Change is coming. Actually, change is leaving. Small change, that is.
For more than a century, the humble American penny has been the little copper soldier most often graced with a picture of President Abraham Lincoln. It was a coin that allowed merchants to entice you with a “low price of $9.99, keeping you under the ten dollar threshold, convincing you that you got a bargain. You did, at least before credit cards, have to fish for those pennies if you did not want to break a ten.
The penny was a coin that nobody really wanted but everybody somehow kept. It rolled between couch cushions, and quite a few were found Pesach time under couches and car seats. They gathered at the bottom of pushkas, clinked uselessly in pockets, and always managed to appear precisely when you didn’t need them and not be there when you did.
Now, after decades of debate, the penny is finally being retired. President Trump ordered the Treasury to stop minting it, citing what everyone already knew: the penny costs more than a penny to make. The U.S. Mint even admitted it — each penny costs 3.69 cents to produce.
It reminds me of the story of the fellow who sold apples.
“How much do you pay for each apple?” his friend asked.
“Ten cents.”
“And how much do you sell it for?”
“Five cents.”
So how do you make a profit?
“Oh! I make it up in volume.”
But there is more that will be going missing than the copper coins. The real loss won’t only be a change (pardon the pun) to the financial system. It will also be a cultural, linguistic, shift. Even in terms of our own shprach.
After all, the penny didn’t only live in our pushkas, it lived in our expressions, our metaphors, our idioms, and our lomdus. When the penny disappears, the language takes a hit too.
The penny was a metaphor for so many things in life that were not measured in dollars, not even in quarters, nickels, or dimes. They were measured in pennies.
“A penny for your thoughts.”
“A penny saved is a penny earned.”
“Not worth a red cent.”
“Every penny counts.”
“He’s pinching pennies.”
“He paid a pretty penny.”
“I’ll give you my two cents.”
Try replacing any of those with “nickel.” It poshut doesn’t work.
You really will have to get used to, “A dollar for your thoughts.” That is already getting close to the price for therapy!
“He put in his two nickels” sounds like the fellow just fed a parking meter.
“Not worth a red nickel” won’t cut it, and pinching nickels certainly sounds weird.
A penny was tiny, trivial, almost laughable, but that triviality is actually what gave it power. It was what transformed it as the perfect symbol for all the small things in life that, together, add up. And now, suddenly, we’re being reintroduced to a life with a new inflated measure of tiny and a small cut above insignificant.
But if we’re really being honest, the funniest part might be the halachic angle. Because lurking quietly beneath this linguistic crisis is an unexpected question: What happens to shaveh perutah? Even the yeshiva world isn’t safe. What is the new “shaveh perutah”? A nickel. It just does not sound right. Shema shaveh nickel b’Mohdie?
Obviously a perutah isn’t just a coin. It’s the baseline of halachic value, the minimum amount something must be worth to count for kiddushin, for kinyonim, for certain obligations. For two thousand years, the “perutah” has been the benchmark. And now, America is eliminating its lowest coin. Does that make the nickel the de facto perutah of 2025?
Even though the perutah will always remain a perutah, I imagine in years hence having the bochurim kler if you are mekadeish with less than a shaveh nickel. “Harei at mekudeshes li… b’shaveh nickel.”
But the deeper question is this: Why does the disappearance of a near-worthless coin feel like such a loss?
Part of it is nostalgia. We grew up with pennies. We rolled them, tossed them, ignored them, and occasionally treasured them when we were kids in the candy store, where a single cent could buy something in a jar for a penny each, be it gum or candy or a tiny chatchke that Oriental Trading now sells for a nickel or more. Our kids and grandkids probably were never able to buy anything for a penny. For them, they have been waiting for this day for probably a while.
I am saddened, because the penny did remind us to pay attention to the small things before they, too, disappear. Maybe it will show us that if we don’t value the little steps, the tiny wins, the moments that cost almost nothing, we lose the richness of life.
And maybe, just maybe, it will force us to ask what we truly consider “worthless.”
Technically, a penny wasn’t worth bending down for. But remember that Yaakov Avinu risked his life for “pachim ketanim.” And I wonder if the anti-Semitic goyim taunters now throw nickels at our feet when they want to taunt us.
So yes, the penny is gone. Goodbye, old friend. You cost more to make than you were worth, yet somehow you found your way into every expression of American frugality, humor, and common sense. You were insignificant, and because of that, you were irreplaceable.
But there is a very exciting thought I have and it may just be worth more than a few cents:
Chazal tell us, “Ein ben Dovid ba ad shetichleh perutah min hakis.” Moshiach won’t come, the Gemara says, until the perutah disappears from the pocket. Maybe, just maybe, watching the penny vanish from American currency isn’t only economic policy. Perhaps it’s a reminder that history is moving toward that great day and that redemption is a few cents away.
So thank you, Mr. President. Maybe someone whispered in your ear a true way to get world peace.
And that’s my two nickels.
Just saying.
