Last week, on the 17th of the Hebrew calendar month of Tammuz, we started the mourning period for the loss of the Temple in Jerusalem, known as “the Three Weeks.” The Three Weeks lead up to the saddest day on the Jewish calendar, Tisha B’Av.  

For many modern Jews, connection with this period has always been difficult. It’s hard to imagine the significance of the Temple in today’s world. Jerusalem is flourishing and its population is growing quickly, while people are busy during this time with summer vacations. Moreover, the Temple rules are numerous, obscure and foreign to modern Jews. Nonetheless, by overlooking the meaning of this period we miss out on an element of our tradition and fascinating lessons from the practices that took place in the Temple.  

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Exterior view of a model of the Second Temple in Jerusalem.

The Temple was the first major Jewish nonprofit organization. It operated with a formalized fundraising plan, budgeting system and policies that reflected specific Jewish values. The following are three lessons that today’s Jewish nonprofits can learn from how the Temple operated.

It’s OK to spend money on people, sometimes

“Every day the kohen would scoop the coals for burning the incense using a silver spoon and then transfer them to a gold one; but on Yom Kippur, he would scoop with a gold one and then use that spoon to bring the coal into the Temple.” (Mishna Yoma 4:4)

Why would the kohen transfer the coals from a silver spoon to a gold spoon every day? The Gemara explains that the intention was to save money: “The Torah is concerned with the money of the Jewish people” (Yoma 44b). In other words, this was a cost-cutting measure. If a gold spoon was used for scooping the coals, it would be damaged and the gold would be ruined. Instead, a silver spoon — less valuable and likely more durable — was used, and then the coals were transferred to the nicer gold spoon for the incense ceremony.  

But on Yom Kippur, when the kohen was fasting and the Temple service was lengthy, the rules changed, the Gemara continues: He could use the golden spoon for scooping as well, even if it might be slightly damaged, because he was weak from the intensity of the day and the value of protecting his comfort took precedence over reducing costs.

Nonprofits often get this wrong. Donated funds are sacred and we want to treat them with utmost respect, but we can’t respect funds at the expense of people and refuse to treat employees properly. I remember a recent conversation with an employee who was asked to sleep on a friend’s couch during a business trip since his accommodations were not in the budget. Others were asked to share a hotel room with a more senior employee, putting them in an uncomfortable position to reduce costs. 

It’s OK to spend money on people sometimes. It is important to consider the comfort of our employees and spend extra to ensure that they feel respected and cared for. If the very vessels in the Temple could be compromised to ease the work of the High Priest on Yom Kippur, we can honor the dignity of nonprofit employees by treating them better.

Overhead is sacred

During the sabbatical year, once every seven years, fields in Israel were not planted. Only crops that grew on their own without cultivation would appear during that year. These crops were called sefichin and were considered ownerless and anyone could take them. The problem was that in the Temple, certain grains were needed for sacrifices on Passover and Shavuot. To ensure that people would not take all the ownerless crops, and that enough would remain for the Temple rituals, shomerim (guards) were hired and were paid from the holy Temple funds which were donated for the purchase of sacrifices (Shekalim 4:1). As the commentators explain, “the needs of the sacrifices have the same status as the sacrifices themselves.” The cost of hiring guards to ensure that the grain would be available was considered part of the greater mission and could be paid for by the holy funds, even though hiring guards seems mundane and disconnected from the actual sacrifice ritual.

Sometimes we as donors only want to support programming or capital costs but not operating costs, aka overhead. It’s not appealing to pay for the lights in the office or the paper in the copying machine. But over 2,000 years ago in the Temple, our tradition understood that the lights needed to be on for the mission to be achieved. Overhead is sacred and must be supported by sacred funds.

Organizations need policies and can’t just blindly trust leaders 

Three times a year, a designated kohen was in charge of taking coins from the general pot of half shekels that was donated to the Temple and designating them into three separate buckets for distinct purposes. This kohen was called the torem (the donor) and was prohibited from wearing specific types of clothing when he did this job. He could not wear clothing with cuffs at the bottom, shoes, sandals, tefillin or an amulet (Shekalim 3:2). He was prohibited from wearing anything that could hide money, to prevent suspicion that he was skimming sacred funds. Safeguards were set in place. Even the holiest people, leaders with the best reputations, were not blindly trusted. Institutional policies led people to do the right thing and created trust in the Temple allocation process.  

The Mishna tells us that people had a predilection for distrusting those who had access to the donated money, so preventive policies were enacted. “If the kohen who allocated the funds became poor they would say that it was a punishment for taking sacred funds, and if he became rich they would say that it was because he was pocketing the Temple funds (Shekalim 3:2).” Even back then, people were suspicious of nonprofit leaders, and like today, institutional policies need to encourage trust and ensure proper behavior.

These lessons are just a few of the messages that Jewish nonprofit leaders could learn by studying the Temple’s rules and customs. Mourning the loss of the ancient Temple does not only mean missing the physical presence of a building but, to me, means learning about its significance and considering its relevance to our lives. As we enter the period of the Three Weeks, I encourage us to reflect on how today’s Jewish nonprofits are the same or different than the Temple of 2,000 years ago. We may be surprised to hear the ancient stones of Jerusalem speaking to us in today’s boardrooms.

Avi Tilonsky works with olim to help them financially transition to life in Israel. He worked in fundraising at the Joint Distribution Committee for over a decade and volunteers in a number of Israeli nonprofit organizations.