- Shekalim – “Shekels” – Taxes of Renewal
- First, a logistical note. Shekalim was not included in the Babylonian Talmud, which is the one that is studied in the Daf Yomi, but it is a part of the earlier Jerusalem Talmud, and is included in the study cycle. What’s interesting to me is that this was the reason used for not including ten of eleven books in Sefer Zera’im in Daf Yomi study, but apparently doesn’t apply here. No explanation given. The book is arranged differently, more like biblical passages; and there’s a lot less commentary, pretty much just the mishnah, or rule, and gemara, the original explanation for the rule. Away we go!
- 3/23/21, Chapter 1. Page 1:1-35 – The tractate dives right in with laying out the rules for an annual proclamation. On the first day of Adar, the sixth month of the Jewish lunar calendar, occurring around the same time as March, a proclamation is to be issued for every community reminding them of their annual Temple tax payment – a half shekel for each adult male, roughly $5, to be collected at the end of the month. Further, it lays out what else is to be done that month in each town: reading of scroll of Esther; repairing all roads; opening up the public water cisterns for the spring and summer; re-marking gravesites to make sure they’re legible; and examining the fields to make sure that the proper crops are planted in each.
- 3/24/21, Page 1:36-4:2 – The Hebrew calendar consists of 12 months of 29 or 30 days each, a 354 day year, which is why our holidays “move around” in relation to the Gregorian calendar. To sync things with the solar year a “leap month” is added every three years (I’m simplifying a bit). It happens that the month that’s added is a Second Adar, the fiscal new year, and that provokes arguments about which of the two Adars this whole proclamation thing and its intended works are supposed to happen in. It also turns out that sending inspectors into the fields to pull out all the prohibited weeds is not an effective approach, as the landowners just sit back and appreciate the free labor. This is followed by a discussion about the non-payment of the tax by minors and priests.
- 3/25/21, Page 4:3-34 – Today’s page focuses on a discussion that comes down to “built by and for our people”. The half-shekel Temple tax was for the purpose of constructing the Second Temple, and the powers that be wanted to make sure that it be built by our own community, unbeholden to outsiders, who were not allowed to donate. Not wanting to anger those who wanted to assist, a separate Temple maintenance fund was created that others could voluntarily contribute to. I surmise, given that it would be 500-600 years before the Second Temple ended up being built, that resulted in quite the reserve built up!
- 3/26/21, Page 4:35-Chapter 2, Page 1:12-2:20 – Today focuses on the responsibilities of the agents getting the tax from the various communities to the Temple itself. The rabbis decide that until the coins are delivered to the Temple and consecrated, they legally still belong to the residents who paid, even though the tax collectors are in the employ of the Temple. If one of those tax collectors is robbed, or “loses” the money, the residents are responsible to pay again. Even if it’s found that the agent faked the robbery or loss, and the coins are later recovered, the residents cannot rollover their second payment to the next year. No wonder people hate(d) tax collectors. In the same vein, the B-side of the page is an admonition against cheating, in particular, if someone gives you their half shekel to take to the tax collector, you can’t then contribute it as your own tax and leave the other person hanging. If you get caught.
- 3/27/21, Page 3:1-4:22 – Today’s section more or less amounts to – bring the exact amount you owe and/or are contributing, because the tax collectors don’t make change. You pay in bigger coins, the extra is considered an extra voluntary contribution. Period. While you can’t get it back, you can specify what it is to be used for. If you don’t, it goes into the Temple’s fund for purchasing sacrificial animals. An interesting concept in taxation – your base amount is used for what the powers that be decide it’s for, but you can pay extra tax and designate it to projects of your choice. I imagine that some of that might have been offered intentionally by wealthier folk looking for recognition for supporting either popular or political causes.
- 3/28/21, Page 4:23-Chapter 3, Page 1:10 – Recognition is the theme of the day. Following on yesterday’s designation of over-payment of taxes, the first part of today’s page is about whether and how that overpayment is to be used if the taxpayer dies without having designated a use. Should it be used to honor them? And in what way? This is followed by a series of arguments about the importance of attributing quotes and stories to the teacher who first said them, and whether it’s necessary to acknowledge them each and every time that you use their material. It’s high school all over again… always cite your source!
- 3/29/21, Page 1:11-2:21 – The taxes have been collected and consecrated, and now we’re back to our Temple priests, whom we’ve met in past tractates. It seems to me that they are constantly in question, often justified. Today’s section admonishes them to only enter the treasury wearing clothing that has no pockets or cuffs, and not carrying anything that might allow them to abscond with shekels for themselves, in order to place themselves above suspicion of theft.
- 3/30/21, Page 2:22-3:20 – Today’s page builds on the theme of keeping oneself about suspicion, albeit that as we’ve seen in the past, some of these Temple priests deserve a closer look. And, closer look is indeed what happens as they sally forth from the treasury and have their hair combed through and their mouths inspected for hidden coins. It’s a case of being held to a higher standard – even the slightest hint of impropriety is to be avoided, and the sages spend their time obsessing over just how far the bending of rules can be tolerated, equating it to the similar sorts of measures as when discussing ritual impurity. If the Temple were here today the priests would be wearing body cams.
- 3/31/21, Chapter 4, Page 1:1-2:14 – Sticking with the theme of being above suspicion, today’s page tackles the issue of volunteering. Not the average sort where you might volunteer for a cause, but volunteering time or services to the Temple. Since all activities around the Temple are supposed to be communally funded, the rabbis note that someone volunteering to help out might be seen as angling for leverage with the powers that be, or getting access to things they might be able to steal, whether or not that’s actually the case. And so, volunteers around the Temple are not permitted.
- 4/1/21, Page 2:15-3:18 – A place for everything and everything in its place. If we’re going to have all these rituals, there’s a proper location for the altars, tables, curtains, basins, candelabra, and ramps. And all those things need to be bought with, as we’ve learned, communal funds, not individual gifts. Except, it seems, for Temple priests, who apparently have enough socked away to feng shui battle each other with personalized ramps and sacrificial spaces constructed… just so. Makes you wonder how many of them weren’t quite following the rules for entering the treasury that we’ve seen on the last few pages.
- 4/2/21, Page 4:1-41 – In movies it’s not unusual for people to “leave everything to the church”, and while it’s not something I hear about people actually doing, it was apparently not uncommon two millennia ago to consecrate all one’s goods to the Temple. But, like any estate donations, ancient or modern, not everybody wants everything that you had. One man’s junk is another’s treasure and all that. Today’s page tackles that arena by consigning the vast majority of unasked for donations to be sold or bartered off, leaving the Temple free to use the cash obtained or saved as they see fit.
- 4/3/21, Page 4:42-Chapter 5, Page 1:29 – It is asked, apparently because it was necessary, whether an animal which has sodomized a man, or which has been sodomized by a man, can still be ritually pure for use in a sacrifice. Yes, we are assured, it can be, as long as it was “of a kosher species” and passes the other ritual purity checks. And then we’re back to the Temple priests, whose flour never gets wormy and whose wine never turns to vinegar. Why? Because if it does, the merchant who first sold the flour or wine is obligated to replace it with freshly ground flour or newly fermented wine. At his own expense, of course. At the start of Chapter 5 we get a detailed listing of fifteen notable Temple officials and why they were famous.
- 4/4/21, Page 1:30-3:7 – If you think our modern structures of governance are complicated, you should see the how today’s page continues with the various biographies of Temple officers. We have all the expected sorts, like supervisors of priest training and overseers of the treasury, and food preparation, but we also have the officer in charge of the braiding of candle wicks, another who supervises the weaving of curtains, others who rule supreme over herb collectors, incense mixers, well diggers, wine pourers, etc., etc. I think my favorite is Hugar ben Levi, who was noted for sticking his thumb in his mouth and by some sort of manipulation, able to reproduce the sounds of various musical instruments, to such a degree of accuracy that people flocked to hear the orchestra playing.
- 4/5/21, Page 3:8-Chapter 6, 1:13 – “Hey kids, let’s put on a show!” In modern society charitable giving is often a show. So much has become about the ego and prestige of the donor, that even though the beneficiaries may receive benefits, they are also held up to the scrutiny of the public as objects to be pitied. Then there’s a seemingly inevitable backlash as the public picks their lives apart in judgment over their fitness for charity in the first place. In a series of stories, today’s passage invokes the dignity of recipients, and the value of giving charity in such a way that they are not outed to the public, even at the cost of the giver never getting credit or boosting their own image.
- 4/6/21, Page 1:14-2:1 – Most if not all of us have seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, as well as other representations of the long lost Ark of the Covenant. Today’s page, off on a tangent, discusses the size of the Ark. Despite all those popular media representations, the argument is over whether the Ark was 30″, 36″, or 45″ in width (and smaller in height and depth). Not a huge crate that required a forklift to place it in the back aisles of Warehouse 13. It was a portable box carried by priests leading the way into battle. Its contents are another matter of contention and have been endlessly argued over. I do like the mystical image of it containing white fire and black fire together.
- 4/7/21, Page 2:2-3:14 – The rabbis argue over the number and placement of courtyard gates to the Temple, and then the altars within the Temple itself. It seems the Temple priests, centuries before, also put a whole lot of time into arguments over the minutiae of form, rather than purpose of the Temple. Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, has had enough. He marches into the Temple, takes “the keys” to the Temple up to the rooftop, and gives them back to God, stating that his people aren’t worthy of the Temple anymore. Then he destroys the Temple, while God smites the various noble folk who protest that they are actually worthy. Now that’s different from the version we learned in Hebrew School.
- 4/8/21, Page 3:15-4:30 – You’d think that will all the detailed rules encompassed in the Talmud, the rabbis would know why they’re doing all these things. Sometimes that gets lost, fitting in with yesterday’s page. Today they discuss the thirteen different collection “horns” for taxes and donations. They have seven of them down pat – this year’s tax, last year’s back tax, funds for purchasing wood, etc. But six of them, the ones for voluntary extra contributions, they seem to have no clue, as each of three senior sages opine, in complete disagreement, on both why there are six separate collection horns, and what each of them is for. It quickly becomes clear neither they nor anyone else really knows the answers to either question.
- 4/9/21, Page 4:31-Chapter 7, Page 2:17 – Found money and meat of uncertain provenance are, respectively, on the ground and on the table today. If a coin is found on the ground of the collection house, to which fund does it belong? If it’s closest to one collection horn, it is assumed to be for that one, if it is equidistant from two, it is allocated to the one that is spiritually most important – voluntary extra being at the top of the list, because it’s given from the heart, then sacrificial funds, and only last, taxes, being obligatory. If you somehow find yourself in possession of a piece of meat, but don’t know whether it came from a kosher butcher or not, bizarrely, and not intuitively given how strict things usually are, the assumption isn’t that it isn’t kosher, but that it is either kosher or not, depending on whether the majority of butchers in the area are kosher or not.
- 4/10/21, Page 2:18-3:38 – These guys take “Finders keepers, losers weepers” to a whole new level as they discuss finding various and sundry items while wandering about. Even if something is clearly identified as belonging to someone else, they’re like, “hey, they lost it, I’m sure they’ve given up the search, so it’s mine, mine, mine”. And, like yesterday’s page, they assume something’s kosher status, based on “majority of people in the area”. Very odd. And then we pivot to priestly griddle cakes, the preparation of which is described as boiling the dough to get it ready, then briefly frying it, and then baking it until done. Sounds like a cross between a doughnut and a bagel, which, apparently, was a 2016-2017 craze in NYC that I missed.
- 4/11/21, Page 3:39-Chapter 8, Page 3:1 – Way back on Pesachim 19 we had a day spent on saliva and its assumed ritual purity when within the city of Jerusalem (except the “upper market”, where there was mixing of various cultures). It was basically a paean to the level of religiosity practiced by the residents of the city versus the rest of the world. The same topic returns in significantly more depth today. As I noted then, there’s a difference between ritual purity and cleanliness, but it occurs to me in thinking about it further, that I’m not clear why it matters. What are they doing with this spittle found on the street that it would make a difference if it was ritually pure or impure? Do I actually want to know the answer to that question?
- 4/12/21, Page 3:2-4:15 – A short page, and the ending of a short tractate. An interesting wrap-up to this tangent from the overarching theme of Festivals in this book, looking at a tax for the Temple. Two things stand out. First that the tax is designed as an equalizer – everyone contributes an equal amount, no more, no less, to the main fund for the Temple. Second, with a tie-in to the monthly celebration of the New Moon as a sign of renewal, the rabbis acknowledge that though the Temple no longer exists, the reason for this tractate is that there is still the hope that some day it will be rebuilt.
And the lima beans laugh and laugh… – Atlas Obscura