Vayikra 27:2 records the case where a person donates money, shekalim, to G-d in lieu of him/ herself. The Torah then explains how much the person can donate based on the age and gender of the person, 27:3-7. We can make a table of these donations:
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20 years until 60
years
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5 years until 20
years
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One month until 5
years
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60 years and up
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Male
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50 shekels
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20 shekels
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5 shekels
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15 shekels
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Female
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30 shekels
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10 shekels
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3 shekels
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10 shekels
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Ratio
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50/30= 1.66
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20/10 = 2
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5/3= 1.66
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15/10 = 1.5
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Note the term shekel here does not correspond to the modern day shekel. In the Torah the term shekel means a weight of silver, as money in ancient time was weights of metals, usually gold, silver or copper. The word shekel literally means to weigh and this term was/ is used for money since one had to weigh the metal to know what amount of metal a person had to pay for a good. Similarly, the term kesef in Modern Hebrew means both money and silver since in many places money was from silver. This is not unique in Hebrew, as for example the basic unit account of money in the United Kingdom is called pound sterling.
The list of shekels for the different ages and the differences between men and women raises several questions. Why do the donations change with the age of the person being “donated”? Why are there different values for a man and woman? Why should a woman give less than a man? Finally, why does the ratio between what a man gives and what a woman gives change slightly for the different ages? One would have thought that ratio would remain constant, which would mean the change in years would have equal impact on men and women.
Ibn Ezra (on 27:3) writes that the valuations are decrees of the Torah, meaning that they are laws which man does not know their reason. Nonetheless, many commentators have tried to explain these laws based on differences in the levels of skills or productivity of people, which in economics is referred to as human capital (see Kleiman, 1987). According to this approach, in reference to the age categories, the idea would be that a person is most productive between the ages 20 and 60, and hence this age category has the highest valuation. Furthermore, according to this approach, a person between the years 5 and 20 is more productive than a person 60 years and over and a person between one month and 5 years old a person is barely productive at all.
The human capital approach has also been used to explain the different values for men and women. Levine (1989, p. 193) writes, “Gender differentiation may be linked to productivity, it being presumed that a male could earn more than a female.” Similarly, Bulah (1992, p. 245, footnote 2) writes that the different values for men and women are based on the prices in the slave market!
Based on this idea of human capital, suggestions have also been made to explain the change in the ratio between male and females over the years. Rashi (on 27:9) quotes from the Talmud (Arakhin 19a) “that an old man in the house is a nuisance while an old woman is a treasure in the house.” Thus Rashi explains that a man loses relatively more value, human capital, when he is over 60 than a woman, and the ratio from the valuation of men relative to women drops from 1.6 to 1.5. Bekhor Shor (on 27:2) explains slightly differently, that a man’s human capital is based on his physical strength while a woman’s human capital is based on her skills and a man’s strength diminishes more rapidly than a woman’s skills.
While the human capital approach is appealing, it does not offer a complete explanation. For example, for the 5 until 20 age category, why does the man/ boy have a relatively higher donation than a woman/ girl? Is a five year old boy more productive than a five year old girl? Also, if the donation levels are based on productivity, then there should be different values according to the productivity of each person. With regard to this question, the Abravanel (2005, p. 328) answers that the Torah did not want to make differences between people since some people who would have a low valuation might feel bad. Yet, then why then should women have lower valuations than men, will they not feel bad? In addition, the human capital approach seems only to give credit to earnings potential but not to work at home. Also, was the earnings potential of men really exactly 50 shekels in the time of the giving of the Torah and how could the Torah fix the level of donations if over time due to increases in technology a person’s productivity could increase to be much more than 50 or 30 shekels? Finally, if the values are based on people’s earnings potential, is the Torah sanctioning that a woman should earn less than a man? With all these questions, even though I am an economist, I have to reject the human capital approach.
Instead of focusing on the different valuations, one can ask why did the Torah give these donation levels altogether? Why not let a person decide on his/ her own how much to donate in lieu of him or herself? The answer is that the Torah was trying to protect the giver. There is a danger that a person could donate such large sums of money that it could impoverish the person. If the person is donating money to G-d due to guilt or due to religious feelings, there could be cases where a person would feel that there is no amount of money that is too much. Bulah (1992, p. 247) points out that usually the value (earnings potential) of a person is much more than the levels specified in the Torah, and had the Torah not set limits a person would have had to donate more money. Thus, the valuation levels in the Torah is to set maximum levels that a person can donate in lieu of him or herself. Proof of this idea is that after the list of valuation levels, 27:8 records that if a person cannot afford the levels in the Torah, then the priest estimates what the person can afford and this lower amount is sufficient. This shows that really one can give less, but nobody can give more. This means that the donation levels in 27:3-7 are maximums levels.
The maximum levels are to ensure that a person is not impoverished by the donations, and the levels then are based on the person’s ability to pay. A person has the largest ability to pay during the ages 20-60, and accordingly this category has the highest donation level. After this category the level of donations drop significantly. The next highest level is from 5-20 years, where the donation by a man is 60% less than for the years 20-60. This is because the level of income is lower for this age group. For the 60 years and over age category not only is the income lower than for the 20 year until 60 years age category, but also there is less hope of future income so here the donation level is also lower than by the 5 years until 20 years age category. In the case of one month to 5 years, the person has no income at all, but as pointed out by Rashi (on 27:5) the person doing the donating is an adult who is donating based on a child. Presumably the person would be “donating” their children, and as one could “donate” many children, the Torah made the donation level the smallest again to reduce the possibility that one would become impoverished by many of these donations. This fear of a person being impoverished by these donations can also explain why the valuation rate for women is less than for men. Historically (and still today) women have earned less money than men, and would thus be less able to donate the same amount as men. Thus to protect women from their greater danger of becoming impoverished from the donations the Torah set a lower limit for women. Even if in the future women will have equal earnings with men, still the laws are for all time and had to protect women when they earned less.
The differences in the ratio of the donation levels of men and women over the years is because of the desire to have donations end with a 5 or 10. My guess is that the determining age group was the 20 years until 60 years age category since not only was this the first age category recorded in the Torah, but also these are the years when the donations are most likely to be made. Once the ratio was 5/3 in this group, then all the groups followed this ratio either exactly (the one month until five years age category) or closely. By the 5 years until 20 years age category, the woman’s donation should have been 12 shekels to maintain a ratio of 5/3 but the Torah set the value at 10 to have the donation level be at the round number 10. Similarly, by the 60 years and over age category group, the woman’s donation level should have been 9 to keep the ratio of 5/3 but again the Torah used 10 since this is a round number.
The last question would be why should the ratio be 5/3 for the age category of 20 years until 60 years? Here one can only surmise. Again to help women who have earned less money than men historically, the Torah set their donation levels lower than men, but the question is how much lower? If the ratio (man/woman) was 2 (for example 50/25), then one might have claimed (as the Abravanel did) that a woman’s value was half of a man’s. In order to negate this possibility, the Torah set a higher value to women and hence a lower ratio between men and women, and the next highest level based on the donation being a 5 or 10 digit was a ratio of 5/3 or 1.66 (50/30).