Should You Give MaChatzit HaShekel? (13 Minutes) by Rabbi Yaron Reuven

0:11The parasha begins with something very interesting, where Hashem tells Moshe Rabbeinu to speak to the children of Israel and let them take from me a portion. "From every man whose heart motivates him, you shall take my portion." What does it mean, for every man whose heart motivates him?

1:39What really? Hashem is saying here, the Chachamim are pointing out that Hashem is actually telling us to make sure that each person gives a machatzit hashekel, but only if his heart motivates him. Meaning, I don't need your money - everything is Mine anyway. But if you want to give tzedakah, now's the time. you want to be the kli. You want to be the tool that I use to build the Tabernacle, you want to be a partner in teshuva, you want to be a partner in kedusha, you want to be a partner in things that are meaningful and not just to yacht, not just buy bitcoins and cars and watches and houses and other extensions to your house and all the other things that we do with our life. You want to be a partner in something meaningful, something that actually lasts beyond this world. Now's the time to... But only if your heart motivates you, meaning don't think you're doing me any favors. And now he gives details: Take from them gold, silver, and copper. This signifies that there are different levels of giving because each person has a motivation to give, but each person might give differently based on what their heart inspires.

3:03Each person has different motivations to give. One person might be motivated to give 50 cents, another might give a dollar fifty, another three dollars and fifty cents, someone else might give a whole ten dollars, another may give 25 bucks, then there's the person who gives a hundred, and finally, the individual who gives $300. The guy who gives $300 might have made a million dollars this year. And... But he wants you to make sure that you use at least $150 in advertising to tell people he gave me $300. So, rabotai yikarim, Hashem is telling us: give before you have to give, give before you get sick, give before there are problems. Because that shows me that you know where it's coming from and you don't think that you're the one that made it. Even someone who gives on their deathbed, it is still better than not giving. Many times, it has happened that the imperfection—even when seemingly minimal—actually went into full effect, and we must save someone's life now. There are many times during the year that a person is obligated to give, obviously. But right now, we have Rosh Chodesh Adar on Thursday, in a couple of days.

4:25And all the way from Rosh Chodesh Adar until Purim, there's a mitzvah obligation. It's not just a nice thing to do. You're obligated to give something called machatzit hashekel, which is what this parasha discusses. Machatzit hashekel, half a shekel, translates to 9.4 grams of pure silver. Obviously, people don't walk around with silver like they used to, so we replace it with actual money. I did myself the favor, and you could benefit from it, by actually calculating how much this is. 9.4 grams of silver is approximately a third of an ounce. With silver currently being at sixteen dollars and sixty cents per ounce, that means approximately five dollars and fifty cents per person. So if it's just you, and you're single, give five dollars and fifty cents, or more if you want. But for this specific mitzvah, it is $5.50. Anything more is a different mitzvah, but this one, you have to give $5.50. Everybody gives $5.50. Anything you give more than that is for different mitzvot. It can be ma'aser, but this specific mitzvah has to be precisely $5.50 per person. If you have, let's say, ten people in your house, then you would give $55.

5:43But you should give it to different causes that are relevant to Torah and matters of that nature. This is one mitzvah that you have to fulfill from now until Purim. On Purim, when we reach Purim, which is in a few weeks, you're also going to have to give matanot la'evyonim, gifts to the poor. This is specifically for poor people. If the poor people are Bnei Torah, it's even better, like avreichim, and so on. What you have to give to poor people is the equivalent of two meals per person. So, for example, if it's you and your wife, you have to give the value of two meals, and your wife has to give the value of two meals. If we assume a meal costs ten dollars, then you each would need to give twenty dollars. You should aim to find someone involved in learning Torah who might be in need. Interestingly, today, many people in Israel who are dedicated to Torah study happen to be impoverished. This is, for some reason, the way Hashem has arranged it. So this is definitely something that you need to do, and again, like I said, this is a mitzvah. It's an obligation. It's not just a nice thing to do. Now, when it comes to the concept of "kol asher li, li ata" ("everything that is mine, is yours"), Hashem is telling us to take from me my own tzedakah. What does it mean?

7:07Really, everything that's in your pocket is mine anyway. Everything that you have in the bank is mine. It's not yours. So one guy comes to the Chofetz Chaim and he says, "Listen, I know Hashem is great and all, but I made so much money in my life that even if Hashem destroys my real estate business, let's say the real estate market collapses, I still got a bunch of money in the stock market." And even if He makes the stock market collapse, I still have an import-export business. And even if He destroys the import-export business, I have gold. And even if He destroys the gold, I have silver. And even if He destroys the silver, I have diamonds. And even if He destroys the diamonds, I have horses. And even if He destroys the horses, I have cows. What, is He going to destroy the whole world just to take my money away? Because you’re right. Technically, it's not so difficult for Hashem to destroy the whole world just to take your money. It's not difficult at all. But it's much easier, instead of Him destroying the whole world to take your money, to just take you from the money. Oh, yeah, yeah, you're right. You're right. Everybody thinks they're smarter than God.

8:30Everybody thinks they're smarter than God, and the reality is that when someone is generous with their money, they're showing Hashem not necessarily that they have a good character trait. It's not just that it’s good. With Hashem, being generous is a good thing to have. People who are not generous are usually very despicable people in many other regards. It's a very bad trait because it is the opposite of Hashem. It's the opposite of Hashem. Hashem only gives; oh, He never receives anything. The tefillot is for us, the limud Torah is for us. That's the core, it's for us. Everything is for us. He doesn't get anything from us—nothing. So He only gives. So when we are stingy, when we're cheap, when we don't want to give, we're the opposite of Hashem. It's a very, very bad character trait to have. And usually, people that are stingy have bad marriages. Usually, they have kids that can't stand them and usually have many partners that want to do bad things to them. People who are stingy have many enemies. Why? Because it's a very despicable character trait. I

9:41But one of the things is that it also causes the person to have Hashem despise them as well. Why? I gave you a hundred thousand, and you can't give my children ten thousand? Oh no no, after I make a million, Hashem, after I make a million. Who says you're going to make a million? What, you're making a deal with Me? I've already given you a hundred now. You're waiting until I give you more even? You wait, I gave you a hundred now, but you're waiting for me to give you even more before you do what you said you'd do. You're going to give more later? If it's hard for you to give ten now, what makes you think it's going to be easy to give a hundred? Oh, you think that once you have a million, it will be much easier? No, it's much harder. It's much, much harder to give a hundred thousand than it is to give ten dollars or even ten thousand. People think that if you have more, it's easy to give more—absolutely not. I'm telling you from experience, absolutely not. It's very easy to give $500 or $5,000 or even $50,000. Writing a check for half a million, no matter how much money you have, is very difficult. So this mentality is the only answer. I tell you, no, no, wait till more, wait till more, wait till more. Hashem says, "Oh, you're waiting till more? Fine, you'll never have more, and not only that, I'm taking the other 90% back too." We learn this from the Gemara.

11:00Nakdimon Ben-Gurion, who gave an enormous amount of money in tzedakah, lost everything he had to the point where his daughter had to look for different seeds inside the waste of horses and donkeys. When Rabbi Yochanan saw her, he said, "What happened? Who are you? How could such a thing be? Your father was a big ba'al tzedakah." She said, "Yes, he gave a lot of tzedakah, but not enough. Not enough." We give when we show the positive character trait of giving. It's not just showing us or showing Hashem that we are decent human beings, that we have a good middah. But it also shows Hashem that we understand that it's not from us. We didn't make the money; we didn't do anything. So now you're gonna say, "Wait a minute, why? I went to work. I invested in the stock. I had the idea. I did this. I did that." You did nothing. Nevertheless, the less credit you take for yourself, the closer you are to actual reality. Why, even the idea—who put the idea in your head? Even the money that you invested—who gave you the money in the first place? Oh, it was my father. Oh, it was my cousin. Oh, I won the lotto. Yeah, but who made all that happen? Who made all that happen? So, when someone is generous and...

12:28It's good middah to have, but it also protects them from a lot of danger.