Living Torah Archives

In the Book of Exodus, the Jewish people are instructed to contribute a half-shekel coin towards the building of the tabernacle as “atonement for their souls,” and the commentaries explain that it atoned for the grievous sin of the golden calf.

In the Book of Exodus, the Jewish people are instructed to contribute a half-shekel coin towards the building of the tabernacle as “atonement for their souls,” and the commentaries explain that it atoned for the grievous sin of the golden calf.

By creating Adam alone, G-d teaches us that every individual is like a whole world. But this is only half the story. When the Torah requires a donation from every single Jew to connect us all as one to the work of the Holy Temple, it tells each to bring precisely a half-Shekel.