Now that we’ve passed the holiday of Purim, it feels like Passover - and spring - are right around the corner. Even though the weather has been fluctuating wildly, there’s still evidence of the seasons changing all around us. Flower buds poking out, it’s getting lighter and lighter, and everything seems to smell like spring. Once Pesach gets even closer, our sense of smell will truly kick into high gear; first when we clean for the holiday, then when the familiar festival foods start cooking, and eventually when we sit around the Seder table in less than a month. With all this in mind (or in “nose”…), I’d like to spend this blog post talking about our sense of smell. And not just ours, but the Torah portion this week appears to spend a lot of time picturing God’s sense of smell too!
Now that we’re into the Book of Leviticus, the text is really hyper-focused on the ancient sacrifices and all the rituals surrounding them. And while the text may emphasize the sacrifices themselves and the people doing the offering, the real focus of all of this is God. The sacrificial rite was essentially The Way that our ancestors communicated with the Divine. And how did they know if their offerings were accepted? The text repeatedly tells us that the smoke from the altar, wafting up to heaven, would produce “a pleasing odor to Adonai” (Lev. 6:8, 14; 8:21, 28). Watching the mists rising into the sky would tell the worshiper that God was listening… and smelling. The ancient rabbis emphasized that this term, “pleasing odor to Adonai,” was used to describe the most simple to the most complex offerings. It referred to gifts from poor and wealthy alike. The Mishnah states: “ "This teaches you that whether a person gives a costly one or an inexpensive one, as long as he directs his heart to heaven, the type is irrelevant." (Menachot 110a) In other words, what God is “enjoying” isn’t the smell of the food or the animal, but rather the meaning behind our intentions.
Furthermore, whether we’re talking about God’s olfactory sense or ours, it’s clear that the meaning is deeper than just the aroma. The very first instance of the Torah referring to a “pleasing odor” (Ray-ach Nee-cho-ach) was back in Genesis, chapter 8, when God smelled Noah’s offering right after he emerged from the Ark, and immediately promised never to send another flood to destroy humanity. The scent seems to have triggered something for God, much like a perfume, spice, or food may “flood” our brain with memories. More than any other sense, fragrances can take us back to a long-forgotten memory with remarkable speed and accuracy. According to the mystical teachings of the Kabbalah, smell was regarded as the loftiest and most transcendent of the senses, the critical connection point between body and soul. Perhaps it doesn’t just work that way for us, but for Adonai as well.
Smells aren’t as closely tied to our Jewish rituals any longer. We have the
besamim, spices, at the Havdalah ceremony that ends Shabbat every week, but otherwise smells seem more tangential or connected to customs and foods, rather than ritual or theology. But it is still significant to read in our ancient texts how pivotal our noses were, and how the “pleasing odor” from our various offerings were seen as a direct sign of God’s acceptance. As we move further into spring and closer to Pesach, I invite each of us to think about what smells remind us of this upcoming season. How closely linked to your nose are your own associations with nature and with Passover’s foods, rituals, and experiences? It isn’t always the first sense we focus on, yet when we really stop and think about it, it is quite significantly hard-wired to our memories and our emotions. Winter is behind us, the pandemic is receding (thank God), and even though we don’t know what lies ahead or what the future holds, now seems like a perfectly good time to stop and smell the roses… as well as the matzah ball soup, the
charoset and
maror, and all the other fragrances that connect us - and God - to this wonderful, aromatic season!
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