GOOD MORNING! This week’s column discusses the Jewish people’s first fundraising drive. However, I cannot write about fundraising without sharing a thought about my unique and much beloved friend, teacher, and mentor Rabbi Kalman Packouz, of blessed memory.

Rabbi Packouz's teacher and inspiration, Rabbi Noach Weinberg of blessed memory, founder of Aish Hatorah, recruited him to devote his life to returning Jews to their spiritual roots. So some thirty-odd years ago, Rabbi Packouz moved his family from Israel to South Florida to open a branch of Aish Hatorah. A few years prior, Rabbi Packouz had successfully opened a branch in St. Louis.

The good rabbi was therefore very much aware that opening a branch of a nonprofit organization required a commitment to fundraising to keep programs running and employees paid. We first met when I was the executive director (a fancy title for a job that is primarily fundraising) of the school that the Packouz children attended. We bonded in both our personal and professional lives.

To be quite honest, having the responsibility of asking others for funds, can be quite trying – to say the least. Fundraising is particularly hard when one considers how loathe many people are to part with their money. Of course, this reminds me of a joke that really illustrates a truism of life.

A school was running their annual cookie sale fundraiser. One boy refused to participate and his teacher sent him to the office. The principal asked him why he didn’t want to take part in the program. The student replied, “I don’t want to ask others to do what I wouldn’t want to be asked of myself.”

The principal tried another tactic, “Don’t you love the school?” The student answered in the affirmative. “If you had a million dollars to give to support everything you love about the school; wouldn’t you be happy to give it?” Again, the student answered in the affirmative. “How about if you had a thousand dollars or a hundred dollars, would you be happy to give?” Each time the student replied that he would.

The principal then asked, “How about if you had one dollar, would you give it to the school you love?” The boy shook his head and replied, “No.” The principal was shocked. “What!?! If you would be willing to give a million, or a thousand, or even a hundred dollars then why wouldn’t you be willing to give one dollar?” The student replied, “Because I actually have a dollar.”

Often, philosophy and action based on that philosophy are parallel paths – they don’t ever meet or intersect. This is why the quality of a person isn’t judged by what he believes or even what he says; a person can only be judged by what he actually does.

A chef who runs a three star Michelin restaurant jealously guards his recipes and food preparation techniques, much in the same way that a world famous fishing guide goes to great lengths to make sure no one discovers his secret fishing spots or what he uses for bait there. The same is true in just about any profession, including fundraising. Fundraisers don’t just share who their donors are or the names on their mailing lists. This is only natural. Every professional fears that someone will come and use their knowledge or assets and that they will somehow subsequently be diminished.

Except Rabbi Packouz. Not only was he happy to advise you on which of his donors would consider supporting your cause, he would often offer to come along and help you solicit them! He truly believed in helping any worthy cause he could because he knew that funds were allocated by the Almighty and donors were only the gatekeepers. He never feared that another’s success would take away from his own and happily helped anyone he could. This led my brilliant father to observe, “Rabbi Packouz doesn’t work for Aish Hatorah – he works for God.”

This Shabbat begins the first of the Four Special Shabbatot (Hebrew plural for Shabbat) in which we append an extra Torah reading in addition to the regular Torah portion of the week. This week we add Parshat Shekalim. This always occurs around the first day of the month of Adar; why?

Beginning with the Tabernacle in the desert, God commanded that every male over the age of twenty must contribute a half-shekel (a monetary denomination) to the community. These half-shekel coins were dually used as a census to count the number of men over the age of twenty within the Jewish nation. This was particularly important for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was that this told the leaders exactly how many men were eligible to serve in the army (the minimum age for going to war was twenty).

This annual census tax, known as the machatzit hashekel or half-shekel, was due on the first day of the Hebrew month Nissan. Therefore, one month earlier, on the first of Adar, the courts began posting reminders about this Biblical obligation. The collection began every year on the first day of the month of Adar when the “heralding of the shekalim” took place, and it ended on the first day of the month of Nissan, the beginning of the new fiscal year for the Temple, when the purchase of public sacrifices was renewed.

The funds raised were primarily used to purchase cattle for the communal sacrifices. Leftover monies were used for a variety of communal purposes, including providing salaries for the judges and maintenance for the Temple, its vessels, and the city walls.

The Parshat Shekalim reading is also related to the upcoming holiday of Purim. According to the Talmud, Haman’s efforts to annihilate the Jewish people by gifting Achashveirosh 10,000 shekalim was averted in merit of the mitzvah of machatzit hashekel. Reish Lakish said, “It was known and revealed to He Who spoke and made the world that in the future Haman would count out shekalim [to buy the right to exterminate] Israel. Therefore, He arranged His shekalim [the obligatory half-shekel] to precede Haman’s shekalim” (Megillah 13b).

Exactly how much is a half-shekel? Like many things in the Jewish world, there are multiple opinions.

Josephus (Antiquities 3:8:2) says that it was equal to the weight of two Athenian Drachma, or estimated at 8.64 grams. Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan notes that it weighed 0.4 oz. (11.34 grams).

We can calculate the worth based on today’s market value for silver (well, actually last week’s spot price for silver, which was about $23 per oz.), which works out to about 83 cents per gram.

Interestingly, Maimonides (Hilchos Shekalim 1:5) says a half-shekel weighed 160 barley grain’s weight in silver. Being blessed with children, I (of course) made one of my kids count out and weigh exactly 160 grains of barley, and it weighed 6.8 grams (equal to about $5.64). Remarkably, archaeological excavations conducted in Israel between 1999 to 2001 “dug up” a coin minted in the second century CE with the words “Half-Shekel” written on it in ancient Hebrew. This coin possessed a silver content of 6.87 grams, or almost the exact weight assigned to it by Maimonides (Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, London 2009, pp. 96; 118).

A final thought: When the Almighty first instructed Moses to solicit gifts for the Tabernacle (beginning with half-shekel), the Torah first enumerates the various items that the Jewish people were to contribute such as precious metals, fabrics, animal hides, wood, oils, and precious gems. Only then, after all the items needed for the Tabernacle have been listed, does God reveal the purpose of the collection: “They shall make a sanctuary for Me, and I will dwell in their midst” (Exodus 25:8).

This hardly seems to be a logical way to raise funds. In general, when a person wishes to solicit donations for a cause, he describes the purpose of his solicitation before he asks donors to contribute. Why did the Almighty first tell Moses to ask the Jewish people for donations, and only then reveal that the funds would be used for the building of the Tabernacle?

The first fundraising campaign in Jewish history was also probably the shortest in history. Our sages teach us that within days all that was needed was donated and Moses had to ask people to stop donating. Perhaps the primary goal of collecting these gifts was not merely for the Tabernacle to be built, but rather it was for the purpose of uniting the Jewish people. Collecting materials for the Tabernacle was a secondary purpose of this campaign; the real objective was to ensure that the Jewish people could be committed to working together.

This may also be the reason that the first gift solicited was the half-shekel, which served to unite the people through a common census. This would also indicate that the real power in defeating Haman lay in the fact that the Jewish people were willing to come together as one. May it be the will of the Almighty that we once again commit to unity and working in concert with one another to see the final redemption speedily in our days.

Vayakhel, Exodus 35:1 - 38:20

Moses relays the Almighty's commands to refrain from building the Mishkan (the Tabernacle) on Shabbat, to contribute items needed to build the Mishkan, to construct the components of the Mishkan, and the appurtenances of the Cohanim. The craftsmen are selected and the work begins. The craftsmen report that there are too many donations and, for the first and probably the only time in fundraising history, the Jewish people are told to refrain from bringing additional contributions!

http://www.aish.com/sh/c/

No one has ever gotten poor by giving!
— Anne Frank (and a paraphrase of Proverbs 28:27)