בס"ד
The Shabbos before Rosh Hodesh Adar is called Shabbos Shekelim. It is a prelude to Pesach. The original purpose was to raise money to fix the roads and other community property that was needed by pilgrims to observe the holiday in Jerusalem.
The most fundamental meaning of the word shekel (שֶקֶל) is a unit of weight. However the word became used as a unit of money long ago. This is because it referred to a specific quantity of silver. In the days of the Talmud it was called a sela (סֱלַע) probably because the original pronunciation was corrupted. Another Talmudic weight, which was also money, was the Maneh. One maneh was 25 selas. A maneh was also called a litra (לִיטרָה), which weighed one pound.
This idea still exists today as the official currency of the state of Israel is called a shekel. Another example is the British pound. Its origin is also from Rome. The name derives from the Latin word "poundus" meaning "weight", and is equivalent to 1 pound weight of silver. The £ symbol comes from an ornate L in Libra. Libra is Latin for a balance scale because of its importance in commerce. At one time there was a barter economy and people would swap things based on weight. Today the pound price of a pound of silver is US$ 206.51 and 1/25 of that is $8.26 or 27 New Israel Shekels and 23 agorot. Some understand the word agora (אֲגוֹרָה) as a variant of the word ‘gerah’ which was an ancient coin, twentieth part of a ‘shekel’, and a seed of a carob.
This is like maftir for Shabbos Shekelim which says, "This they shall give, everyone who goes through the counting: half a shekel according to the holy shekel; Twenty gerahs equal one shekel; half a shekel shall be an offering to the Lord", (Exodus 30:13). Carob seeds vary only slightly in their weight. Ones of unusual size can be identified by eye and excluded. Ten of them will give a very consistent weight, therefore they have been used as a measure going back to ancient times. The average mass of seeds from female trees is 200.5±2.47 mg. One gram is the size of a hard candy. An Israeli 10 agorot coin weighs 4 grams. One U.S. penny weighs 2.5 grams. This very close to the metric carat of 200 mg. Carob seeds have been used throughout history to measure the weight jewelry, particularly gold and diamonds. In 309 CE, Roman Emperor Constantine I began to mint a new gold coin, the solidus. It was equal to a mass of 24 siliquae or carat. This is believed to be the origin of the value of the karat and the idea that 24 karats is pure gold. Karat and carat are variations of the word carob.
My rabbi Eli Chaim Carlebach of blessed memory praised Abraham, our patriarch, for being a financial genius, saying that he invented money. Up until that time all trade was done by barter. This was a problem because of irregular units. For example two turkeys may have been worth three chickens. If a person only wanted one turkey then he had to give the buyer something else, but he may not have something that the buyer wanted. Consequently nobody was ever happy. Abraham noted that everybody wanted silver, therefore he made silver coins of a consistent weight. Everyone was happy to accept them as change. The idea caught on and that became the money of today.
Many people note that Germany was an advanced and benevolent country especially towards the Jews. They wonder, how could a maniac like Hitler ever come to power there? Some say it was because of the crazy inflation they had there. A wheelbarrow of cash was used to pay for a loaf of bread. The price of sending a letter rose to 50 billion marks. Workers were paid three times a day so they could spend their money before it became worthless. It became impossible to do business. Everybody was totally confused and in this confusion Hitler came to power.
Money can be corrupted even with good intentions. For example Rashi explains, "a full shekel is four zuz and a zuz was originally five meahs [carats]. However they added a sixth meaning that it would be six [carob seeds weight] of silver". The comments in brackets I have added for simplicity. In other words a half a shekel became 12 carats of silver instead of 10. People could become confused and give more tsadaka. We learn, therefore, "with the sacred shekel" (בְּשֶׁקֶל הַקֹּדֶשׁ). This hints that we shouldn't play around with the value of the money even for such a noble purpose as supporting the cohanim in the Holy Temple.
לע"נ האמא מלכה בת חיים ז"ל נלב"ע טז ניסן תשנ"ח
העלון ניתן לקבל בדואר אלקטרוני וגם באתר http://dyschreiber.blogspot.com
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