The Fiery Coin

It was just after the Exodus that Moshe commanded the Israelites in the name of G-d to give the half shekel contribution, "the rich shall not give more, nor shall the poor give less, to atone for their souls".

The Midrash records that as Moshe was puzzled by this command, G-d pulled out a fiery half-shekel coin from under His Throne of Glory and announced, "This they shall give".

But what is so hard to understand about a command to give a coin towards the Temple? And if there is some difficulty, how is it resolved by a "fiery coin from under the Throne of Glory"?

In explanation of this Midrash, the Lubavitcher Rebbe explains that what bothered Moses was how could money, the archetype of materialism, atone for a sin as serious as the worshiping of the golden calf.

By showing him a fiery coin, G-d was saying, "Moshe, you are right. It is only money, and money on its own cannot achieve atonement. However when it is a fiery half-shekel, a half-shekel given with soul and enthusiasm, then even money can reach right under the Divine Throne of Glory."

But note: G-d didn't show Moshe merely fire, He showed him a coin of fire.

It is true than one requires fire, but one only also requires the coin. And a very specific coin at that. Not a shekel, not a quarter of a shekel, but a half a shekel. The rich were not permitted to give more, nor were the poor permitted to give less.

Why?

Herein lies one of the great truths of Judaism.

There are many people who think that Judaism is all about feelings, that emotions speak louder than actions, that religion is all in the heart, "I'm a Jew in my heart", goes the common refrain.

We often hear the Jew say:

I acknowledge that in order to make my life meaningful there needs to be a point of contact between me and G-d. There are times when my heart spontaneously overflows with a love of G-d, a love of being Jewish, and a love of all creation. But what makes it real is the fact that it is unrestrained, that it is spontaneous. I cannot identify with these so very specific religious practices. Eat precisely this amount of matzah, make sure your tallit is the right size, light Shabbat candles at exactly the right time. It's in your heart, man!

What this Jew fails to understand is that when you do things merely because you feel like doing them, and when and where your emotions dictate, what you are actually saying is that you want G-d when and where you want Him, but you don't want Him to define YOUR when and YOUR where, your time and your space. What you are saying is I want G-d to be there for ME, to fill my spiritual needs, but I don't want Him to invade my time and my space, and certainly not my body.

Says G-d, "I want your heart, I want your enthusiasm, I want your warmth. Your feelings are so very important to me - performing a mitzvah without feeling is like having a soul without a body.

"But I also want your body. And I want your feelings to be translated into real time and real space. I want you to mould your world around me. I want you to define what's good for your body on my terms - eat kosher - and hence create a consecrated body. I want you to define your time along my lines - keep Shabbos precisely when I say so - and hence create consecrated time. I want you to have a tallit of the right dimensions - and hence create consecrated space."

Says G-d: "I want the fire, but I want the half-shekel, too."