{"id":46913,"date":"2019-03-03T17:28:20","date_gmt":"2019-03-03T17:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/holidays\/?p=46913"},"modified":"2020-09-08T15:51:02","modified_gmt":"2020-09-08T15:51:02","slug":"half-shekel-and-shekelim-of-haman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/holidays\/half-shekel-and-shekelim-of-haman\/","title":{"rendered":"The Half Shekel and the Shekalim of Haman: What is the Connection?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There were two half-shekel offerings: a one-time donation (for the building of the mishkan) and the annual half shekel (for korbanot) &#8211; building fund vs. operating budget.<\/p>\n<p>Why was there an upper limit for the machatzit hashekel, why can&#8217;t a rich person give more?<\/p>\n<p>Reish Lakish says that the Machatzit HaShekel counters the shekalim that Haman paid Achashverosh to be able to annihilate the Jews. Haman is long gone and no longer a threat. What metaphysical power is there in Haman&#8217;s shekalim &#8211; all he was doing was bribing Achashverosh! What is the deeper message?<\/p>\n<p>Rich and poor stand before God equally; Hashem doesn&#8217;t judge us by our objective accomplishments, He judges us by how much of ourselves we have given to Him.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em>Delivered at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ouisrael.org\/\">OU Israel Center<\/a>, March 3rd, 2019, 26 Adar I\u00a0<\/em><em>5779<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There were two half-shekel offerings: a one-time donation (for the building of the mishkan) and the annual half shekel (for korbanot) &#8211; building fund vs. operating budget. Why was there an upper limit for the machatzit hashekel, why can&#8217;t a rich person give more? Reish Lakish says that the Machatzit HaShekel counters the shekalim that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":890,"featured_media":46914,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[367,348],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-four-shabbatot","category-purim","post_format-post-format-video"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Half Shekel and the Shekalim of Haman: What is the Connection?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Machatzit HaShekel counters the money Haman paid Achashverosh to be able to annihilate the Jews. What is the metaphysical power of Haman&#039;s shekalim? 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