VBM The Jewish People and Torah Study By bHarav Yaakov Medan
*Communal Offerings – the Pharisees and the Sadducees
The passage read for Parashat Shekalim opens with the obligation upon every member of Israel to bring a half-shekel to the Temple:
And the Lord spoke to Moshe, saying: When you take the sum of the children of Israel, according to their number, then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul to the Lord, when you number them, that there be no plague among them, when you number them. This they shall give, every one that passes among them that are numbered: half a shekel after the shekel of the sanctuary – the shekel is twenty gera – half a shekel for an offering to the Lord. Every one that passes among them that are numbered, from twenty years old and upward, shall give the offering of the Lord. The rich shall not give more and the poor shall not give less than the half shekel, when they give the offering of the Lord, to make atonement for your souls. And you shall take the atonement money from the children of Israel, and you shall appoint it for the service of the tent of meeting, that it may be a memorial for the children of Israel before the Lord, to make atonement for your souls. (Shemot 30:11-16)
There is no discussion of this issue in the Babylonian Talmud, but the Yerushalmi in Tractate Shekalim notes that this obligation is intended to anchor the communal offerings brought over the course of the year on new money that belongs to the Temple treasury, when every year anew, in the month of Nisan, Israel is required to bring new money.
*Communal Offerings – the Pharisees and the Sadducees
The passage read for Parashat Shekalim opens with the obligation upon every member of Israel to bring a half-shekel to the Temple:
And the Lord spoke to Moshe, saying: When you take the sum of the children of Israel, according to their number, then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul to the Lord, when you number them, that there be no plague among them, when you number them. This they shall give, every one that passes among them that are numbered: half a shekel after the shekel of the sanctuary – the shekel is twenty gera – half a shekel for an offering to the Lord. Every one that passes among them that are numbered, from twenty years old and upward, shall give the offering of the Lord. The rich shall not give more and the poor shall not give less than the half shekel, when they give the offering of the Lord, to make atonement for your souls. And you shall take the atonement money from the children of Israel, and you shall appoint it for the service of the tent of meeting, that it may be a memorial for the children of Israel before the Lord, to make atonement for your souls. (Shemot 30:11-16)
There is no discussion of this issue in the Babylonian Talmud, but the Yerushalmi in Tractate Shekalim notes that this obligation is intended to anchor the communal offerings brought over the course of the year on new money that belongs to the Temple treasury, when every year anew, in the month of Nisan, Israel is required to bring new money.
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