Shabbat
Shekalim Love Expressed in a Silver Coin
I will start with a little side
account on Israeli money. The official coin of the state of Israel is the
shekel, actually, the Shekel Hadash,
or the New Shekel. It came to replace the Israeli Lira, which was
originally based on the British pound, at a rate about $3 and a quarter. Then,
it inflated over time to 20 or 30 to the
dollar, so the government switched the currency to the Shekel.
Back when they were trying to fix
the old shekel, they told a story of a great Hasidic Rabbi, however, who went
for a walk on Shabbos in Jerusalem, He spied 100 Shekel note lying on the
street in front of him, picked it up, and promptly put it in his pocket.
His followers were astounded;
Rabbi--this is mukseh ( untouchable)! You know your are forbidden to
pick up money on Shabbos!
He looked at them: You call this
money, and went ahead.
He was right—the shekel hit 1500 to
the dollar three years later, because of inflation, it was reissued as the New Israeli
Shekel, and brought down to 1.50 a dollar. Now, it has been stable for about 30
years at about 3 and a half, not far from where it was in 1948 at 3.25! The
British are the ones who took a monetary bath however, as their pound is now
about half what it was compared to the dollar in 1948!.
Israelis used to value contracts in
US dollars. Now, over the last few years, they went back to valuing contracts
in Israeli Shekels. After all, the head of the Israeli National Bank, Stanley Fisher,
was the mentor to the head of the Fed, Ben Bernanke. He is now back at the Fed
to help shore up the US dollar.
This story of the modern shekel
brings us to the story of the ancient shekel.
This Shabbat, we have a special
reading-shekalim, named for the
real shekel, not the modern printed version, but a silver coin, unclipped,
about the weight, in silver of the pre-1960’’s US silver dollar.
We added the opening verses of Ki Tisa,
which we read a few weeks ago, as our Maftir this week..
We recall the ancient task of
collecting one-half shekel from everyone, in addition to all other
collections-for establishment of the sanctuary, later for annual maintenance of
the Temple.
The special Haftarah reading
reflects the same theme, of an event in later history, the collection of funds
for repair of the Temple in Jerusalem. This was added for the Shabbat preceding
Rosh Chodesh Adar, just one month and a half before Pesah, to remind the public
to bring contributions that would prepare ancient Jerusalem for the myriads of
visitors who would come for the Pesah offering at the Temple.
Our sages express astonishment at
our people’s response to our requests for funds. They paid, it shows, not only
the half-shekel, but added generously out of their own pocket, as we read last
Shabbat in Vaykhel and on this Shabbat of Pekudei.
“What a strange people! Last week, they raised funds for the
Golden Calf, this week, they raise funds for the Holy Sanctuary? Whatever you ask them for, they give!”
(Yerushalmi)
Of course it was not always easy to
raise funds either for Golden Calves or for Temples.
Our literature is filled with
exhortations to give generously, which means that the people had to be prompted
and prodded.
Thus our sages insisted
"No
one ever became poor by giving Zedakah"
Or,
they promised, as in the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, some 2200 years ago, “As
Water douses a flame, so zedakah
atones for sins.”
Those who pled poverty, and thus unable
to give, were assured,:
“Whoever
pursues the giving of zedakah, God gives him the means.”(Baba batra)
Nothing ever changes. Plus ca
change, plus ca meme chose! .The more the change, the more things remain as
they were. Jews have been trying to raise funds ever since. We didn't have the
power of taxation to maintain our institutions so we had to rely on the power
of the community to persuade and encourage.
Jews also loved their synagogues-it
goes back a long time. In the opening of the prayer book, there is a prayer for
entering the synagogue
“Ma Tovu ohalecha”--How goodly are
your tents
It
goes on" Oh Lord, I love the habitation of your house, the place where
your glory dwells.”
Look at the 23rd Psalm,”The Lord is
my shepherd”. We use it for funerals but that is not its purpose. Sefardic Jews
use it as a table song to celebrate and it declares, in celebration "I
will dwell in the house of the Lord forever”. You only seek to dwell forever in a place you love.
Archaeologist in Israel and the Middle
East have uncovered countless plaques with the names of one donor or another,
in Hebrew and in Greek, naming the president of a congregation, the donor of a
doorway, even the name of a women who was president of her congregation. This
is a precedent which every charitable institution has followed down to this
day.
Why do people go out of their way to
do this? People in general, not just Jews.
.One reporters described the aftermath
of fighting in an Italian village.
An artillery shell fell through the
top of a church, ruined the church, but spared its famous mural by Bellini.
This was seen as a miracle. The people began to raise the money to rebuild the Church;
people who didn't have shoes came up and put money in the box. It was cold and
they didn't even have enough to eat.
“I asked one man, ‘Why do you do
this?’ He hesitated a moment and said, ‘Signor, what I give is only a little,
but in giving it, I become a part of something beautiful.’ (Stanley Andrews)
We all, Jews and non-Jews, want to
be part of something beautiful.
I have my share of stories of how
people care for their synagogues
I will start with an example from a non-Jew!
I recall being my youth in a small
town in West Virginia, My father had been the Rabbi. You didn't know there were Jews in the heart of
West Virginia?
At every Jewish holiday, in would
walk a Christian lady from the neighboring town with an armload of first fruits
from her yard. She brought it to the synagogue because she took it
seriously--God has asked for the first fruits, and she has given it.
I was Rabbi once in Newport News ,
Virginia, where they just celebrated 100 years of the congregation. The entire
Jewish community, of two thousand, was for the most part descended from three
main families; everyone was either a descendent of, married to, a cousin of, or
best friend of. Board members were all relatives. If someone was upset with the
president, it was "Cousin Ralph" or "Uncle Bob". Since the
synagogue was a family affair, everyone took care of it as if it were his own
house-- and it was. (By the way, the head of the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union
College, Rabbi David Ellison is a product of the town’s Orthodox synagogue! His
brother taught in our Hebrew School. Small world, then, for his son and our son
were in school together here, in this building, many years later, downstairs in
what was the Herzl school. Small world, the granddaughter of our Hebrew school
program is friends with our granddaughter here in LA.)
In yet another congregation where I
served, in Whittier,I recall one member, the wife of a prominent lawyer and
judge, who lived in an elegant house in the best part of the city. She had her
maid to do her house, of course. But when it came to the synagogue, no cleaning
lady was good enough. Time and again, I would find her in the sanctuary
scrubbing the stains on the carpet on the Bimah-- because no else could do the
job the right way! That's care.
.Every Jewish community had its"
sheva tovei ha'ir"--its seven good men of the town, the executive
committee, which undertook the responsibilities of the synagogue, and every
community had its asarah batlanim-its minyan of batlanim--a batlan
is not a lazy man, just the opposite, a batlan meant a wealthy man, who
was batel--he was free from the burden of employment so he could
dedicate himself to the needs of the synagogue.
(.Here too, we have our tovei
ha-ir.our goodly people of the city. We have our core of people who give
and have given of themselves constantly. I look here at Carmen, Marcello and
Lillian, Simon, Rosa and others, for example.
But they alone cannot lift up this
great institution. Leaders are of no avail without followers to give fullest
support.)
Finally, people may ask with a
practical approach: In times like these, what does this synagogue mean to me?
I close with the words of a noted
Rabbi, Solomon Goldman
"Why
go to the Synagogue?"
I come to the synagogue to probe my
weakness and my strength
I come to lift myself by my
bootstraps, I come to quiet the turbulence in my heart, restrain its mad
impulsiveness and check the itching eagerness of my every muscle to outsmart
and outdistance my neighbor. I come
for self-renewal and regeneration I come to behold the beauty of the Lord, to
find him who put an upward reach in the
heart of man. "
That is what this synagogue can do
for each of us. That is why we have the reminder, before we make merry with
Purim and celebrate Pesah with family and friends, to give our half-shekels
worth, and more, to make our Sanctuaries and congregations flourish.
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