On the first of Adar we make announcement concerning the Half-Shekel.

We now enter the third year of the restoration of the Holy Half Shekel, the year of Chazakah (establishing permanent facts). In out tradition, a custom repeated thrice is permanently established.

On Erev Rosh Chodesh Adar Sheni (the day preceeding the new moon of Adar II) [this year was a leap year, occuring 9 times in 17 years, all customs pertaining to Adar, i.e., the announcement concerning the Half-Shekel on the first of Adar, the giving of he Half-Shekel from the 15th onward, reading the Megillath Esther and the Trumat HaLishkah ceremony on the last day of Adar, are performed in the second Adar] all the coins that were deposited in the chest for New Shekels after Rosh HaShanah 5760 up until Erev Rosh Chodesh Adar were removed from the chest by Levites in the presence of witnesses and placed in a lock box labelled "Hekdesh Vadai B'reshut Hekdesh - Motar Shearith HaLishkah - Erev Purim 5760" (Absolute Sanctified Property in the Possesion of the Temple - The Remainder of Shearith HaLishkah - Erev Purim 5760). This lockbox, together with the proceeds of the Trumat HaLishkah ceremony from Erev Rosh Chodesh Nisan (April 5, 2000) will be transported by the Kohanim (Priests) of Brinks Corporation to the Office of the Chief Rabbinate and deposited in their vault.

The new Half-Shekels for the year 52 will be available from Purim. We would like to stress that for the fulfilment of the Commandment, any year's coin may be used in any year to fulfil the Commandment. You need not give a year 52 Half-Shekel this year. Coins from previous years are just as valid for the fulfilment of the Commandment.

This year's Half-Shekel features the Bezich (Golden Incense Censer) restored by the Temple Institute on the Obverse, and the Nicanor Gates of the Second Temple on the Reverse, and is dated Year 52.

A funny thing happened on the way to the Temple.

Last year an umbrella organization was founded called Oztar HaMikdash (Temple Treasury), comprising the heads of all the Temple Organizations, including Beged Ivri. At the fourth meeting of Oztar HaMikdash Beged Ivri proposed that rather than depositing the proceeds of the upcoming Trumat HaLishkah ceremony with the Chief Rabbinate, we would like to deposit the Hekdesh with the Otzar, as well as retrieving the seven lock-boxes full of Hekdesh already on depsoit with the Chief Rabbinate and transferring them to the Custodianship of the Otzar. At this point the Otzar fell apart, with those who supported the idea finding no common ground with those who feared the idea.

A few months later, as a reaction to political events surrounding the Temple Mount, an effort was made by Professor Hillel Weiss to reconvene the Oztar HaMikdash, sans Beged Ivri, and a meeting took place in early February. At this meeting it was decided that the group would use the concept that we had developed, i.e., the minting of a ceremonial Holy Half-Shekel, and in order to circumvent the "problems" associated with creating Hekdesh, they would make it out of base metal, and use it as a gimmick to raise awareness and funds for the new organization.

When the news of the new coins hit the streets, we started to receive calls asking if we were aware of the "new Half-Shekels" being sold by the Oztar through the Temple Institute. Within about an hour we traced the reports back to the source and found out that indeed, the very people with whom we worked so hard to establish the Half-Shekel had gone behind our backs and copied the concept, only to return it to the level of a worthless trinket.

My initial reaction was a sense of having been stabbed in the back. Upon deeper reflection it became apparent that the damage caused by this action was far graver than a personal affront. As it turns out, the advertising for the new "Half-Shekel" utilized all the spiritual concepts related to the fulfilment of giving a real Half-Shekel, i.e., "An atonement for your soul," etc., whereas the tokens offered by the Oztar have no spiritual significance whatsoever.

There were those who opposed the idea of taking a ride on my work, and the final decision was justified by the excuse that what they were doing was not in competition with Beged Ivri's Half-Shekel as the Otzar's was not to be of silver, and not to be used to fulfil the Commandment. Several changes were made, like changing the date from the 'Liberation of the Land' to the 'Liberation of Jerusalem', etc.

A friend pointed out that our work, being of a visionary nature, was well ahead of our time, and that this generation is not yet primed to deal with a concept as serious as Hekdesh. He pointed out that we had not succeeded in the last two years in interesting the public on a mass scale. At best we can handle toys. So the Oztar created a toy Half-Shekel, something that this generation could handle.

At a subsequent meeting, held last week, we were told that indeed, they were "exploiting the Mitzvah" and that they had no interest or intention of restoring the Commandment. They are merely using it to raise awareness.

In addition, upon consulting with Rav Kadouri, they were told that what was done was wrong, that they must only produce Half-Shekels from silver. So they decided that from next year they will produce silver Half-Shekels. So much for not competing. We anticipated that groups such as Satmar, who are heavy into the jewellery business, when they came online, would produce their own Half-Shekels rather than purchase ours, and that's fine. The Halachah establishes that every generation that restores the Half-Shekel does so on two conditions; that the coin be not less in silver content than the Tyrian Half-Shekel we gave in the Second Temple Era, and that everyone give the same amount. As we have established the silver content for this generation by being the first out there, anyone who follows us would have to match our specifications, i.e., 7.776 grams of .999 silver. Once they announced they would be issuing a competing pure silver Half-Shekel, wounded feelings gave way to the more important task of insuring that the coin they produce matches exactly our silver content. This also is a big win. To have established the criteria, and have it upheld by others, is one of the greatest facts we can establish on the ground.

For two years we have been trying to convince the Temple Institute to offer our Half-Shekels to no avail. Since the advertising began last week for the new coins, the Temple Institute has been inundated with orders, for real Half-Shekels. Likewise, folks who have been following our work for the last two years, and who had not yet come aboard, upon hearing of the new Half-Shekel-Lite coins, decided that if already, than let's do it for real, and have turned to us for real Half-Shekels.

Good Purim! Great Purim!

In the Encyclopedia Judaica (p.1350) we find the following:

"In the Zionist Movement. The biblical name shekel was given by the First Zionist Congress (1897) to the fee and card of Zionist membership. Its price was fixed as 1 franc, 1 mark, 1 Austrian crown, 2 shillings, half a dollar, 40 kopeks, etc. The shekel also served as voting certificate for elections to the Zionist Congress, and until the 25th Congress (1960) the number of delegates allocated to a certain election area (country) was calculated on the basis of the total of shekels sold there. Erez Israel had the priviledge of the "double shekel," being entitled to twice the number of delegates that any other country received for the same number of shekels. The reverse of the shekel bore the text of the Zionist program...

The growth of the World Zionist Organization is reflected in the number of shekel holders: 164,333 in 1907; 584,765 in 1923; 1,042,954 in 1939; 2,159,840 in 1946; and 2,148,029 in 1960."