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Parshat Chayei Sarah tells the story of the first shidduch in Jewish history: the match between Yitzchak and Rivkah. Avraham sends his most trusted servant, Eliezer, on a sacred mission: to find a wife who can continue the spiritual legacy of Avraham and Sarah. When Eliezer encounters Rivkah at the well, her generosity, her humility, and her kindness leave no doubt that she is the one.
Among the gifts Eliezer offers her, the Torah notes, is “a golden nose ring, weighing half a shekel” (Bereshit 24:22). The Torah rarely wastes words. Why mention that it weighed half a shekel?
Rav Soloveitchik sees deep symbolism here. He explains that this gift hints to the machatzit hashekel, or the half-shekel each Jew would later give yearly for the Mishkan and, later, for the offerings in the Beit HaMikdash. For Rav Soloveitchik, this half-shekel “reflects our basic outlook on man” (The Rav Speaks). It teaches that every human being stands before God as incomplete. We are only half, finite, limited, and dependent on something beyond ourselves. The other half we seek is not found within us, but above us in our relationship with God. The half-shekel is thus a symbol of humility: the awareness that our lives are fragments of something larger, and only God can make us whole.
The Netivot Shalom offers a different, though complementary, insight. The half-shekel, he writes, teaches that “every individual is only a half; the other half is found in his or her community… one person alone, even if they give their all, can’t accomplish anything. Only through the strength of the other half - the community - can they reach their goals.” (Parshat Ki Tisa, 230) For the Netivot Shalom, the message is not only vertical but horizontal: each of us is part of a larger spiritual organism - Klal Yisrael. Wholeness comes through connection - through friendship, fellowship, and shared purpose.
Put together, the two ideas create a powerful vision of Jewish life. The half-shekel points upward and outward. It teaches that to be whole, we must reach both toward God and toward one another. Without God, we are unanchored; without others, we are incomplete.
Rivkah, from the moment she appears in the Torah, embodies both. Her greatness was not only in her chesed, her compassion, or her personal piety, but in her openness to relationship. She reached upward, answering the Divine call of destiny, and outward, caring for strangers and lifting others with kindness. She understood that holiness is never achieved in isolation.
As Rav Soloveitchik reminds us, “One must never forget that despite greatness in Torah and in wisdom, one cannot decide and answer every question alone. There is no Jew, even the greatest of their generation, who has nothing to learn from even an ordinary Jew. ‘Who is wise? One who learns from everyone.’” (Pirkei Avot 4:1)
Rivkah’s strength was not only that she gave, but that she connected - that she sought the other half. In her, the half-shekel found its living form: a soul humble before God and joined in heart with others.
We may no longer bring the half-shekel offering today, but its message remains timeless. Each of us still carries only a half - a piece of potential, a fragment of light. Like Rivkah, we are called to complete that half through faith and through fellowship: by seeking God, and by reaching out to one another.
This Shabbat, may we remember that we are never whole alone. Let us, like Rivkah, offer our half, that is our presence, our kindness, our willingness to connect, and in doing so, may we help build a community, and a world, that together reflects the wholeness of God.
Shabbat Shalom!
-Rabbi Dan
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