Shabbat Shekalim 5782

The reason for the mitzvah to give half a shekel is offered by R. Solomon Alkabez, cited by the Alsheikh, as follows:

It was intended to teach the children of Israel the importance of unity, that no one should ever think that he ought to be seperate from his fellow man. Rather, he should view himself as being merely half a person, and only after joining all other Jews does he become complete. Therefore, everyone gives half a shekel…

The commentaries wrote, concerning Haman’s statement to King Ahasuerus that there is a certain people scattered and dispersed among the peoples (Esther 3:8), that the Jews are a people divided and therefore easily conquered. Therefore did Esther cry out through Mordecai, God, gather together all the Jews (Esther 4:16), meaning: in order to repair the divisiveness gather them together, in unity.

That is why the Torah commanded that everyone give half a shekel each year as ransom for the soul (Exod. 30:12). For this sin of divisiveness was not yet corrected, not until Elijah the prophet will come, who shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers (Mal. 3:24). The second Temple was destroyed in punishment for baseless hatred, until God will send Elijah the prophet to repair this sin.

Hence the need to inspire the people on the first day of the month of Adar, before reading of Esther, by giving half a shekel each, to inspire and arouse themselves to correct this sin, just as Esther sought to repair it when she sensed that the time was appropriate for it.

With the destruction of the Second Temple and the end of sacrifices (in 70 C.E.), the special Torah reading for Shabbat Shekalim was recited “in remembrance” (le-zekher) of the Temple. This annual occasion was used to solicit charity in support of Jewish religious and physical existence. The fact that on this particular gift of people shall “take a census” (tissa’ ‘et ro’sh) of themselves (Exod. 30:12) and “the rich shall not pay more and the poor shall not pay less than half a shekel” (v.15) meant that a common commitment and obligation were assumed of all members of the Jewish community. Moreover, just as old rabbinic homilies had hinted that the sacred donation of shekalim offset the sin of idolatry (with the Golden Calf), such that God would “account” (tissa’) the merit of the people and “forgive” them (tissa’), so the annual occasion of Shabbat Shekalim came to mark an ongoing hope (in the absence of the Temple) that charity might serve as a sacrificial substitution- as a gift leading to religious renewal and divine forgiveness. Later Hasidic masters went further and taught that such gifts may serve as a means of “raising” (tissa’) the donor to a higher plane of spiritual consciousness.