Two Minute Torah Podcast

Korah 5768 by Rabbi Elyse Winick

Shalom! This is Rabbi Elyse Winick, KOACH Associate Director. Welcome to KOACH’s Two Minute Torah, a project of the College Outreach Department of The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. This week I’d like to consider aromatherapy in the Jewish tradition. It sounds funny, I know, but I think that parashat Korah raises some interesting olfactory questions for us.

Our parashah opens with yet another of the Israelite’s rebellions in the desert, in which Korah leads a segment of the community to reject Moses’ leadership, blaming him for all that has gone wrong on the journey. Needless to say, this rejection of Moshe is very much a stand-in for the rejection of God, a God whom they cannot see and truly doubt and whose casting decisions they call into question.

Moshe directs Korah and his followers to bring forth their firepans, filled with fire and incense – ve-hayah ha’ish asher yivhar adonai, hu hakadosh – and the one whom God will choose, he shall be the holy one. Korah and his followers do as they are bidden. Two hundred and fifty come forward with their incense, as do Aaron and Moses. In a flash, the ground beneath the two hundred and fifty opens up and they and their incense-filled firepans are consumed by God’s fire.

God’s creativity in finding punishment for the ever-bratty B’nai Yisrael knows no limits. And yet, I find this particular painful end puzzling. Why the incense and the firepans? The earth could have swallowed them whole with no attendant ritual objects. This episode clearly evokes the punishment of Nadav and Avihu, reminding us that the rebellion here is not against Moses and Aaron per se, but against the role of the priesthood, of who is kadosh by God’s definition. It is leadership as an institution which is being questioned here.

There is a totality of experience that the incense evokes. The blue-gold shimmer of the flames as they release the hidden qualities the incense possesses. The heat of the flame which repels even as it draws near. And the scent of incense as it is offered before the Lord. Not only God smells the fragrance – one might even question if God smells the fragrance – but we smell it as well. And it evokes memory for us in a powerful and unanticipated way. The smell of the bureau drawer in your grandmother’s dresser. The scent of fresh baked hallah wafting through the neighborhood on Friday afternoon. Autumn leaves as they are consumed by flame. Like the taste of Proust’s madeleine, they take us back.

We are compelled to remember this rebellion in the context of its imagery so that the importance of that totality is never lost on us. Do our institutions strive to serve our community in a wholistic way? Do we look out for spiritual wellbeing, physical wellbeing, education and environment? The questions Korah raises hang in the balance, commingled with the smoke the incense leaves behind. Only if we seek to raise the fallen, support the needy, extend a hand, only then will the scent of the incense fill us with comfort and completion. Only then will our communities fulfill their mandates in the service of the holy and the good.