[Avodah] Sheqel Kesef

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Sep 25, 2022 at 11:49:15AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
>> Is that specific requirement miSinai? Or is it a din derabbanan about
>> how to be meqayeim the deOraisa? (Question isn't rhetorical.)

> It *seems* on its surface to be mid'oraisa, because it's based on the pasuk
> "vetzarta hakesef".   But you seem to be suggesting that that's an asmachta.

Well, since I asked an explicitly non-rhetorical question, I most
suggested that *it is possible* it is an asmachta.

If it were proven archeologically that coins didn't exist when the
Torah was given, one could say that the gemara must have been giving
an asmachta. Okay, it is nearly impossible to prove something didn't
exist. (Barring a document from the royal court of Yehudah in an observant
period with a statement like "When we invented coins...") Still, it
makes the laws of pidyon maaser sheini less than a proof that coins
existed back then.

However, a medrash about Hashem pointing to the image of a coin to
explain that the mitzvah of machatzis hasheqel must be a coin implies
Chazal did consider the din miSinai.

(Regardless of questions of the historicity of a given midrashic
narrative, it wouldn't make sense to tell a story that depends on Hashem
giving Moshe a din derabbanan.)

I didn't think the point was important enough to warrant a fuller
explanation, but aside from Zev's post, others asked me off-list.

GCT!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 We are what we repeatedly do.
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   Thus excellence is not an event,
Author: Widen Your Tent      but a habit.
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                 - Aristotle