העשיר לא ירבה והדל לא ימעיט ממחצית השקל לתת את תרומת ד' לכפר על נפשתיכם
“The wealthy shall not increase, and the destitute shall not decrease from half of the shekel — to give the portion of Hashem, to atone for your souls.” (Shemos 30:15)
This week’s parsha begins by discussing the half-shekel coin that every Jew was obligated to give as part of the process of conducting an indirect national census, as well as to effect atonement for them. Every Jew was required to contribute this precise amount, as the poor were forbidden to give less and the wealthy were prohibited from donating more. In his sefer Oznayim L’Torah, Rav Zalman Sorotzkin points out that while it is indeed a struggle for a destitute person to voluntarily give away money that could be used to purchase food, a half-shekel represents pocket change to the affluent. How could the Torah condition the atonement of both groups on an action that was onerous for some of them but trivial for others?
Rav Sorotzkin suggests that the well-off also had a significant nisayon [trial] to overcome when doing this mitzvah. Many rich people are accustomed to preferential treatment and resent when they are grouped together with those of lesser means. Accordingly, a wealthy man who is told that he must contribute the same half-shekel as the pauper despite his vastly superior resources will experience a tremendous challenge, no less painful than the struggle of the poor to give away money that they desperately need for basic expenses. Whether our difficulties are financial or psychological in nature, Hashem values each of our battles to overcome our individual nisyonos, for which we receive well-deserved atonement.
