In פרק לח פסוק כו, Bne yisrael is told that each person who is 20 years old or up has to give half a shekel towards building the mishkan. It says the total number of people of age were 603,550 men. What is the significance of the half shekel and of the number of men? Why is It mentioned? What is the significance of the age of 20?
Chizkuni says that even though half a shekel is not a lot of money, bne Yisrael relied on HaShem to provide the rest.
Meira Baum:
ReplyDeleteThe Aish Rabbi says that the reason the half shekel was used was because it was a number even the poorest people could acheive and it was important absolutley everyone contribute to the building of the mishkan.
Ariella Rosencrantz
ReplyDeleteRabbi Kelman says the half shekel was used to unify the Jewish people. Everyone had to equally contribute. This "half" also shows the nature of Jewish people. Every Jew needs a fellow Jew in order to be whole. whole. "The half shekel that enabled the Temple to function, and when the Jewish people started to demonstrate discord—engaging in fighting and hatred—the shekel became just a worthless coin, and the Temple was lost."
This approach is a beautiful idea. It shows the meaning behind the "half." It also shows that HaShem has a plan for everything and that money can become worthless and is not what truly matters.
https://www.torahinmotion.org/discussions-and-blogs/parshat-shekalim-pekudei-pre-empting-haman
Human has two souls, a godly soul and an animal soul. Each soul is only half the body. The reason why we specifically give a half a shekel is to show Hashem that we are dedicating our animal side to godliness.
ReplyDeleteI really found this idea interesting because I never thought that deep into it that we dedicate or bodies to Hashem.
Chabad.org