Half Shekel, The

"Half doesn't mean twins," explained Mr. Gold. "Half means that a person is only complete with G‑d as our other half. Each of us is different, but also each person is a half..."

Seemingly empty words and accompanying gestures that are even less sincere. They're not fooling G‑d, so why bother wasting time having people act out a meaningless charade?

G-d took a coin of fire and showed it to Moses: "Such as this they shall give." Why did G-d need to put on a "show and tell" for Moses?

Can a mere half-shekel atone for the gravest of sins? Perhaps the answer lies in the “halfness” of the coin . . .

Make these chewy chocolate cookies for this week's Torah portion!

Out of the 613 Mitzvot, there were only five times when G-d had to show Moses a physical example of the commandment. What can we learn from the fiery coin that Hashem showed Moshe? Too often we judge the people around us based on how they appear. This wee...

An examination of Rashi’s commentary on contributing a half shekel and a closer look at some discrepancies between our printed version of Rashi and an ancient manuscript housed in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

Eyeing the Half-Shekel giving that enables national-census taking, we see Moses being shown a fiery coin; begging the obvious question: why the superfluous visual aid? A full investigation of this conundrum leads us into a passionate place of parallel per...