Souls For Sale: Half A Shekel Each! Going once? Going twice? Sold!

“I have a great story for you,” announced my friend excitedly.
“Tell, tell,” I begged, playing into her intention of suspense.
“Hm, I dunno, it’s gonna cost ya,” she added, jokingly.
“Well, uh, my soul’s for sale?”
“Ah, please! No one wants a soul these days!”
We laughed. She told me the ‘great story’.

I have no recollection of the ‘great story’, but, since that day, the meaningless preamble has popped into my head time and time again. We may have joked casually, but the truth behind our banter is certainly not a laughing matter. We live in a world where many people spend their lives chasing after things that will ultimately prove to be futile and empty. They deny that the very source of their existence exists. Religion is a burden, God, an inconvenience, and Truth, an illusion.

With this reality as my backdrop, I began to learn this week’s parsha, Ki Tisa. I, like all of the commentators, was baffled by the story of the Sin of the Golden Calf. How is it possible, they ask, that a mere forty days after the greatest revelation in the history of the world the people sinned so grievously? What were they thinking? Perhaps they were trying to replace Moshe, not God? Yes, this makes more sense! Or maybe it was the Egyptian multitudes that joined B’nei Yisrael when they left Egypt? My confusion, however, lies somewhere else.

“Aaron said to them, ‘Remove the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, sons, and daughters, and bring them to me.’ The entire people removed the gold rings that were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron.” (32:2-3)

Unfortunately, it is not hard for me to imagine Am Yisrael rebelling against, or flat out denying the existence of, God. I do not have to delve so deeply into my imagination to conjure the image of people who would rather follow their own personal desires than that of an Eternal being. What is difficult to grasp, however, is how Aaron convinced ‘the entire people’ to give up their jewelry, wealth and riches. It appears that Rashi, too, is bothered by this part of the plot. He explains that Aaron knew that the people were misguided, yet out of fear for his own life, he went along with their plan. He was sure that the women would not easily give up their jewelry (which many say they didn’t), and thus he could buy enough time for Moshe to return and the whole episode to be forgotten. Aaron could never have anticipated how enthusiastic the people would be with the idea of a molten god. When we learn this story, we tend to give B’nei Yisrael a very hard time about their actions, yet there is actually something impressive going on here. In a world where many have given up God for money without a second thought, it is humbling to think of a people that would give up all of their most valuable possessions for God, even if in a misguided manner.

Nevertheless, it is considered a great sin, arguably an archetypal-root-of-all-sins-kind-of-sin. The parsha opens up with Hashem demanding that Moshe take a census of B’nei Yisrael by collecting half a shekel from each person.

“Everyone who passes through the census, from twenty years of age and up, shall give the portion of Hashem. The wealthy shall not increase and the destitute shall not decrease from half a shekel – to give the portion of Hashem to atone for your souls.” (30:14-15)

The Torah goes to great lengths to emphasize the value of the half-shekel and the importance of it being atonement for sins. It is said that through the contribution of half a shekel, B’nei Yisrael would achieve forgiveness from the Sin of the Golden Calf. Well, pardon my saying so, but that’s a pretty good deal. If atonement only costs fifty cents, it certainly pays to sin!
It is clear that there must be a deeper more symbolic significance to the contribution of the half-shekel for it to atone for a sin as great as idolatry. In Jewish tradition, the half-shekel has been linked to the three master relationships of a human being: the relationships between fellow man, a man and himself, and man and God.

On a national level, through each man giving an equal contribution, we learn the concept of our individual responsibility to both Am Yisrael and humanity as a whole. In order for the world to rise to a higher level, it is imperative that each of us does our part. Depending on our stature, our purpose appears to be a greater or lesser sacrifice, yet at the end of the day, none of us can be complete without the other.

On a personal level, within each man exists a dichotomy. Human beings are a pardoxal half-physical, half-spiritual being, and by taking our animalistic desires for materialism and directing them to something greater than ourselves, we are able to become a more complete being. Weare not giving away half a shekel, but rather gaining control of half of ourselves, thus becoming whole.

Lastly, we see how the contribution of the half-shekel connects to our relationship with God. We were married to God at Mount Sinai with the two tablets as our marriage contract. When Moshe came down from Har Sinai with the freshly engraved tablets and saw B’nei Yisrael dancing and celebrating around a Golden Calf, he smashed the tablets. The sin was adultery just as much as it was idolatry! The Sin of the Golden Calf is the ultimate separation from our Creator. We are nothing without God, and He has chosen to be nothing in this world without us. In order for us to actualize our potential and become whole beings, we must first recognize that there is no self out of a Divine context. If there is no God, there is no me. Furthermore, it is perhaps more important for us to recognize that God cannot move the world to its intended purpose without us doing our part as well.

We live in a broken world of fractures, schisms, and half-shekels. War is rampant, relationships are failing, God is hidden and people are depressed. In order for us to gain true atonement for the sins of our time, whether they are personal or national, we need to create connections and bring unity into the world. We need to focus on healing, stitching and bringing things back together by improving our relationships with our fellow man, ourselves, and our God. The first step in doing so is recognizing that we are but a half-shekel, and that, alone, is worthless. We may only be half of the story, yet its ending is entirely dependent on us.