This they shall give …” (30:13)
The Torah records that Moshe had difficulty understanding several items, e.g., the Menorah and the sheretz (creeping animals), and Hashem showed him examples. But what trouble could he have comprehending the half shekel? Had he never seen a coin before? Why did Hashem show him a coin of fire when the Jews could only give coins made of metal?
Rav Zalman Soritzkin zt”l writes that we can explain as follows: Moshe’s difficulty was not with the physical form of the coin, but rather with the concept of money providing spiritual atonement. Hashem used the coin of fire to show that money, like fire, has a dual nature. On the one hand, fire burns and destroys everything; on the other hand, it provides light and heat, as well as the ability to promote growth and ripen fruit. It is man’s choice to use it for good or evil.
The same is true with money. At times, money brings man to theft, stealth, deception, even to murder, and provides him with base pleasures. But money can also be used to feed the hungry, clothe the unclothed, support the downtrodden, and finance holy causes. When used in this way, money can “atone for one’s soul.” If a man abstains from feeding his desires and uses his money for holy, charitable causes, putting the spiritual before the physical, he achieves “spiritual atonement.
