THE HEADACHES OF FUNDRAISING

Maftir:  Exodus 30:11-16

Haftarah:  II Kings 12:1-17

            This week we read a special Haftarah which reminds us of the Torah’s commandment for every Jewish male adult to donate a half-shekel which was used in previous years for purchasing the public sacrifices offered in the Beit ha-Mikdash.  The narrative’s background begins a number of years earlier when Queen Izevel (in English, Jezebel) of the Northern Kingdom erected a temple to the Canaanite god Baal.  Even after Elijah defeated four hundred fifty prophets of that false god, the temple remained standing until Hashem told the prophet Elisha to anoint a new king named Yehu, who killed King Ahab and Izevel, and tore down the idolatrous temple. 

            Furthermore, the king of Judah, Ahatzyahu, had been subverted by his mother Atalyah (sometimes spelled, “Atalyahu”) to worship the Canaanite god as well.  When Yehu assassinated Ahatzyahu, Atalyah murdered every male descendant of the royal line that she could find, in order to retain the throne for herself.  But the king’s daughter sheltered the infant Yehoash (or Yoash) along with a nursemaid until his seventh year, when a loyal kohen proclaimed him king and launched a coup that resulted in the death of Atalyah, to the delight of the populace.

            King Yehoash ordered the kohanim to utilize donations other than those for personal sacrifices for the purpose of restoring the Beit ha-Mikdash to its former status.  The Malbim seeks to reconcile the account contained in our Haftarah with that in Chronicles, which states that the king sent the kohanim out from Jerusalem to raise funds for the restoration of the Beit ha-Mikdash.  This second account leads the Malbim to conclude that Atalyah’s corrupting influence was pervasive enough to cause people in Jerusalem to loot the Beit ha-Mikdash for the pagan temple; consequently the kohanim could not afford to offer the daily sacrifices.

            Rabbi David Kimchi relates that the kohanim were waiting until they had collected sufficient funds to undertake all the work necessary to restore the Beit ha-Mikdash to begin the labor; this caused the king to suspect, unjustly, that the kohanim were either lax in their collection efforts or keeping the money for themselves.  Because of this the king ordered that henceforth whenever people brought donations to the Beit ha-Mikdash, the kohanim should immediately reserve the money for repairs.  The kohanim consented; in fact, Rabbi Levi ben Gershon states that the kohanim felt they should never have been assigned the duty of “building fund committee.” (1)

(1)     Rabbi Levi ben Gershon is also known by the abbreviation RaLBag, and as Rabbi Levi Gersonides.  He wrote commentaries on several books of the Tanakh and on parts of the Gemara.  He also wrote a book known as Sefer Milchamot Hashem, or The Book of the Wars of Hashem, dealing with the apparent conflict between free will and Hashem’s foreknowledge, along with the subject of astronomy as known to the Muslims of the fourteenth century.