“The rich shall not give more and the poor shall not give less than the half shekel.”
(Shemos 30:15)

Why for all the other parts of the Mishkan did each one donate according to his ability while for the sockets rich and poor alike were required to give half a shekel? In addition we need to understand why they were required to give only half a shekel and not a whole shekel.
This is explained by the pasuk in Yechezkel (43:10) “You son of man show the House [of Hashem] to the House of Israel that they may be ashamed at their iniquities.” And the commentaries explain that Yechezkel was told to tell Bnei Yisrael that they are the House and the House is dependent on them…
The structure of the Mishkan and its vessels symbolize to us the desired behavior and actions according to the Torah. (Rav Yosef Zundel Salant Be’er Yosef).
The structure of the Mishkan the Kiyor and the Shulchan are the basic sketch of our house. And the sockets are the cornerstone from which the foundations are laid the walls are supported and our house stands steady. Not plasterboard not cement. Golden sockets no less.
And it says in the Gemara (Makkos 23b-24a) “Moshe was told 613 mitzvos at Sinai. Dovid came and summarized them in 11… Yeshayahu came and summarized them in 6… Havakkuk came and summarized them in 1 as it says “And the righteous shall live by his faith” (Havakkuk 2:4). That is that faith is the basis of the foundations of the whole Torah. And if we said above that the Mishkan and its vessels symbolize Torah and mitzvos and through contemplating them we need to learn how a person is [expected] to behave it’s possible to say the sockets that were the foundations of the Mishkan symbolize faith which is the foundation of the whole Torah. (ibid.)
Pure faith. The foundations of a home with pure faith are solid and its beams won’t collapse even when a storm is raging around it.
And behold even though in all parts of the Torah and mitzvos and likewise in all service of Hashem the spiritual level and status of one person can’t be compared to that of his neighbor and what is demanded of a person differs from one man to the next yet in the case of faith each one in Israel is required without exception to believe in the entire Torah….
And since with regard to faith each one in Israel is required to be complete and perfect in his belief all were commanded to bring the donation of the sockets equally to teach us that in this all need to be equal and complete the small like the great without exception.
You come home on a dreary day and discover to your surprise that the house is hot and your living room is turned upside down. The living room is upside down because your son was searching for his homework and your daughter’s cheeks are flushed from crying because she wasn’t chosen for a solo in the class performance.
A thousand responses might run through our head but there’s really only one. All is from Heaven. We don’t know why but we know from where: from above. You tell that to yourself deep inside and use this knowledge to cushion the lives of your family.
In a home that reflects the Mishkan we speak words of emunah. That home will not collapse.
Emunah. To know that we only give half a shekel. Only half. To remember that we’re always standing in the middle of the road shading our eyes to see the narrow present through the slit that is our short lives seeing partial pictures that may seem inconceivable.
Half a shekel. During our life thousands of halves pass through our hands in each moment and every question. All of these are halves. With emunah we can make the halves — and ourselves — whole.