Shabbat Shekalim 

Mark Podwal (b. 1945)
Digitial archival pigment print on paper
7 7/16 x 7 9/16″
USA, 2020
© Mark Podwal

“The Shabbat of the Shekels” is the first in a series of four special Shabbats that begin before the festival of Purim and continue through Passover. Shabbat Shekalim is named for the supplementary Torah reading Ki Tisa (“when you take,” Exodus 30:11—34:35), which describes a census requiring every Israelite man over the age of twenty to contribute half of a shekel to support the construction of the Tabernacle, God’s dwelling place in the wilderness. Everyone gave the same amount—“the rich shall not pay more, and the poor shall not pay less than a shekel” (Exodus 30:11-16). The tax remained in effect through the time of the First and Second Temples to support repairs and communal sacrifices. Today, it is a custom to give three coins to charity on Purim as a commemoration of the half-shekel collected in antiquity. Podwal revises the woodcut by adding a box bearing the Hebrew word tzedakah, which means righteousness, but is commonly used to signify charity. An example of a tzedakah box, a feature of many Jewish homes, can be seen in the nearby display.