Half a shekel

B"H

In this week's Torah reading of parsha Ki Tisa, we are commanded in the mitzvah of "machatzit hashekel", giving a silver coin valued half a shekel.

This is a commandment which is the same for every Jew, rich or poor. It represents the most intrinsic and essential level of all the Jewish people being a complete whole and unity together and with G-d.

All of the mitzvahs, commandments of G-d, are to be understood in a spectrum of ways. From the deepest most lofty understanding of each commandment, down to the most important and essential way of knowing exactly how to fulfill the mitzvah and to actually do it. The most important thing is to do what G-d wants us to to, because He commanded us to do so. Both Jews and non-Jews have to do G-d's commandments with the intention of doing so to fulfill His will. With this in mind, we can learn many other teachings that come from the Torah.

There is a special way to see this mitzvah of the half-shekel and it's different meanings in light of the "success principals". Besides all of the varied lessons and concepts in being successful, such as having very clearly defined goals, persistence, having a master-mind group etc, the most important and essential "tool" is the complete trust in G-d. This such a powerful reality and of such importance to success, that America made it a point of constant reminder by minting every-single coin and bill with the phrase "In G-d we trust".

It's truly amazing to see that non-Jews who are not commanded in the mitzvah of the half-shekel, had so clearly seen the importance and truth of this lesson that they wanted to dedicate not only the half-dollar to G-d but every single coin and bill.

The Lubavitcher spoke out about this in an amazing way, see the video in the link below:
http://www.chabad.org/1180692