Shekalim 15 a, b

Though I don't blog on Shabbat, I want to ensure that I can locate references from Shekalim 15 if I ever wish to find them.  Daf 15 was delightful to read, crammed full of stories and lessons that relate to the role of tzedaka and the hidden Ark during the second Temple era.

We learn about rabbis who gave tzedaka secretly, who distributed tzedaka at night, who fought with evil spirits and won.  We learn that anyone can become poor and thus all people should give freely to those in need.  We learn of Nechemya, who did not give money toward a beggar who asked for a delicacy; Nechemya then learned that the needy man had died from eating the lesser meat.  Nachum Ish GamZo also passed by a needy man, returning to find him dead.  He cursed himself and fell victim to those curses. When R'Akiva sympathized, he replied that Akiva should only be in such a horrible state himself - it is through those afflictions that he has made amends for his lack of charity. We learn about rabbis who show off their beautiful synagogues, ultimately being shamed for spending money on adonrments when it could have been spent on students of Torah.

In amud (b) the rabbis teach us about the hidden Ark of the covenant.  It may have held both the broken tablets and the tablets with the ten commandments, and it was said to have been buried somewhere in the second Temple.  The Gemara elaborates on the proofs of that location: Rabbis died before they could reveal the suspicious locations (where some ground tiles were different from the others).