only then can we really be free. Free of physical enslavement, from the enslavement of the day and from material enslavement. Then our souls "exit Egypt" towards freedom.

Yonatan Orich is a high school student, and believes in God and in Peace (Shalom), which is one of God's names.

 

 

But will God really dwell on the earth? Even the heavens to their uttermost reaches cannot contain You, how much less this House that I have built!

(I Kings 8:27)

 

One would say: "When our love was strong, we could lay together on the flat of a sword; now that our love is not strong - a bed of sixty cubits is not large enough for us." Rav Huna said: The things are written in biblical verses - first it says and I will make myself known to you there and I will speak to you from over the covering, and we learn from a braita that the Ark was nine handbreadths high, and the covering itself a single handbreadth, making a total of ten - in the beginning when God loved Israel, the Divine Presence would reveal itself even in such a cramped place! But regarding the Temple it is said: And the House that Solomon built for the Lord was sixty cubits long and twenty wide and thirty cubits tall. In the end, it is written: So spoke the Lord: The sky is My throne and the earth My footstool; what house shall you make for Me? When Israel sinned, the entire Temple was not sufficiently spacious for the Divine Presence to dwell in it.

(Sanhedrin 7a)

 

The Tabernacle as a Divine "Concession" and Atonement for the Sin of the Calf

And Moses blessed them - how did he bless them? "May it be God's will that the Divine Presence shall dwell in the product of your hands: May the favor of the Lord, our God, be upon us... (Tehillim 90:17)" Rabbeinu Behayeiy explained: This is in accordance with that which is said in the beginning of the Psalm: A prayer of Moses, the man of God, etc. However, this is not enough to make the point if there is no mention of the Tabernacle in the whole psalm. But I say that the beginning and end of the psalm hint clearly at the building of the Tabernacle, for in the beginning it says, Lord, you have been our refuge in every generation, and this is in agreement with what Solomon said in his prayer at the Temple's consecration: Even the heavens to their uttermost reaches cannot contain You, how much less this House - that is in keeping with what is said, You have been our refuge - You are the world's refuge, but the world is not Your place and refuge. If so, how could it ever occur to anyone to say that they would prepare a house for You to be located in? And he proved it, since before the mountains were born and the land and earth created throughout eternity You are God - if God needed to occupy a space, which space did He occupy before creating the world? Rather, the world is certainly not His place. Quite to the contrary, may He be blessed is the place and refuge for the whole world. And how could it be that God commanded him to build a house for Him, as if He was going to live there? Regarding that, he said by means of an answer, You return man to dust; You decreed, "Return you mortals!" God had to concede His honor and make Himself a dwelling among the mortals in order to absolve them for the sin of the calf, for according to the Sages the entire Tabernacle was built as atonement for the calf (Tanhuma Pekudei 6).

(Keli Yakar on Shemot 39:43)

 

The Israelites were commanded: Bring Me gifts, gifts of all that was needed for constructing the Tabernacle. Afterwards, when the command was executed, we read that all those whose heart moved them brought the gifts. The midrash reads this passage carefully, noting that when a good cause is involved, e.g., building the Tabernacle - all those whose heart moved them brought gifts. All those whose heart moved them is not a collective name for all of the people, all of the community, or all of the public. In contrast, when the people themselves wanted to worship what they saw as a god - the calf - it is written: and all of the people removed their golden nose-rings.

So: for the good - all those whose heart moved them, for the bad - all of the people.

The worship of God does not derive from an innate human drive. It requires that man make a psychological effort to overcome his nature and accept the yoke of the kingdom of heaven upon himself. However, people are naturally driven to idolatry...

(Prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz ztz"l, He'arot le'parashiyot ha'shavua, pp. 63-64)

.

The Half-Shekel

In the first of Adar, the collection of shekalim is announced.

(Mishnah Shekalim 1:1)

 

In the first of Adar, the collection of shekalim is announced - So that Israel would bring the gift of shekalim in Nisan, as it is written, in its month [hodesh] of the months of the year do something new [hadesh] and bring me an offering from the new

gift.

 (Rashi on Mo'ed Katan 6a)

 

Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish said: It was revealed and known to God that in the future, the wicked Haman would weigh out shekalim in payment for Israel[‘s destruction]. Therefore, he had their shekalim precede his.

(Yalkut Shimoni Ki-Tisa 386)

 

...and they would begin to collect in the month of Adar and gave in the first of Nisan. And why do they start in Adar and give in Nisan? In order not to pressure Israel.

(Tanhuma Ki Tisa 1)

 

The rich shall not add

He said not to add or detract - since it is a ransom of the soul.

 (Ibn Ezra 30:15)

 

So that the rich cannot say, "My part is greater than yours."

(Da'at Zekeinim Mi'Ba'alei Ha'Tosafot, loc cit)

 

Just in this equality, the symbolic nature of the fixed gift of half a shekel is expressed. As long as the rich man and the poor man give, each all that he can, does the whole of what he can do, then, as far as God and His Sanctuary are concerned, the pounds of the rich weigh no more than the pennies and shillings of the poor, and the pennies and shillings of the poor are quite equal to the pounds of the rich. The rich man can do no more, and the poor man can do no less, than the half of a whole shekel. God and the Sanctuary weigh, not the actual, but the relative size of the contribution, they value what is given and what is done in relation to the fortune and the abilities of the givers. Every one who uses the full powers of the fortune and the abilities with which he has been graced, in the service of God, in furthering the aims of the Sanctuary, lays thereby his half shekel as his "symbolum" on the Altar of God.

(Rabbi S. R. Hirsch on Shemot 30: 15, Levi translation)

 

 

 

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