The Shabbat which either coincides with or immediately precedes Rosh Chodesh Adar (or Adar II in a leap year) is Shabbat Shekalim. On this Shabbat, the Maftir (the concluding section of the Torah-reading), instead of being a repetition of the final several verses of the Parashah, is the Torah’s command to donate the half-shekel as an annual tax for the Holy Temple (Exodus 30:11-16).
When the Mishkan (Tabernacle) was functioning, later when the Holy Temple in Jerusalem stood, every male Jew aged 20 and over had to donate half-a-shekel once a year. This annual tax had to reach the Holy Temple in time for the month of Nissan, so it would be collected during Adar (or in a leap year, Adar II):
“On the first of Adar the announcements concerning the shekalim were made, so that everyone would prepare his half-shekel and would be ready to give it. On the fifteenth the treasurers would sit in each city, and demand [the half-shekel due] gently; whoever would give it to them, they would accept it from them, and those who did not give, they did not force them to give. On the twenty-fifth they would sit in the Temple to collect it; and from then on, they would force those who had not yet given to pay up” (Rambam, Laws of Shekalim 1:9).
And so, year-by-year, the treasurers of the Mishkan, later of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, would collect this annual half-shekel obligatory donation.
These half-shekel taxes were then used, from the first of Nisan a few days later until the first of Nisan the following year, for the Tamid (twice-daily sacrifice) and the Musaf offerings (the additional sacrifices on Shabbat, Rosh Chodesh, Pesach, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot) of that year (vide the Ramban’s commentary to Mishnah Shekalim 8:4 and Tiferet Yisrael to Mishnah Shekalim 1:1).
Therefore every Jew had an equal share in all these sacrifices. One nation, with one destiny, united in its worshipping of one G-d.
In memory of this, we read the Torah’s command to donate this annual half-shekel tax on this Shabbat.
Why did G-d decree that every Jew give half a shekel? Why not a whole shekel?
— To indicate that no Jew is complete by himself. The individual Jew is only a half; he can only be complete, and have a full share in the Holy Temple and in the nation as a whole, when he conjoins with other Jews to make the complete shekel.
Hillel enjoined the crucial dictum, “Do not separate yourself from the community” (Pirkei Avot 2:4), on which Rabbi Ovadyah of Bartenura says succinctly, “Rather, participate in their sorrows; because no one who separates himself from the community will see the comfort of the community”, citing the Talmud in Ta’anit 11a.
Rashi elucidates further: “Participate with them in their sorrows, so that you will also rejoice together with them, as we see in the verse, ‘Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad with her; rejoice for joy with her, all you who mourn for her’ (Isaiah 66:10). As it is said in the final chapter of Tractate Ta’anit, anyone who does not participate with the community will not see the community’s comfort, and will never see any sign of blessing”.
Rashi might be citing here the same source as Rabbi Ovadyah of Bartenura, but his words “the final chapter of Tractate Ta’anit” seem to indicate that he is paraphrasing an aphorism from the penultimate page of Tractate Ta’anit: “Everyone who mourns over Jerusalem will merit to see her rejoicing; and one who does not mourn over Jerusalem, will not see her rejoicing” (Ta’anit 30b).
This is not merely a homiletic idea – it is actual practical halachah: “No one who eats and drinks on the 9th of Av will see Jerusalem’s rejoicing; and anyone who mourns over Jerusalem will merit seeing her rejoicing” (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 554:25).
Over the last five months, we have had all too many reasons to mourn. On Sh’mini Atzeret/Simchat Torah, the most joyous day in our calendar, we were subjected to the most vicious, violent, sadistic, and obscene assault this side of the Shoah. And now, those self-same perverted attackers expect us to show them special favour to honour their “holy” month!
And yet…
…and yet, in the shadow of all these tragedies and disasters, we have seen greater Jewish unity and brotherhood than ever before in recent decades. Here in Israel, every Jew instinctively knows that he or she is part of the greater whole. We all have brothers, sisters, cousins, friends who are facing enemy fire, whether in Gaza or on the border with Lebanon, whether in S’derot or in Kiryat Shmona.
The soldiers in the Israeli Army are aware, more acutely than ever since the Yom Kippur War half-a-century ago, that they are fighting for Jewish and Israeli survival, that they are defending the homeland and the nation from extermination.
Religious and secular, left-wing and right-wing – all are united these days more than ever.
Scattered through all the countries of exile, more Jews feel closer and more intimate connexions with Israel than ever since the Yom Kippur War. More and more Jews, both in Israel and abroad, have been forced to realise that progressive intellectuals, “Palestinian” nationalists, ultra-Left activists, LGBTQ-liberationists, BLM-niks, woke activists, and others of their ilk are not, after all, their natural allies in their struggle for egalitarianism.
Jews the world over, estranged for decades if not generations, have been forced to return to the Jewish body, to recognise that their destiny is Jewish destiny
The current war, horrific though it is, might be the tikkun, the rectification for the sin of the “Disengagement” – the elimination of the Jewish presence in Gaza almost 19 years ago.
It was one of the hideous ironies that when the Israeli Government passed the Disengagement Law on 7th Adar I 5765 (16th February 2005), they set the date for the final extirpation as 14th August of that year. That Government was so completely disengaged from any Jewish identity that it took several days before anyone noticed that that day was the fast of the 9th of Av when the Jews were sent into exile.
Having noticed that, they decided to postpone the expulsion by a day.
And so the “Disengagement” went ahead – the single most divisive, bitter, controversial, and hate-driven agenda any Israeli government has ever executed.
The supporters of the “Disengagement” made little secret that their prime motivation in supporting it was to “punish the settlers” by destroying their communities and driving them out of their homes.
Another of the hideous ironies is that the good folks of Kibbutz Be’eri, just 4½ km (2¾ miles) from the Gaza border, were among the most enthusiastic supporters of the “Disengagement”. And subsequently, they were inordinately proud of their wonderful, warm, mutually-supportive relationship with the Gazans, whose “liberation” from “Israeli occupation” they had so ardently supported.
Until Sh’mini Atzeret/Simchat Torah five months ago…
In an ideal world, all Jews would be united for the purpose of Kedushah (holiness), all donating the half-shekel to the Mishkan, later the Holy Temple, all equal participants in the sacrifices, the locus of Jewish identity and Jewish connexion with G-d.
In our present damaged world, with no functioning Holy Temple, we can aspire to that unity. And sometimes, just sometimes, our most vicious enemies force that unity upon us.
The half-shekel which this Shabbat commemorates is a yearly reminder of the unity that we can achieve – and that we indeed will achieve – as soon as we collectively so decide.
I conclude with one final observation:
The word the Torah uses for “half” in the half-shekel is מַחֲצִית, rather than the more usual חֲצִי. It is difficult to encapsulate the difference in English, but while both denote “half”, מַחֲצִית is more active than חֲצִי. The inference of מַחֲצִית is something which has been actively and deliberately halved.
Rabbi Yosef Patzanovski (also written Poznovski) (Poland, c. 1875-1942), in his Torah-commentary Pardes Yosef (Exodus 30:13), notes that in the centre of מַחֲצִית is the letter צ, denoting the Tzaddik. The two letters adjacent to the צ are ח and י, denoting חַי, “live”; the two letters distant from the צ are מ and ת, denoting מֵת, “dead”.
One who is far from the Tzaddik, isolated from the Tzaddik, is dead. One who is close to the Tzaddik, unified with the Tzaddik, is truly alive.