Where Can I Get the 1/2 Shekel for Passover

Subsequently a ii,000 yr moratorium, it is now possible for a Jew anywhere in the globe to perform the mitzvah (commandment) of paying the one-half-shekel, a Biblically-mandated tax incumbent on every Jew to finance the 24-hour interval-to-day operations of the Temple.

In that location are now two ways to perform this commandment: i method for people who can paw-deliver their offer, and some other for those who can't.

While the Temple was standing, every Jewish man was required to give one one-half-shekel weight of silver, approximately viii grams of silver (worth well-nigh $4 today), equally a mandatory tax to support the Temple. Each human was obligated to give the same corporeality, regardless of his economic condition. T he coins, once deposited in the Temple courtyard, were hekdesh (sanctified) and not permitted to be used for any other purpose.

Reuven Prager (Screenshot)

The nation of Israel continued to discover the commandment even after the Kickoff Temple was destroyed until the do was outlawed by Roman Emperor Hadrian in the year 135 CE. Even Jews who lived outside of State of israel continued to donate the half-shekel, despite the Roman Senate forbidding the export of gold and argent.

Twenty years agone, Reuven Prager revived this mitzvah. He began minting silver coins that adhered to the Biblical requirements, producing a new and unique blueprint every year. Those who wish to perform the mitzvah buy the silver coins from Prager, then deposit them with Otzar Hamikdash (Treasury of the Temple), an organisation set up to collect these coins.

Otzar Hamikdash duly deposits them in their vault. To date, the arrangement has collected more than 200,000 coins.

In Temple Times, when it was incumbent on every Jew to make a triannual pilgrimage to Jerusalem, depositing the half-shekel tax was a unproblematic thing. Today, when about Jews live in the Diaspora (outside of Israel), it is much more difficult.

For Jews outside of Israel, performing this mitzvah tin can be inconvenient or fifty-fifty impossible. The money should be deposited with Otzar Hamikdash in their Jerusalem location. Prager has bundled a method of sending the silverish coins from the Usa.

The nascent Sanhedrin has instituted a way to revive the mitzvah to rebuild the Temple. Last September, in accolade of counting the first complete twelvemonth of the 50-year Jubilee cycle on Rosh Hashanah, the Sanhedrin issued a medallion which can exist used in place of the bodily silver money to perform the mitzvah.

The biggest advantage of the Sanhedrin coin is that the medallion represents the half-shekel and is not considered sanctified. It therefore does not have to be physically deposited, just the funds are still defended for use in the Temple. The Sanhedrin and the Temple Motility agree reenactments of the ceremonies, preparation Kohanim, men of the priestly course, to have the tithes. Funds raised from the Sanhedrin medallions are defended to priestly training and the recreating of special vessels and utensils for Temple use.

The jubilee medallion issued by the nascent Sanhedrin. (Courtesy)

The Sanhedrin approves of Prager'southward version of the half-shekel simply saw a need that led to the creation of the medallion.

"The one-half-shekel was a tax intended to be used for a specific purpose," Rabbi Hillel Weiss, spokesman for the Sanhedrin, explained to Breaking Israel News . "As such, information technology was dynamic and non but stored away. As the preparations for the Temple move forward, the need for that tax is reemerging.

"The medallion itself is non sanctified to the Temple, but any money raised by the medallion is sanctified and cannot be used for any other purpose."

Rabbi Weiss described the Biblical precedents for such an arrangement. At that place were several cases of sanctified items, similar tithes, that could be redeemed for 120 percent their value.

And if a man will at all redeem ought of his tithes, he shall add thereto the fifth function thereof. Leviticus 27:31

Similarly, people who could not bring their own sacrifices bought tokens in the Temple which were redeemed for the animal or grain that were actually used in the sacrifice. Until the return of the three yearly pilgrimage festivals in Jerusalem makes information technology possible to reinstate the practice of the half-shekel tax being manus-delivered by every Jew to the Temple, the Sanhedrin'south medallion is helping the Temple become a reality.

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Source: https://www.israel365news.com/82827/half-shekel-temple-tax-reinstated-sanhedrin/

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