Parshat Ki Tisa (Exodus 30:11-34:35) is packed full of action. It includes the story of the idolatrous worship of the golden calf; Moses breaking the tablets; Moses receiving the 10 commandments once again; and more. In Torah Queeries, we will look at specific set of instructions that God gives Moses: recipes for sacred incense and oil. What is a sacred scent? What does it have to do with Purim? How could divine scent be a model for linking us together as queer people and allies?
Blessing for Torah Study
Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu la'asok b’divrei Torah. Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of all, who hallows us with mitzvot, charging us to engage with words of Torah.
Beginning with Our Own Torah
1) Think of or imagine a smell that brings you comfort. What connections do you have to it?
2) What smells do you associate with Purim, queerness, or Shabbat?
Context: Scent
In last week's parsha, Parshat Terumah, God instructed the Israelites to bring many gifts to the Tabernacle (Mishkan), including oil (shemen) and incense (ketoret) for the purposes of lighting, anointing, and aromatics.
Question to consider: What role did scent play in the Temple?
Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed Part 3: Chapter 45 (1190 CE), trans. Shlomo Pines (1963, pgs. 579-580)
[The Temple's] smell would have been that of a slaughterhouse. Therefore it was commanded in regard to it that incense be burnt there twice daily in order to improve its smell and the smell of the clothes of all who served there. You know their dictum: The odor of the incense was smelled even in Jericho (Mishnah Tamid 3:8)... As for the anointing oil, it has two useful functions: it gives a pleasant smell to whatever is anointed with it, and induces the belief that the anointed object is great, sanctified, and distinguished beyond other things of the same kind, regardless of whether the thing is a human or a garment or a vessel. All this redounds to fear of the Sanctuary, which is a cause of fear of the Lord. For when one came there the soul was affected, so that hard hearts were softened and touched.
Shemen - Oil
(22) ה׳ spoke to Moses, saying: (23) Next take choice spices (besamim): five hundred weight of flowing myrrh (Mar-Dror), half as much—two hundred and fifty—of fragrant cinnamon, two hundred and fifty of aromatic cane, (24) five hundred—by the sanctuary weight—of cassia, and a hin of olive oil (shemen). (25) Make of this a sacred anointing oil (shemen mishkhat-kodesh), a compound of ingredients expertly blended, to serve as sacred anointing oil. (26) With it anoint the Tent of Meeting, the Ark of the Pact, (27) the table and all its utensils, the lampstand and all its fittings, the altar of incense, (28) the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils, and the laver and its stand. (29) Thus you shall consecrate them so that they may be most holy; whatever touches them shall be consecrated. (30) You shall also anoint Aaron and his sons, consecrating them to serve Me as priests. (31) And speak to the Israelite people, as follows: This shall be an anointing oil sacred (shemen mishkhat-kodesh) to Me throughout the ages. (32) It must not be rubbed on any person’s body, and you must not make anything like it in the same proportions; it is sacred, to be held sacred by you.
Ketoret - Incense
(34) And ה׳ said to Moses: Take the herbs stacte, onycha, and galbanum—these herbs together with pure frankincense; let there be an equal part of each. (35) Make them into incense (kitoret), a compound expertly blended, refined, pure, sacred. (36) Beat some of it into powder, and put some before the Pact in the Tent of Meeting, where I will meet with you; it shall be most holy to you. (37) But when you make this incense (kitoret), you must not make any in the same proportions for yourselves; it shall be held by you sacred to ה׳.
The Smell of Purim
Rabbi Meir says: Esther was her real name. Why then was she called Hadassah? On account of the righteous, who are called myrtles [hadassim].
מדרש פנים אחרים, נוסח ב
(פב) ד״א כשם שהרס אינו יבש , לא בקיץ ולא בחורף, כן הצדיקים אינן מתייבשין לא בעולם הזה ולא בעולם היא :
Midrash Panim Acherim, Version B, Paragraph 2
The myrtle has a good smell, just like Esther, who performed good deeds; the myrtle does not dry out either in summer or in winter, just as the righteous dry up neither in this world nor in the World to Come.
Rabbi Rachel Barenblat, "A sweet scent before God," Velveteen Rabbi, 2011
In the world of kabbalah, smell is regarded as the loftiest and most transcendent of the senses, the critical connection-point between body and soul. The Ari -- Rabbi Isaac Luria, one of the great founders of kabbalah -- taught that the sense of smell is connected with the month of Adar (in which Purim takes place), perhaps because both of Purim's heroes have a connection to scent. Esther's real name was Hadassah, which means myrtle, and the Talmud drashes the name Mordechai into mar dror, flowing myrrh.
Rava said: A person is obligated to become intoxicated/mellow (lib'sumei) with wine on Purim until he does not know how to distinguish between cursed is Haman and blessed is Mordecai.
Rabbi Rachel Barenblat, "Purim: accepting the highest Torah," Velveteen Rabbi, 2009
Paraphrasing Sefat Emet's (Reb Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter) interpretation of the Gemara:
One thing which is lost in translation is that the word I'm rendering as "mellow," לבסומי/lib'sumei, is related to בסמים/b'samim, spices, as in the spices we savor at havdalah to keep our souls intact as Shabbat departs. So while it seems initially that the Gemara is talking about the obligation to drink until one can't tell the difference between the good guy and the bad guy in this story, a discerning reader may suspect that there may be something else going on here.... [According to the grandfather of Sefat Emet, a.k.a. Reb Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter,] this notion of becoming mellowed (or, one might say, spiced or perfumed) is really about ascending to a place above our constructs of good and evil. We're not just talking about getting wasted; we're talking about a kind of mystical ascent to a new level of understanding....Purim calls us to spiritually connect ourselves with the spice of revelation in order to rise to a level of spiritual discernment where binaries cease to exist because everything is Go(o)d.