By Rabbi Carl M. Perkins:

The Importance of Jewish Peoplehood
Shabbat Shekalim
March 3, 2000 

  There is a scholar from the Rabbinic period that I would In today’s maftir portion we read of the mahazit ha-shekel, the requirement for each Israelite to bring a half-shekel to a central place to construct the tabernacle, whose design and whose fashioning we read about in the Torah reading this morning.

This is such a familiar concept to many of us, that it doesn’t seem that remarkable to us: a call comes out for a nominal contribution by each and every member of the community, and the people respond. It’s what we expect to happen, given our idealized conception of the Israelites.

In fact, the requirement to bring a half-shekel each year continued beyond the Biblical period. It became the basis for a yearly minimal contribution to support the upkeep of the Temple in Jerusalem, the central sanctuary of our people. And again, it’s easy to imagine that everyone willingly and without hesitation provided that nominal contribution. It’s what you would expect for a group that considered itself a people, a nation, with responsibilities to one another.

Perhaps it is so. After all, certainly for the first two thousand years of our existence, no one doubted that the Jews were a people. Others considered us a people and we considered ourselves a people.

After all, in Exodus, God tells Moses that our duty is to become a mamlekhet kohanim v’goy kadosh: a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. It was obvious to ourselves and to all those around us that we were a nation—similar to, yet distinct from, all the other nations of the world. We had our own language, Hebrew, our own homeland, the Land of Israel, the Land of Judah. We had our own laws, our own customs, our own holidays and celebrations.

Then, of course, came our national catastrophe: in the year 70, the destruction of the Temple; and in the year 135 the expulsion of our people from the Land of Israel and our dispersion to the far corners of the ancient world. We no longer had national sovereignty. We no longer exclusively spoke our native tongue. We no longer had political power, we no longer had control over our national destiny.

And yet still we thought of ourselves as a nation. A nation in exile, to be sure, but a nation nonetheless. Throughout the almost two thousand years of our exile, we preserved our native tongue, we preserved our laws and traditions, we preserved our connection to our holy land, the land of our history and of our ultimate destiny, and we preserved our uniqueness. Somehow we did this.

But one aspect of nationhood was lacking, and that was a common agreed-upon administration, a common set of institutions to promote the aims of our nation. Following the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, there no longer was a central court, the Sanhedrin; there no longer was a central shrine; there no longer was a central government, or even central agencies operating on behalf of our nation. We never had a pope, we never had a central, authoritative body of any kind. And there wasn’t, therefore, a yearly demand for the half-shekel.

Things began to change in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Several historical processes occurred which dramatically altered the status of Jews and the way in which both Jews and non-Jews related to Jewishness. First, the Jews were freed from their subservient status: they were emancipated. It became possible for the first time in centuries for Jews to live in non-Jewish cities and towns, to work at a variety of occupations. Second, the Enlightenment swept through Europe: the notion that the individual should be treated with respect, regardless of his national origin, became popular. With the rise of the modern European political states, it became theoretically possible for a Jew to become just like another Frenchman, or German, or Austrian if only he were to give up to notion of the peoplehood of Israel. So long as the Jews (and those around them) were prepared to see Jews as just like everyone else, without a separate national identity, they could be successfully absorbed and assimilated into the national cultures of the lands in which they lived.

That was a big “if,” but some people leaped toward it. Some Jews began to think of Judaism not as an all-inclusive civilization, but as a religion: the religion of the Jews. And such Jews tried desperately to fit in to countries such as France, German and Austria, hoping that they would be accepted.

But at the same time there were those who recognized that Jews would never be accepted as if they were simply “Germans of the Mosaic persuasion,” or Frenchmen who happened to celebrate Passover instead of Easter. One such individual was Theodor Herzl, who after witnessing an anti-Semitic outburst by a mob in France came to the realization that the Jews were, indeed, a people and would always remain one. The solution, as he devised it, for the problem of anti-Semitism was to create a Jewish state in Palestine, where Jews could live in safety and could develop their national culture. So he organized a Congress, a so-called Zionist Congress in Basle, Switzerland, to further this agenda. And organizations sprung up, national organizations to promote the establishment of a Jewish state. Chief among these was the World Zionist Organization, one of the first national Jewish organizations created in two thousand years. And when Herzl and his fellow organizers were trying to figure out an effective way to administer this unwieldy body, they came upon a concept: the fee everyone would pay to become a voting member of the World Zionist Organization was a “shekel”! They took the old biblical term and re-created it. Just as others had resurrected the Hebrew language, they brought back the shekel, a national monetary unit. (The value of the shekel, you may be interested in knowing, was set as follows: it equaled 1 French franc, 1 German mark, 1 Austrian crown, one-half American dollar, two shillings, etc.)

But lest we romanticize that period, one should keep in mind that in those early days, Zionism was a minority movement among Jews. Never did the number of shekels collected come close to equaling the number of adult Jews. In 1907, 164,333 shekels were collected; in 1913, 217,231. Compare those numbers with 2,600,000: the number of Jews who emigrated from Russia to the United States between 1881 and 1914.

So the pulling together was resisted by centrifugal forces which tended to leave Jews isolated, focused on their own individual survival, their own individual pursuits, rather than those of the nation.

Nonetheless, the notion that the Jews are a nation, that we have national characteristics and national needs, was established and ultimately was vital to the creation of the State of Israel.

Where are we today? For those of us who live here in the States, it’s very easy to forget that we Jews are a nation. After all, we don’t live in Israel, so we don’t speak Hebrew to one another as our national language, we don’t set our calendar according to the Jewish calendar, we don’t serve in the Jewish army, we don’t identify politically with the political parties or the national institutions of Israel, so it’s easy to think of our Jewishness as but one aspect of ourselves, as Americans. It’s easy to think of ourselves as Americans who happen to be Jewish rather that Jews who happen to be Americans.

That’s problematic. Essential to our character, which we ignore at our peril (and at the peril of Judaism and the Jewish people) is the notion that we are a people, and that we have duties to one another and duties to the group. “Kol Yisrael Arevim Zeh Ba-Zeh”—“All Jews are responsible for one another,” as the Talmudic saying goes. And this is not just for our own protection, this isn’t just because we need one another. It’s because we’re all part of a people devoted to a sacred cause: serving God in the world.

How do we do it? How do we fulfill this aspect of our identity as Jews?

Well, I already mentioned Israel, and certainly supporting Israel is a key component of that cluster of responsibilities. But we have to recognize, those of us that haven’t chosen to make aliyah, to immigrate to Israel, that we’re not Israelis. And so an over-identification of ourselves with Israel is neither accurate nor helpful. I’ll give you an example of what I mean.

One hot issue in Israel right now is the Golan Heights: should they be given back to Syria or not, and at what price? I just came back from Israel and I must say, having spent a few days in the northern Galilee, looking up at Lebanon on one side and the Golan Heights on the other, it’s very easy to develop opinions concerning what is the right course of action. But whenever some one asks me—“Well what should Israel do?” my answer is, whatever the Israelis decide to do. It’s up to them. Let’s not kid ourselves. We’re not living there. Our lives are not on the line. An Israeli has the right to have an opinion (and they certainly exercise that right); I’m not sure we do. When and if a decision is made to reach an agreement with Syria, it will be put to a national referendum—a referendum, that is, of Israelis. Not of Jews worldwide. And that is as it should be.

But there are other ways we can and should demonstrate our loyalty and support of the Jewish nation. First we should all study Hebrew. Hebrew is our national language. Long before it became the lingua franca of Israel, it was our national tongue. So it should remain. Second, we can and should go to Israel. Israel should be as familiar to us, if not more so, as any other place we visit. We should go there frequently. Third, we should support national Jewish organizations, which serve the needs of Jews everywhere. Many of us get solicited by these organizations and just toss out the envelopes. We shouldn’t. All of us should contribute to CJP. All of us should consider joining the American Jewish Congress or the American Jewish Commission, or the Anti Defamation League. We should get active in the Jewish Community Relations Council, in other organizations whose horizons are further than our own shul, our own community. We have to think nationally—which for Jews means thinking inter-nationally.

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When that very first half-shekel of silver was collected to support the building of the tabernacle, do you know what it went toward? It was literally a half-shekel of silver. That’s not a lot of silver. The Israelites were encouraged and permitted to donate as much gold and copper as they chose, but only a half-shekel of silver. The gold, the copper went toward manufacturing the vessels of the tabernacle, but the silver went for a different purpose: the silver was used to make “adanim”, the base sockets that supported the wood beams used to hold up the tabernacle. It was also used to make clips on hooks (vavim) to connect the curtains to the poles of the outer courtyard and to silverplate the heads of the poles as well.

What do we learn from this?

The base sockets support the entire structure of the Mishkan, the Tabernacle and were to be manufactured from material donated EQUALLY by every member of the people. Similarly, the silver coating on the very top of each pole that you’d see from outside, that formed a silver-like crown surrounding the MISHKAN—that too was made from the communal donation of the half-shekel of silver.

This may reflect a proper balance. There’s a need on the one had for all of us to be equal and to work together at establishing our national institutions; each of us also needs the opportunity to creatively determine where we want to go with our duty to further our national Jewish life. Finally, though, when all is said and done, when one looks at the edifice—“The Jewish Community”—from the outside, the finishing touches, the silver crown surrounding the Mishkan, should still reflect the very same variety which forms the base.

That’s a lovely image. Only we can help create that image. Only if each of us plays our part not only in living that wonderfully individualistic life that each of us should live but also plays our role as part of the organism known as the People of Israel can our nation be as strong as it must be to survive and as much a force for good in the world as it should.

So may it be. Ken Yehi Ratzon.