Dvar Torah on Parshat Ki Tisa

This week's portion, Ki Tissa, opens with an interesting commandment: "And the Lord spoke to Moshe, saying: When you count the heads of the children of Israel, according to their numbers, each man shall give a payment for his soul to God, to be counted, and no harm will come to them when they are counted. This is what all those who are counted will give: half a shekel...half a shekel as a gift to God... The rich will not give more, and the poor will not give less than half a shekel... And you shall take the money of atonement from the Children of Israel and give it for the service in the Meeting-Tent, and it shall, for the Children of Israel, be a remembrance, to atone for their souls."

Apparently, a few birds were killed with this particular half-shekel: a census was taken of the Jewish people, and at the same time money was raised to cover some of the costs of the Temple service, here called 'the service in the Meeting Tent', which is the Tabernacle in the desert. This Mitzvah continued to be practiced during the period of the Temple in Jerusalem, and, in fact, is partially practiced in many Jewish communities today, no census is taken, but the money which is given to commemorate the Biblical half-shekel goes to charity.

The gift of the half-shekel also, according to these verses, achieved some sort of atonement for the Jewish people. The Rabbis explain that this refers to an atonement for the sin of the Golden Calf (silver for gold), which is described a bit later in this week's parsha but which, according to some, may actually have happened before the commandment to give the half-shekel was formulated. I would like to focus, for a moment, on the interesting feature of the 'flat tax' nature of this gift - everyone, rich or poor, has to give the same amount - half a shekel. As many would point out today, like any flat tax, this has its problems. Poor people really do have less to give, and perhaps the half shekel is, for them, a real burden. Rich people, on the other hand, can afford much more; for them the half-shekel is pretty irrelevant, why not ask them for more? Why does this paltry amount satisfy the Torah and grant them atonement?

To answer these questions, I would like to posit that the fact that the Mitzvah of counting the Jewish people is combined here with the Mitzvah of giving to the Temple is neither an accident nor simply a labor-saving device, enabling us to do two things at once. Nor do I believe that the flat tax is just a simple way to run a census: count the half-shekels and you've counted the people. Rather, I think that, first and foremost, these features combine to make a statement about the nature of giving, and about the nature of community .

Perhaps this is how we are meant to understand the various elements of the half-shekel law: one becomes a member of a community by giving to that community. By all of us standing up and being counted, by the act of supporting our community and its needs, we in fact create our community. Members of a community give charity not only to support the actual cause in question; they give in order to be members of the community. They give in order to show, with an act of generosity and responsibility, that they really are full-fledged members of their group. Their giving, no matter how modest, proves it; after all, members of a group take care of the group, feel a responsibility towards it, and move it forward - that's how they exercise their membership. For this purpose, the amount given really is irrelevant, what is important is being counted as one who gives, and therefore cares, and is therefore a member. Disparity in giving could actually blur this fact, and cause real harm, by creating, perhaps, communities, rather than the desired one community - hence the flat tax.

The half shekel also acts as an atonement for the sin of the Golden Calf, in which the Israelites indulged in a frenzy of donating their gold for the construction of the idol. The measured, equally levied tax of the half shekel, which goes to the work in the Temple, acts as a counterbalance to that selfish orgy of giving.

The half-shekel teaches us that it is by contributing to a community that we become members of that community, and that, to some degree, we all need to contribute equally in order to be equal members. This is how we all can stand up and be counted, not as passive units in a society, or as participants in a wild competition to give as much as we can, but as active, responsible, and equal members of a giving community.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Shimon Felix