[Avodah] half shekel

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 11:51:28AM +0100, Eli Turkel wrote:
:> I'm not sure why the article makes the assumption that this particular
:> coin may have been involved in the mitzvah of machatzis hasheqel. But
:> if the probability is real, wouldn't it have to be treated as heqdeish?
:> 
: from : http://begedivri.com/shekel/J-Tyrian.htm

: Now the Rabbanim in the year 19/18 BCE had a serious problem. On the
: one hand, the giving of the Holy Half-Shekel is a Torah Commandment.
: The problem arises with the motif of the Tyrian Shekel...

I understood the same from A7's citation of the Tosafta (Kesuvos 13:20).

My question wasn't on the kind of coin, but on the particular coin
found. The writer (R' Ezra haLevi) starts with the milder claim:
> The ancient silver coin was discovered in an archaeological excavation
> that is being conducted in the main Second Temple-era drainage channel
> of Jerusalem. The foreign coin is of the denomination used during the
> turbulent Second Temple period to pay the Biblical half-shekel head-tax.

But then he quotes archaeologist Eli Shukron of the Israel Antiquities
Authority who speculates:
> Just like today when coins sometimes fall from our pockets and roll into
> drainage openings at the side of the street, that's how it was some two
> thousand years ago -- a man was on his way to the Temple and the shekel
> which he intended to use for paying the half shekel head-tax found its
> way into the drainage channel.

I do not know how compelling this scenario is for this particular coin.

I was asking, if it were sufficiently compelling for this to be a
cheshash, wouldn't the coin be heqdeish? Wouldn't it require guarding
by a kohein, etc...?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It is a glorious thing to be indifferent to
micha at aishdas.org        suffering, but only to one's own suffering.
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