The name and opening passage of this week’s parsha chimes with Parshat Shekalim which we read last week in anticipation of Purim, now a week away. The half-shekels are counted to yield a total count of all adult males in Israel so that there will be no plague upon counting them (Shemot 30:12). Last week we examined the idea of the four special parshiot in general; this week we will look a little deeper into the first, Shekalim, and its connection with our parsha, Pekudei.
Clearly, counting looms large in both cases. The parsha that concerns the counting of Israel is known chiefly for the “raising up” of every individual to be counted (Ki Tisa), and when the totals are given for the treasury of the Mishkan, these are the sums (“eleh pekudei”). When counting humans, we continue to emphasize the individual, but with valuables we seek to calculate a total sum. Malbim speaks of the difference between sefira and mifkad, which he distinguishes, respectively, as counting individuals and deriving a sum total.
As the individual donations were being made to the Mishkan, there was no cause for concern about whether they would be put to their intended use. Every Israelite who felt moved to provide valuables to be used in the construction of the Mishkan felt confident that an artisan under the supervision of Betzalel and Oholiav would put the donation to good use, and every artisan received the materials required and gave a reckoning of what had been produced with these. It was only in light of the sheer magnitude of the project and the tremendous value of donated materials that a reckoning needed to be given of the purpose to which everything was put.
The mitzvah of the half-shekel which we read about in Parshat Shekalim also involves counting, but as we just saw, we must continue to emphasize the unique importance of every individual. The idea that counting might lead to misfortune – that measures must be taken to avoid a plague – is unique to the Jews. It appears rarely in Scripture but always to great effect. The first example is this account of the giving of the half-shekel. Rabbi Yaakov Abuchatzera, the Abir Yaakov, speaks of this spiritual danger in his esoteric but magnificent commentary, Machsof HaLavan. By recourse to mysticism and numerology, he associates the number of adult males in Israel with the 600,000 primordial lights that were emanated to initiate the creation of the physical universe. It is probably more widely known that this number also corresponds to the number of letters in a Sefer Torah. (This is actually not literally correct; there are different opinions as to how to understand this statement in the Zohar.)
The Abir Yaakov explains, as we also saw last week, that in Creation all things have their opposite, and the lights of holiness in the world are opposed by shadows or reflections in the form of lights from “the other side.” In practical terms, this means that when Israel assumes our proper stature as representatives of Divine Will in the material world, we must be very careful to devote ourselves only to the good so we can be conduits of holiness, embodying these lights and not, G-d-forbid, something else. The danger inherent in wielding such power is great, and it is precisely when we are counted – or more specifically, when our total is found to be equal to this illustrious number – that we are most susceptible to being tempted to act inappropriately.
Also, there is a more prosaic danger of simply not being equal to the moment. Once we are elevated to this status of greatness, it is easy for our enemies both above and below to say, “Who are they?! In what merit do they serve in such a role? I see their flaws in such-and-such a way…” This, for example, was the tactic that Bilaam used to try to find a way to curse us.
The giving of the half-shekel is referred to in the aforementioned first pasuk of Ki Tisa as “an atonement for the spirit (or life)” of each individual. This atonement is necessary, as we see from the Abir Yaakov, because absent proper teshuva, we could – Heaven preserve us – be judged unfavorably. This is never more true than when the great reckoning of a total is made from all the individuals and everyone truly is accountable for the stature and the conduct of every other.
There are three principle mechanisms for teshuva that we speak of in the prayers of Yom Kippur: teshuva itself, repenting the evil deed; tefillah, offering our hearts up in prayer full of remorse to our Creator; and tzedakah, the conferring of items of monetary value to a righteous cause. The act of giving the half-shekel to the Mishkan embodies the giving of tzedakah. In the generation of the desert, when the mitzvah was first given, it was still necessary to atone for the terrible crime of the Golden Calf. The giving of the half-shekel was instrumental in this atonement and represented part of the necessary process by which Israel could be forgiven and build the Mishkan at all.
In every subsequent generation, the mitzvah of tzedakah when we give the half-shekel enables our teshuva so that we will not be susceptible to misfortune when a reckoning is made of us.
