Since the half-shekel Temple contribution was collected on specified days, tractate Sheqalim, regarding this practice, is included.
There is a tin of coffee in the kitchen, but it is strictly reserved for guests only, and there is a half-shekel on the dressing table for each of the boys to buy a sandwich at school today.
In the New Testament we hear of Jews paying a temple tax and of Jesus himself paying it on arrival in the fishing village of Capernaum (things being made easier by the required half-shekel miraculously appearing in the mouth of a fish).
During breakfast, I said to him, "Moshe, listen, the summer is over and in the end we didn't take that organized tour to Spain, so instead maybe you could give me the three and a half thousand shekels to buy some things for winter".
"We are spending half a million shekels a year just to chase the sea," explains Nir Wranger, the spa's deputy manager.
It took Heymann half a million shekels (about a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars) to digitize the videos, and a year to watch all of them.
At that time, one shekel's worth of oil was only one-half quart, One shekel's worth of grain was only one-half quart...
After 2,000 shekels was deducted to cover the cost of a night's fuel for the engine and gas for the lamps, the rest was divided in two: half for the upkeep of the aging boat and the rest shared equally between the captain and his crew, meaning each man should have taken home just 75 shekels.
Its currency, the shekel, is strong.
