Consistent proportions ....

 

Ketores

 

Ketores reminds me of stoichiometry, which is a fancy word in chemistry for proportions. Let’s take H₂O (water)—it is a proportion of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen. No matter how much water I have, whether it’s the volume of a swimming pool, or a tiny drop, it has constant molecular proportionality; every water molecule in that pool or in that tiny drop is no more and no less than two hydrogens for every one oxygen. We have proportionality in the ketores:

“1) Balsam, 2) onycha, 3) & galbanum 4) frankincense – the weight of 70 maneh each. 5) myrrh, 6) cassia & 7) spikenard & 8) saffron – [each] a weight of 16, 16 maneh. 9) costus – 12 maneh 10) aromatic bark – three [maneh] 11) cinnamon – 9 (maneh) [Added also were] Lye of Carsina – 9 Kavs (a measure), Wine of Cypres – 3 Seahs and 3 kavs- and if one did not find wine of Cypres – he brings old wine. Salt of Sodom – a quarter [of a kav.]… Rabbi Yehuda said “This is the general rule – if it is in the same proportion – it is Kosher for half… Bar Kapara taught once every sixty or seventy years there were remains [of the spices] of half."

So long as the proportionality is consistent, the spices can accumulate for future use.

 

Moreover, the ketores symbolize a direct, unfiltered experience (the four other senses we have are regulated by the midbrain, but smell is connected directly to the frontal cortex without an intermediary). The nose is the channel of the neshamah (Genesis 2:7) and the neshama is connected to dreaming and therefore prophetic experience. Our neshamas might not be as vast as the neshamas of the previous generations, they might even be a tiny drop compared to a large pool that is the sages and prophets of previous generations, but they have the same “molecular proportionality” so to speak. A tiny light and a large light are still light. Let us never forget that while we might not be prophets, we will always remain bnei nevi’im, the sons of prophets. Our eternal potential remains. Perhaps one day those tiny drops will themselves come together and form a large pool.

By: Mordakhay Kholdarov