Entry tags:
Maseches Shekalim 10
Daf 10
Discussion is of the things you can do with the money you withdraw from the bins of half-shekels. They're consecrated money dedicated to sanctified use for the Beis Hamikdash, so you can't just go out and buy hookers and blow with it, but also you can't just go out and buy, I don't know, office supplies for the Kohen Gadol. There are other pools of money available for things like that, for chullin things needed to keep the Beis Hamikdash Industrial Complex going, and you need to be careful not to let them get mixed.
But there are things that are on the blurry boundary. The Omer offering needs to be offered from new grain. In shemittah years, nobody is growing grain. The Rabbis hold that you can go buy grain from outside Israel and offer it, but Rabbi Yishmael holds that you must use grain from the land of Israel for the Omer, so the only thing that's available is wild grain, which anyone can take. This is the problem, how do you make sure an Omer's worth of grain is left untouched when anyone can take it? You set a watchman to watch it and ask people not to take that grain... But if the watchman is watching it for free, there becomes a problem of kavana. If he's just watching it as a volunteer, then technically what is happening is that he is taking possession of the grain for himself and then donating it to the Beis Hamikdash. Which is fine, totally authorized, but there is a concern that if he doesn't have proper kavana of donating it as opposed to sort of still thinking "I gave the omer offering for this year." then he might retain ownership and then the offering might be invalid. So you have to pay the watchman, so that he's just doing work for hire of watching the grain.
Great, time for a paragraph break. So the watchman is watching the grain that as soon as it's harvested the Beis Hamikdash will own, and there's no problem with using the money from the Half Shekel to pay for the grain, but until the grain is harvested you're paying for the chullin act of watching it, and that's not sufficiently sanctified. So the Kohanim borrow money from a moneylender to pay the watchman, then when the grain is harvested they exchange the half shekel money directly for the Omer grain and then use the redeemed money that is now desanctified to pay both the watchman the rest of his wages, and also pay the moneylender back.
I find this whole mechanism of consecration and deconsecration really fascinating.
Discussion is of the things you can do with the money you withdraw from the bins of half-shekels. They're consecrated money dedicated to sanctified use for the Beis Hamikdash, so you can't just go out and buy hookers and blow with it, but also you can't just go out and buy, I don't know, office supplies for the Kohen Gadol. There are other pools of money available for things like that, for chullin things needed to keep the Beis Hamikdash Industrial Complex going, and you need to be careful not to let them get mixed.
But there are things that are on the blurry boundary. The Omer offering needs to be offered from new grain. In shemittah years, nobody is growing grain. The Rabbis hold that you can go buy grain from outside Israel and offer it, but Rabbi Yishmael holds that you must use grain from the land of Israel for the Omer, so the only thing that's available is wild grain, which anyone can take. This is the problem, how do you make sure an Omer's worth of grain is left untouched when anyone can take it? You set a watchman to watch it and ask people not to take that grain... But if the watchman is watching it for free, there becomes a problem of kavana. If he's just watching it as a volunteer, then technically what is happening is that he is taking possession of the grain for himself and then donating it to the Beis Hamikdash. Which is fine, totally authorized, but there is a concern that if he doesn't have proper kavana of donating it as opposed to sort of still thinking "I gave the omer offering for this year." then he might retain ownership and then the offering might be invalid. So you have to pay the watchman, so that he's just doing work for hire of watching the grain.
Great, time for a paragraph break. So the watchman is watching the grain that as soon as it's harvested the Beis Hamikdash will own, and there's no problem with using the money from the Half Shekel to pay for the grain, but until the grain is harvested you're paying for the chullin act of watching it, and that's not sufficiently sanctified. So the Kohanim borrow money from a moneylender to pay the watchman, then when the grain is harvested they exchange the half shekel money directly for the Omer grain and then use the redeemed money that is now desanctified to pay both the watchman the rest of his wages, and also pay the moneylender back.
I find this whole mechanism of consecration and deconsecration really fascinating.