Home -- Content: Series 7 (Laws) -- Translation: English -- Book: 1 (Tora) -- Part: 1 (Positive) -- Command: 171 -- Text
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The Sharia of Moses in the TORA
Part 1 - The 248 Positive Commandments of the Tora
171 - GIVING HALF A SHEKEL ANNUALLY
Exodus 30:12-13 -- 12 "When you take the census of the children of Israel for their number, then every man shall give a ransom for himself to the LORD, when you number them, that there may be no plague among them when you number them. 13 This is what everyone among those who are numbered shall give: half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary (a shekel is twenty gerahs). The half-shekel shall be an offering to the LORD.”
This commandment is binding only during the existence of the temple.
It is evident both from the Mishnah and from ancient historians that the Jew of those times, whether he lived in the Land of Israel or in the remotest corners of the Diaspora, cherished this commandment as a sacred privilege and a means of participating in the public offerings brought daily in the House of God at Jerusalem.*
* She. III, 4; Philo Judaeus, In Flaccum VII; Legatio ad Caium XXXVI