ועשית מזבח מקטר קטרת, “You are to construct an altar on which to bring incense up in smoke.” Nachmanides writes on this verse that the Altar for incense was one of the interior furnishings and as such it should have been mentioned earlier where the Table, and the Menorah and their respective measurements and the materials they were made of were described. They were mentioned together in Exodus 37,25 where the actual construction of these furnishings is reported. The reason that the Altar for incense is mentioned here only at the end of all the instructions and after G’d having said that He would dwell amongst the Jewish people, is that the Torah wanted to wait with this seeing it (the incense) was the instrument of arresting pestilence amongst the Jewish people. In essence, the Altar of incense represented the attribute of Justice. Moses referred to this aspect when he blessed the tribe of Levi (Deut. 33,10) referring to the time when ישימו קטורה באפיך, “they would place incense to counter Your anger.” We know that the word אף is a description of anger when it is used in connection with G’d, such as in Deut. 31,17 וחרה אפי, “and My anger will be kindled, etc.” When the sons of Aaron offered unauthorized incense they died on the spot (Leviticus 10,3). There are numerous verses alluding to the extreme caution to be used when offering incense. Seeing that Nachmanides has already touched on this difficult subject, it is in place to comment on something Maimonides has written in his Moreh Nevuchim section 3 chapter 45 in connection with the purpose of the incense. He explains that the many animals which were burned on the Altar left behind a very unpleasant odor and that the fragrance of the incense was designed to offset this bad odor.

Seeing that Maimonides has made it his task to make Torah legislation and its reason more palatable to people who are far from tradition, he was forced to adopt this kind of explanation in presenting the reason for this legislation. This does not mean, however, G’d forbid, that the entire legislation of incense and its very strict rules had such incidental considerations as its purpose. Maimonides was well aware that the karet penalty would not be decreed against someone who copied the composition of the ingredients of the incense and its proportions if all such a person had been guilty of was to alleviate bad odors by doing so (compare 30,37-38). I will have more to say about the subject of incense when we shall discuss the sin of Nadav and Avihu.

בבקר בבקר, “morning after morning.” in connection with the daily communal offering known as תמיד, the Torah uses the word “morning” only once. We read in Numbers 28,4 את הכבש אחד תעשה בבקר. The reason was that the incense would be offered before the תמיד sacrifice of the morning, so that it was not the first offering of the day.

בין הערבים יקטירנה, “he shall bring it up in smoke in the afternoon.” It is a well known fact that the fragrance of incense burned in the late afternoon lingers longer than its counterpart burned in the morning. This is already referred to in Psalms 141,2: “take my prayer as an offering of incense, my upraised hands as an evening sacrifice.” David emphasizes that which is offered in the afternoon/evening. When referring to his offering he did not mention such offerings as sin-offerings or guilt-offerings or even burnt-offerings, but asked G’d to look kindly on his offering of incense. All the other offerings are in expiation of some sin, even sins committed only in one’s thoughts and never carried out which are atoned for by the עולה, the burnt-offering. The incense offering has no connotation of sin associated with it at all. David asked that his prayer be accepted by G’d as if it had been incense. This is also why he said in the verse following שיתה ה' שמרה לפי, “O Lord set a guard over my mouth.” I believe that the word שיתה belongs together with the word לפי, as if David had said: שיתה ה' לפי, שמרה לפי, he meant that G’d should put suitable words in his mouth. David thereby alluded to what G’d had said to Moses in Exodus 4,11 מי שם פה לאדם, “who has provided man with a mouth?” David requested that G’d help him not to utter words which are not appropriate. This is the meaning of the latter half of the verse in Psalms 141,3 נצרה על-דל שפתי, “set a watch at the door of my lips.” The word דל is short for דלת שפתי. The idea of a mouth having a door is already described in Micah 7,5 where the prophet says שמר פתחי פיך, “be guarded in your speech.” He used the word פתח to describe the mouth which opens and closes just like a door. G’d uses similar language in Job 41,6 saying of Leviathan: דלתי פניו מי פתח, “who can pry open his face?” The word נצרה in Psalms 141,3 is in an imperative form just like מכרה in Genesis 25,31, or in Genesis 43,8 when Yehudah told his father Yaakov שלחה הנער אתי, “send the lad (Binyamin) with me!” The dagesh in the letter צ of the word נצרה is merely for aesthetical purposes to make the reading of the word more pleasant-sounding. It is similar to the dagesh in Exodus 15,17 in the letter ק of the word מקדש of the line מקדש ה' כוננו ידיך. It results in doubling the sound. The psalmist could have written נצור just as easily as he wrote נצרה. Concerning the words משאת כפי מנחת ערב, “my upraised hands as a gift of the evening,” David requests here that his prayer at this time be even more welcome to G’d than an offering of incense in the morning. The reason he describes his prayer as “his outstretched palms,” is to compare it to the incense which is born on one’s hands, having in mind Leviticus 16,12: “and his cupped handfuls of finely ground incense.” Another thought David may have had in mind when he referred to מנחת ערב may have been related to the meaning of the word ערבות, “pleasing,” as in Maleachi 3,4, וערבה לה' מנחת יהודה וירושלים, “then the offerings of Yehudah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord, etc.” Seeing that of all the sacrifices none is as welcome to G’d as the incense, its smoke begins to rise heavenwards immediately it is placed on the altar. This is why at the beginning of this hymn David describes it as קראתיך חושה לי, “when I call You hasten to me.”

לא תעלו עליו קטרת זרה, “You must not offer on it alien incense, etc.” There is a warning contained in this verse not to offer any other sacrifice on the altar before the incense has been offered. Not even other incense offerings by individuals or groups must be offered before the daily incense offerings prescribed by the Torah to be offered on behalf of the whole people by the High Priest. Most certainly no other sacrifices of any kind are to precede the incense offering. Anyone who contravenes this instruction is guilty of violating one of the 365 negative commandments of the Torah [although such offerings are offered on a different altar, the one in the courtyard. Ed.]. ועולה, “or a burnt-offering.” Even merely a libation of water as an offering is prohibited before the incense is offered. The precise time frame legislated by the Torah as the correct one for offering the incense is the time when the oil (of the Menorah) starts cooling. We know this from the words in verse 7 בבקר בבקר בהיטיבו את הנרות יקטירנו, “every morning when he cleans out the lamps he shall bring it up in smoke.” This verse is followed by similar instructions concerning the evening portion of the incense offering. This may be the reason that Solomon characterized the oil and the incense as things which cause the heart to rejoice (Proverbs 27,9).

A Midrashic approach (based on Tanchuma Tetzaveh 15): The meaning of the words in that verse of Proverbs, i.e. שמן וקטרת ישמח הלב, that “oil and incense gladden the heart,” is that the anointing oil is used to anoint the High Priest at which time all of Israel rejoice that they have evidence that G’d has forgiven their sins and that the service by the High Priest has been accepted by G’d on behalf of the people. You will find that no one’s offerings have been praised as much as those of the princes. The reason is that the first thing they offered was the incense, as we read in Numbers 7,14: “one spoonful of incense.” Only afterwards does the Torah report that the princes also each offered a bull, etc., etc. This is the reason G’d Himself praised their offerings by mentioning the name of each prince separately together with the details of his offering although all twelve princes brought exactly the same offering and the Torah could have saved itself at least 60 verses in summarizing these offerings. You will find that King Achaz (father of the famous good King Chizkiyah) was guilty of annulling large parts of the Torah and Temple service as described in Chronicles II 29,7-8. When Ezra describes how Achaz’ son Chiskiyah restored the Temple service, repaired the building, etc., special mention is made of the restoration of the daily incense offering. (Compare Isaiah 8,16: צור תעוד, חתום תורה בלמודי, “Bind up the message, seal the instructions with My disciples.”) The prophet refers to the evil doings of Achaz. He did not only serve idols because he believed in them but only in order to anger the Lord G’d of Israel. Whereas G’d was prepared to forgive him for all his various sins, the unforgivable sin was the cancellation of the incense offering. This is why Ezra had added the words: ”they also shut the doors of the porch and put out the lights; they did not offer incense and did not make burnt-offerings, etc.” This is followed by: “The wrath of the Lord was on Judah and Jerusalem. He made them into an object of horror, amazement, etc.” Proof of how beloved the incense offering was to G’d is supplied further by the fact that in spite of all the contributions, the building of the Tabernacle, the offerings of animals, the Shechinah did not manifest itself until after the incense had been offered as we know from an allusion in Song of Songs 4,16: “Awake from the north, (location where burnt-offerings were slaughtered) and come from the south (where peace-offerings were slaughtered) ....let their fragrant goodness flow in Jerusalem!”

יראת ה' תוסיף ימים ושנות רשעים תקצרנה, “The fear of the Lord prolongs one’s days; but the years of the wicked will be shortened” (Proverbs 10,27).

In this verse Solomon teaches that a person’s life span is extended or shortened in accordance with his merits or the punishment for which he has qualified. Such results are due to נס נסתר, intervention by G’d in a person’s fate by miraculous ways which are not visible to us. The various types of miracles are divided into two groups. 1) There are clearly manifest miracles; 2) there are miracles which are totally concealed from man as the onlooker. The miracles which are recognized as such are the extraordinary occurrences which have befallen people or which have occurred for the benefit of people such as the producing of water from a rock, the descent of bread from heaven, i.e. the manna; even the sudden appearance of the quails in large numbers after their appearance had been predicted was a clearly manifest miracle. When Avraham overcame the four mightiest kings and their armies in battle having with him only 318 men, this too was a clear miracle. Even though no specific supernatural event occurred at that time the victory was a נס נסתר, a “hidden” miracle, i.e. it became clear to everyone who knew what happened that G’d must have intervened in the outcome of that military encounter. Lengthening someone’s life span or shortening it is also a hidden miracle. This is what Solomon said here. Although constant worries are by definition factors which weaken a person and undermine his health, and such people could be expected to die after less than a normal life span, Solomon says that if the worry was due to their being righteous people this will contribute to their normal life span being extended rather than shortened. The reverse is true of the wicked. Although their carefree and worry-free mode of life could be expected to result in their living longer than their righteous counterparts, the facts are the reverse. Such wicked people will enjoy fewer years than the righteous who constantly worry about their sins and the retribution they will have to face eventually. The essence of Solomon’s teaching here is that the only true yardstick for who enjoys long life and who dies (apparently) prematurely, are considerations of merit and lack of merit. Our sages illustrated the truth of Solomon’s statement by pointing out that during the entire 410 years that the Temple of Solomon stood there were only 18 High Priests, whereas during the 420 years of the second Temple there were a total of 300 High Priests. The reason was that the high Priests during the first Temple were all righteous individuals whereas most of the High Priests during the second Temple were not righteous. This is why there were so many of them.

One must not understand the verse we quoted from Proverbs as meaning that the wicked will absolutely always live short lives, and that the righteous will always live to a ripe old age. After all, we witness every day that certain wicked people live extraordinarily long lives, whereas very saintly people sometimes die very young. One of the best examples was king Chizkiyah who was about to die at the age of 39 and even after G’d had listened to his plea and added 15 years to his life he still died at a much younger age than the average (compare Kings II 20,6). Just as G’d does not lengthen the life span of every righteous person, He does not cut short the life span of every wicked person. Perhaps we may conclude from the death at a relatively young age of a person who appears to have been a great צדיק, that he was not totally righteous, and that if a wicked person lived for many long years that he was not totally wicked but had merits which enabled him to enjoy extra years. The fact is that the addition of extra years or the cutting short of one’s life span is in the category of a נס נסתר, a “hidden miracle.” It proves G’d’s intervention in nature without giving us details as to what precisely caused the intervention and to what degree G’d intervened. In fact it is axiomatic to remember that a person is not a true believer, i.e. does not really have a share in Moses’ Torah unless he is absolutely convinced of the fact that G’d performs such hidden miracles all the time, that there is no accident and no coincidence in the universe. G’d is aware of all that occurs and has had a hand in it (See Nachmanides at the end of Parshat Bo.) The second part of this absolute faith that is required of each Jew is that he must be convinced that every one of his good deeds will qualify for reward and every one of his sins will be subject to punishment. The whole matter of blessings and curses which was already spelled out in Deut. 27,15-26 and some of which has been debated in Niddah 31, i.e. that the person who is subject to a miracle being performed for him is unaware of that at the time, is the reason our sages said in Baba Metzia 42 that when one enters one’s grain storage chamber in order to measure the size of one’s crop, one should pronounce a benediction asking G’d to bless one’s store. If one first measured the size of the stored grain and pronounced this benediction only subsequent to having measured it, such a prayer is considered as using the name of G’d in vain as G’d had already decreed either blessing or curse on that grain. We have a principle that blessings are not bestowed on matters which have been measured, weighed, or counted. Only matters which have escaped our eye and its ability to measure it are subject to blessings. This is another way of saying that the principle we have called נס נסתר, the “hidden miracle,” is constantly at work. If such blessings could be applied to matters we have weighed or measured such a miracle would no longer be “hidden.” This was one of the major reasons the Torah forbade head-counts of people to ensure they would not be exposed to the “evil eye,” As long as the blessings apply to people in a manner which cannot be checked, the עין הרע, the evil eye, the negative influence brought to bear, does not have a precise target on which to focus. The evil eye can influence only matters which have been measured, weighed or counted. Having appreciated this you will understand why the count of the males over 20 years of age which is the subject of the early part of our Parshah had to be conducted by means of a coin, i.e. the half-shekel.

כי תשא את ראש בני ישראל לפקודיהם ונתנו איש כופר נפשו לה' בפקוד אותם ולא יהיה בהם נגף בפקוד אותם. “When you take a census of the Children of Israel according to their numbers, every man shall give Hashem an atonement of his soul when counting them so that there will not be a plague amongst them when counting them.”

According to the plain meaning of the text, the words כי תשא which do not contain a command are phrased in such a manner that it can be considered applicable for all future times as well as for immediate application. The words כי תשא certainly imply that at this time a census would take place. However, they also implied that a future census if and when it would occur would be performed in a similar manner. The Israelites were not to be counted by counting their heads. The reason that David erred when he ordered a head count as reported in Samuel II 24,2 was precisely because the wording of the Torah at this point sounds ambiguous. He ordered Yoav at the time to count the people without resorting to shekalim or similar devices when he said: שוט נא בכל שבטי ישראל מדן ועד באר שבע ופקדו את העם וידעתי את מספר העם, “Make the rounds of all the tribes of Israel from Dan to Beer-Sheba and take a census of the people, so that I may know the size of the population.” It is written further (verses 3,4, and 10) Yoav answered the king: “May the Lord your G’d increase the number of the people a hundredfold, while your own eyes see it! But why should my lord king want this? However, the king king’s command to Yoav and to the officers of the army remained firm; and Yoav and the officers of the army set out, at the instance of the king, to take a census of the people of Israel. But afterward David reproached himself for having numbered the people, and David said to the Lord: ‘I have sinned grievously in what I have done. Please, O Lord, remit the guilt of Your servant, for I have acted foolishly.’”

A Midrashic approach to the words כי תשא, based on Pessikta Zutrata on our verse. G’d said to Moses: “how are you going to raise the stature of the Jewish people? By the words כי תשא, seeing that it is written (Proverbs 14,34) ‘charity exalts a nation, the kindness of a nation is a form of sin.’” Rabbi Yehoshua interpreted this verse to mean that the nation mentioned first are the Jewish people who are elevated spiritually by giving charity. They are described in Samuel II 7,23 as “who else is like Your nation Israel unique on earth?” The second half of the verse contrasts the behaviour of the Gentile nations with that of the Jewish people, saying that whatever apparent kindness they perform is only a form of hidden sin. They do not perform good deeds for altruistic reasons but only in order to promote their own image. This perception is confirmed by Daniel 4,24 advising Nebuchadnezzar after explaining his dream to him: “redeem your sins by beneficence and your iniquities by generosity to the poor; then your serenity may be extended.”

ונתנו איש כופר נפשו בפקוד אותם, “every man shall give an atonement for his soul when counting them.” This refers to the census in the desert. ולא יהיה בהם נגף בפקוד אותם, these words refer to counting the people in future generations. This is why the words בפקוד אותם were necessary a second time. It is also possible that the first time the expression בפקוד אותם was mentioned it means actual counting, whereas the second time the meaning of the word is: “supervising the fate,” just as in Jeremiah 10,15 בעת פקדתם יאבדו, “in their hour of doom they shall perish.” In that event the translation of the verse would be: “they shall each give an atonement for his soul to G’d when they are being counted so that there will be no plague affecting them when G’d exercises His supervision over their fates.”

The most important revelation of our verse is that all the people that were counted each enjoy individual supervision of their fates by the Lord G’d. All the deeds performed by any individual are recorded. This is why these people become potential victims of a plague. As long as they had only been part of a whole, and not individuals in their own right, the evil eye had not been able to focus on them, seeing they were not a number in themselves. The whole idea of enjoying individual supervision of one’s fate by G’d carries with it also the awesome responsibility of ensuring one does not become a candidate for punishment by G’d. When the woman of Shunem for whom the prophet Elisha had offered to intercede with the king (Kings II 4,3) declined his offer by saying: “I live amongst my people,” (I do not need to be singled out), she had exactly this thought in mind. Once she would have become a known quantity at the king’s court, she was also liable to draw unwelcome attention to herself if she committed a mistake. As long as she was more or less anonymous, no trespass would be accounted as her personal fault specifically. The day on which all our actions are reviewed by G’d is Rosh Hashanah, New year’s Day. On that day each one of us is treated as an individual and this is why it is such an awesome day. On that day our deeds are isolated from the fact that all of us are also members of the community at large (compare Jeremiah 32,19). We also find this thought in Ruth 1,1 where the prophet Samuel begins the Book by stressing the individuality of Elimelech and how by trying to be different from the community and suffering their collective fate he set himself up for punitive action by G’d involving both him and his sons. The Book stresses his name both when his emigration is reported and when he died (one verse later). [It would have sufficed to write “this man died,” without his name being mentioned again as there had not been a change of subject after his name had been mentioned first in verse 2.]

מחצית השקל בשקל הקדש, “one half shekel of the sacred shekel.” According to the plain meaning of the text we have to consider that Moses’ position amongst the people was equal to that of crowned heads of government in other nations as it states in Deut. 33,5: “he was king in Yeshurun.” This is why a silver coin had been minted in his honor. This coin was of a certain weight and the silver it was cast from was free from impurities. The reason this coin was called קדש, “sacred,” was because all the commandments are “sacred,” and for the performance of some of the commandments it is necessary to pay out such a coin or multiples of it. In other words, the coin basically served a sacred purpose. One example of the need for such coins was the redemption of firstborn male babies of the average Israelite who had to be redeemed by a priest in exchange for 5 such coins (or its equivalent weight in silver). Most of chapter 27 at the end of the Book of Leviticus is devoted to the ערכין legislation which stipulates that people having made vows involving the evaluation of their own persons or others have to discharge these vows by paying varying amounts of multiples of such a coin as described here. When we call our Torah the “sacred Torah,” we are motivated by similar considerations. Even the Hebrew language is called לשון הקדש, “the sacred tongue,” as it is the foremost language in which sacred matters are written about and are discussed by the scholars. Even the names of the angels have the adjective “sacred” attached to them. Names of angels such as Gavriel, Rafael, etc., all reflect their association with the sacred name of G’d, hence the letters א-ל at the end of their respective names. This is also reflected in Psalms 68,18 רכב אלו-הים רבותים אלפי שנאן ה' בהם, “G’d’s chariots are myriads upon myriads, thousands upon thousands; the Lord is among them.” [The idea of calling chariots owned by man “G’d’s chariots” is justifiable only when such chariots are placed in the service of sacred duties. Ed.] Hebrew is also the tongue in which the universe was created. [The directives were issued in Hebrew. Ed.] Our sages (Bereshit Rabbah 18,6) are on record saying that the world was created with לשון הקדש, the sacred tongue. They base this on Genesis 2,23 לזאת יקרא אשה כי מאיש לוקחה זאת “this (woman) shall be called אשה, as it has been taken (derived) from איש.” The various names Adam gave to his wife and sons such as חוה, קין, הבל all indicate that their meanings are based on the Hebrew language which therefore must have been the original language spoken after Adam was created. All the other names mentioned in the Book of Genesis (at least prior to the building of the Tower) were based on meanings in the Hebrew language. Eventually, all the other nations will revert to the use of Hebrew as all peoples had done prior to G’d confusing man’s languages at the time of the building of the Tower (Genesis 11,7). We know this on the authority of Tzefaniah 3,9: “for then I will make all the peoples pure of speech, so that they will all invoke the Lord by name, etc.” The reason the Torah legislates that the males to be counted contribute “half” a shekel (instead of a whole one), is because when the Israelites served the golden calf they had violated the Ten Commandments, and the coin called “half shekel” weighs ten geyrah. This is why every male Israelite who had reached the age of accountability vis-a-vis the celestial court, i.e. the age of 20, had to pay the ten geyrah as a symbol of the sin of which he had been guilty. Remarkably, this half shekel amounted in value to only one tenth of the value of the five shekalim needed to redeem a firstborn son of an Israelite as the Torah wrote: “and the amount he is to be redeemed by is the value of five shekalim which is twenty geyrah each, ” (Numbers 18,16).

A Midrashic approach (Tanchuma Ki Tissa 10): Seeing the sin of the golden calf took place at noon or immediately thereafter (seeing the people had been prepared up to that hour for Moses to return from the mountain), the sum fixed for the symbolic atonement was a half-shekel corresponding to the half-day. When the Torah writes in 32,1 וירא העם כי בשש משה לרדת מן ההר, “When the people saw that Moses was tardy in descending from the mountain,” etc., the word בשש may be read as ב-שש, “at six (hours)” i.e. at noon.

A rational approach: The reason the Torah stipulated a half-shekel when the Torah could just as easily have demanded a whole shekel of ten geyrah weight, was to hint to every intelligent person that he must weigh his actions in life so as to give due weight to his spiritual needs as well as to his physical needs. Ideally, he should be able to give full weight to both these requirements each, i.e. a full shekel to each. In fact, he ought to be able to use his body exclusively in the service of the Lord. However, on the other hand, sometimes attention to the physical needs such as eating, drinking, sleeping, provision of clothing, etc., is essential for the continued ability to serve the Lord. Keeping these factors in mind, the Torah, by speaking of a half shekel, hinted that it is aware that we suffer from this dichotomy of demands made upon us. We have numerous sayings of our sages in which they interpret verses in the Torah as reflecting this dual-duty of the Jew to look after both his body and his soul. Examples are Pessachim 68 where the verse in Deut. 16,8: וביום השביעי עצרת תהיה לה’ אלו-היך, “and on the seventh day there shall be a an assembly for the Lord your G’d,” is contrasted with Numbers 29,35 עצרת תהיה לכם, “it shall be an assembly for you.” Rabbi Yehoshua is quoted as saying that the Torah means that on these festivals we are to divide our time equally between religious activities and mundane activities such as eating and drinking. It goes without saying that even when indulging in mundane activities one should strive to perform this with a view to benefiting one’s soul, one’s spiritual level as a personality. This very donating of the coin, i.e. using money, must be לה', devoted to divinely inspired purposes. When this is the case then one has achieved the degree of sanctity described by the Torah when it calls the coin “sacred.”

A kabbalistic approach: The mystical dimension of the atonement by means of a “half” shekel was to parallel the attempt to divide between what the people had seen (i.e. the fire), and what they had heard (the thunder and G’d’s voice) at Mount Sinai. The sin of the golden calf was that they related incorrectly to the two phenomena they had seen at Mount Sinai. [Remember the Torah spoke of the people having “seen” sounds, Ed.] The root of the sin at the golden calf episode was doubting or undermining the Unity of G’d, His indivisible nature, in spite of the manifold ways in which He manifested Himself. Seeing that the sin involved one of the TEN commandments it was appropriate that the act of atonement would be performed by a coin worth TEN geyrah, by a half-shekel and not by a whole shekel even if it had the same weight as this half-shekel. The reason that the silver for the shekel was also described as בקע, “valley,” was that they had made a bottom of the head and a head out of a bottom when they became guilty of idolatry. [According to Torat Chayim, quoted by Rabbi Chavell, the words “making a head of the end and an end of the head,” refer to reversing the meaning of the letters of the attributes of G’d in His tetragrammaton. By committing idolatry the final letter ה in the tetragrammaton had been treated as separate, treated entirely out of context in which it had been when spelled correctly. Ed.] As a result of such considerations, the silver given for this census was used to construct the sockets (bottom) of the walls (upright beams) of the Tabernacle in order to serve as an ongoing warning how the people had committed a theological reversal in worshipping the golden calf, or considering it as a symbol of the attribute of G’d which had taken them out of Egypt (compare what we have written on Exodus 38,28). Seeing that the Israelites were “weighed” in terms of the “sacred shekel,” they were found wanting. This is perhaps best illustrated by a verse in Daniel 5,27: תקל תקלתא במאזניא והשתכחת חסיר, “you were weighed in the scales and found wanting.” (the meaning of the writing on the wall in Belshazzar’s palace). Seeing the sin committed by the Israelites at the golden calf episode had been so grievous an error, they were required to give this sacred half-shekel to G’d in atonement for their souls.

תרומה לה', “an offering for G’d.” The expression תרומה, gift, heave-offering, occurs three times in this paragraph. The Torah wanted to remind us that there were in fact three distinct such gifts. The first gift was the contribution of the materials for building the Tabernacle. The second contribution was the half-shekel mentioned here; the third תרומה, contribution, was the money (shekel) for the public offerings on the altar in the Tabernacle. I have already mentioned the details of this in connection with 25,2. The half-shekel mandatory contributions mentioned here were the ones from which the silver sockets containing the beams of the Tabernacle were constructed. Each socket was made of a whole talent of silver (38,27) so that between the 100 talents of silver contributed by 600,000 men over the age of 20 almost all of it was used up for these sockets, seeing each beam had two sockets and there were a total of 48 such beams. The pillars supporting the dividing curtain, four in number, also had one such socket each. Any overage, i.e. the shekels of the 3000 plus people over the number 600,000 was used to support the hangings of the curtains around the courtyard of the Tabernacle.

ונתת אותו על עבודת אהל מועד, “you are to give it for the work of the Tent of Meeting, etc.” I have already explained in detail how the use of these silver shekalim symbolized the sin committed during the episode of the golden calf. There had to be a visible reminder of this sin to ensure it would never be repeated. Only by being reminded of a sin, especially in such an oblique way would one continue to be full of remorse about it. This concept has been spelled out in Psalms 51,5 where David describes his sin involving Bat Sheva as one he would remain conscious of forever. At the same time, the very words לפני ה' are the reassurance by G’d to these people that they were again in His good graces. When the people are out of favour they are not לפני ה', “before, or in the presence of, the Lord.” All of this is why this silver (money) was called כסף הכפורים, “the silver (money) of atonement.”

The reason the paragraph dealing with the construction of the copper basin from the waters of which the priests were to wash their hands and feet is mentioned immediately after the paragraph dealing with the census, etc., is that we have a tradition that the waters in that basin were instrumental in attracting sufficient quantities of rain water for the land of Israel. Seeing that the contributions of the shekalim were in the nature of charity, and charity is instrumental in increasing the amount of beneficial rainfall, whereas withholding promised charity results in G’d withholding rainfall, there is a conceptual linkage between these two subjects [although on this occasion only the donations of the shekalim was mandatory and had an additional function, i.e. to secure atonement. Ed.]. Proverbs 25,14 is a source for the claim that unfulfilled charity vows result in suspension of beneficial rainfall. Solomon said: “He who boasts falsely of giving, is like clouds and wind that do not bring rain.”

ובין המזבח, “and between the altar.” Rashi writes that the altar mentioned in this verse is the copper altar outside the Sanctuary. Accordingly, this basin was positioned slightly to the left of the entrance to the Sanctuary so as not to block it but at the same time between the west side of the altar and the Sanctuary. There was nothing blocking the view from the altar to the entrance of the Sanctuary. This is made plainer in 40,6. The whole subject is discussed in Zevachim 59. The basin itself had 12 spouts (like the teats on the udder of a cow) so that the 12 priests who were on duty when performing the daily communal offering could wash their hands from it simultaneously (Yuma 37). [These details referred to the Temple, not the Tabernacle in the desert when there were not yet 12 priests altogether. Ed.] Actually, there were a total of 13 priests involved in the daily communal offering as the Mishnah lists 13 different tasks being performed by these priests (Yuma 25). However, seeing that from a ritual point of view the actual slaughtering of the sheep could be performed by a non-priest, only 12 priests were actually required for the service under discussion. Even a priest did not need to wash his hands and feet prior to slaughtering the sacrificial animal.

ורחצו אהרן ובניו ממנו את ידיהם ואת רגליהם, “and Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet from this basin and the water therein.” The priest would wash his hands and feet at the same time, as has been explained in Zevachim 19. He would place his right hand on top of his right foot and his left hand on top of his left foot and would wash them.

According to the plain meaning of our text, the need for performing this washing (assuming the priests had not entered the holy precincts with dirty hands or feet) was that it was an accepted ceremony before facing Royalty. Any of the king’s attendants who served food at his table had to wash his hands immediately prior to serving the food, seeing that hands are by nature busy with many activities of which the owner is often even unaware. The reason the priests also had to wash their feet immediately before performing sacrificial service was because they were barefoot (Jerusalem Talmud Shekalim 5,1).

A Kabbalistic approach: the washing of the ten fingers and ten toes was an allusion to the ten emanations which enabled the physical universe to be created out of a totally abstract domain. When man raises his hands above his head he raises ten fingers, i.e. alludes to these ten emanations. By standing on the ground with his ten toes he demonstrates that his beginning and end (in our parlance “top to bottom”) is all a reminder of these ten emanations. This is also the reason that the sages decreed that prior to praying one ought to wash one’s hands (Berachot 15). The expression נטילת ידים for “washing one’s hands,” [as opposed to רחיצת ידים] is an allusion to Psalms 134,2 שאו ידיכם קדש, “elevate, raise your hands (before) performing something sacred and proceed to bless the Lord.” A similar expression to the word שאו is found Psalms 119,48 where the psalmist says: “I raise my hands (elevate) towards Your commandments.” This is why Onkelos translates the word ורחצו, “they shall wash,” as ויקדשון, “they shall sanctify.” Elsewhere Onkelos translates the word ורחצו as: ויסחון such as in Genesis 18,4 where Avraham asks his guests to wash their feet. The Torah hints that the priest who performs service in the Tabernacle/Temple “clothes” himself in the sanctity of the ten emanations by the act of washing his hands and feet from the basin. Nachmanides views the covenant with G’d which was both oral (mouth) and on man’s flesh (circumcision), as symbolically interposed between the ten fingers of the two hands and the ten toes of the two feet respectively.

ואתה קח לך בשמים ראש מר דרור, “and you take for yourself choice spices, pure myrrh 500 shekel-weights.” In this paragraph G’d commanded how to prepare the anointing oil out of five different components. They were: myrrh, cinnamon, fragrant cane, cassia, and olive oil. Moses was commanded to use the mixture of these ingredients to anoint Aaron, his sons, the Tabernacle, and its furnishings. It was forbidden to reproduce this mixture for other purposes. They called this mixture קדש, “sacred.” This is the reason the Torah speaks of שמן משחת קדש, “oil of anointment of sacred things.” The various commentators and Maimonides are agreed that the spice called מר דרור is identical with Almoshk (congealed blood of a certain free roaming musk deer in India). Rabbi Saadyah Gaon also identified בשמים ראש as this musk.

This is blood congealed near the throat of this free-roaming beast resembling a deer and in the summer when it is very hot and that beast walks amongst trees and its coat rubs involuntarily against the bark of the trees, some of this congealed blood leaves its body and is collected by people for the sake of its fragrance. People find it amongst the herbs. This is why in Song of Songs 5,1 Solomon describes G’d’s response to Israel as “I have already come to My garden, etc.” אריתי מורי, “I gathered My מור.” The reason the Torah describes it as דרור, “free,” is to indicate that it was to be pure and unadulterated.

Nachmanides understands the word דרור as not referring to the spice called מר, but as describing the free uninhibited nature of the deer-like animal from which it is derived. Accordingly, the substance would have to be removed from the animal directly, while it is in its original undiluted form at a time when the animal continues to enjoy its unfettered lifestyle. If it were to be taken from the animal after same had been captured and domesticated, there would not only be very little of it available quantity-wise, but it also would already have lost its distinctive fragrance. All of the foregoing is based on the opinion of those experts who identify myrrh as an animalistic substance.

[Continuation of Nachmanides:] I believe that this interpretation is completely untenable seeing that the Midrash Shir Hashirim Rabbah 1,13 (on the words צרור המור), has described the words in Song of Songs 5,1 which we quoted earlier as applying to our patriarch Avraham who was the ראש, the head, i.e. the first of all the righteous people. Just as myrrh was considered the head (best) of all the spices, so Avraham was the best of all the righteous people. [His deeds were as fragrant in the eyes of the Lord as is the perfume made of מור in the nostrils of people inhaling it. Just as myrrh does not exude its fragrance except when exposed to light, so did Avraham’s name as a person of religious integrity not become known until after he had been thrown into a furnace of white-hot fire. Just as anyone who collects myrrh with his hands experiences that the skin of his hands becomes rough and bitter, so Avraham subjected himself to a variety of self-flagellations. This Midrash is proof that מור and musk cannot be identical as musk exudes its fragrance also when there is no light. The author quotes Nachmanides as believing that the word מור refers to a herb called myrrh in Latin, and armanon (or similar) in Persian. Most languages know the herb producing this fragrance by the name myrrh. When the Midrash claimed that the hands of anyone collecting this herb become rough and bitter tasting, it referred to a taste similar to לענה, wormwood. When the authors of the Midrash described this spice as ראש כל מיני בשמים which we previously understood as “the best of the various kinds of spices,” a description hardly applicable to wormwood, the Midrash refers to the fact that it was listed as the first category of the ingredients of the anointing oil. It is not a description describing its quality as a fragrance. The word דרור, refers to the need for this מור to be pure, unadulterated, precisely because people use it in an adulterated form to counteract its negative qualities. The reason the Torah lists it first is because in the list of the ingredients for the incense offering which are enumerated later in this chapter it represents the most potent ingredient. It produced a copius cloud of incense. When we read about the preparation of the girls aspiring to become Ahasversus’ queen, we are told that they were first treated for 6 months with oil containing this myrrh. This shows how important an ingredient this spice was as a cosmetic treatment (compare Esther 2,12). Clearly the herb “myrrh” was one from which oil for perfume could be extracted also. According to Nachmanides this oil would be extracted from the bark of the myrrh plant. [According to the Encyclopedia Britannica myrrh is an agreeably aromatic but bitter-tasting resinous substance obtained from small thorny trees that belong to the genus Commiphora. The name is derived from the Arabic word for “bitter.” You will note that all the remarks made in the Midrash are reflected in that definition. Ed.]. So far Nachmanides. I do not believe that the case has been proven. It is entirely possible that when the Torah speaks of מור in our verse, the reference is to the substance mentioned by Maimonides and Rav Saadyah Gaon. At the same time, the expression צרור המור which we find in Song of Songs 1,13 may be the myrrh that Nachmanides is speaking about. Each one may be correctly described as ראש, “head” of all kinds of spices. The latter as the leading spice in preparing the incense, and making smoke rise, the former as the principal ingredient in preparing the oil of anointment effective also in the absence of light. Psalms 45,9 speaking of מור ואהלות קציעות כל בגדותיך, “all your robes fragrant with myrrh and aloes,” would indicate that the fragrance of מור does not necessarily depend on the presence of light.

מחציתו חמשים ומאתים, “half its quantity, i.e. 250.” Who did not know that half of 500 is 250? Why did the Torah not merely say: “half the amount?” Our sages in Keritut 5 have had a tradition that the weight of the cinnamon was actually 500 just like the weight of the מור דרור. The Torah stipulated for reasons unknown to us that whereas the quantity of the former was mixed in all at once, the cinnamon was divided into two lots of 250 each and weighed separately each time before being mixed into the oil.

שמן משחת קדש יהיה זה לי, “this shall remain for Me oil of sacred anointment.” Nachmanides explains that actually we would have expected the Torah to write יהיה לאהרן ולבניו, “it shall be for Aaron and his sons.” The reason that he Torah did not phrase it in this manner but wrote: “it will be for Me (G’d),” is to make plain that in future generations High Priests and furnishings of the Temple, etc., would also have to be consecrated by the same mixture. We might have misunderstood the words “anyone who compounds its like or uses it to anoint a non-priest shall be cut off from his people,” as applicable to anyone not directly descended from Aaron. Had this been the correct interpretation the question would be how any of the kings of Israel (Yehudah) who were not descended from Aaron but from David could have been crowned using this oil? This is why the Torah wrote: “it shall be for Me,” to teach that the title כהן could also be applied to kings approved by G’d. Both descendants of Aaron and kings descended from David are to be treated as “anointed by the Lord.” We have a specific verse in which G’d commanded the prophet Samuel to go to Chevron and there to anoint one of Yishai’s sons i.e. David, as king (compare Samuel I 16,12). We have a further reference to this event in Psalms 89,21: “I have found David, My servant; anointed him with My sacred oil.” David meant: “with oil which is sacred for Me.” Keeping this thought in mind, the Torah added in verse 32: “it shall not be smeared on human flesh.” The word אדם in this verse makes sense only if it means “a person who is neither a priest nor a king descended from David.” We need to understand why the Torah first wrote the paragraph about the anointing oil and only afterwards the paragraph about the components of the incense, [something that was offered on the altar twice every day. Ed.] The two different kinds of oil and incense respectively correspond to the “head and the foot.” The people who were smeared with the anointing oil were the heads of the nation, i.e. the spiritual head, the High Priest and the temporal head, the king. Heads wore crowns, i.e. the oil was smeared on in an arc describing the shape of the letter כ as symbolizing the shape of a crown. Oil is the choicest of all liquids. It was certainly appropriate to make the anointing fluid out of olive oil, appropriately aromated. We have pointed out earlier that the verse שאו ידיכם קדש describes hands raised above the head. The incense, which, as we also mentioned earlier, represents the attribute of Justice and the last letter ה in the tetragrammaton as the symbol of that attribute, is fittingly mentioned at the end of this legislation. You will note that in connection with the compounding of the oil of anointing G’d used the relatively harsh word וידבר when commencing His instructions to Moses. When He began the instructions about the incense and its components, etc., He began with the softer word ויאמר. This was probably in order to soften the impact of the fact that the קטורה appears usually in connection with G’d’s anger. The fact that it was used to assuage G’d’s anger, whether actual or potential, is reflected in the softer introduction with the word ויאמר.

A Midrashic approach (Keritot 5b): On the words שמן משחת קדש יהיה זה לי Rabbi Yehudah son of Rabbi Ila-ah taught that the anointing oil compounded by Moses was of very miraculous quality. From its beginning to its end it was totally miraculous. To start with, the quantity made was only 12 logim (about 3,3 liter). We know this as the Torah writes (verse 24) “1 hin of olive oil.” (1 hin equals 12 login). If you consider merely the fact that 100 beams of a surface of one and a half cubits by 10 cubits each ( a cubit is approx. 60 centimeters) had to be smeared with that oil, (assuming the oil was applied only to the outer side) how could 3,3, liters have been sufficient? Never mind that all the other furnishings as well as Aaron and his four sons had to be smeared with it. Consider also the fact that the oil would penetrate the wood and therefore not only the mere surface would be smeared with oil. The carpets were being smeared; the sons of Aaron and Aaron himself would be consecrated on seven consecutive days, i.e. seven times each! At the end of all this we have been told that there was enough oil left over for future applications as the Torah wrote: “it shall be” יהיה (future tense). The Talmud Keritut 5 claims that the word זה with its numerical value of 12 indicated that after completion of the anointments there would remain a quantity of 12 login of this oil! On the same folio the sages state that there were 11 ingredients making up the components of the incense. The word סמים (which appears twice) in verse 34 is understood as referring to two spices; the ingredients called נטף, שחלת, חלבנה, לבונה זכה make six. Add the five ingredients of the oil for anointing and you have a total of eleven. Alternatively, the second word סמים refers to a number of unnamed spices.

בד בבד יהיה, “they shall all have equal weight.” Here the Torah does not spell out the individual weight of each component as it had done in connection with the oil for anointing. The reason that only four ingredients have been clearly identified is that it was these which provided most of the smoke of the incense. It was important to the Torah that these ingredients would provide a cloud of smoke whereas it did not matter if the other ingredients also resulted in their smoke rising after they were being burned up.

Nachmanides writes that the words קח לך סמים, “take spices for yourselves,” mean: “spices with which you are familiar because they have been mentioned previously,” i.e. the ones mentioned in verses 23-25. According to Nachmanides the words סמים and בשמים are used interchangeably as they mean the same thing. All the spices used in the mixture of the oil of anointing also formed part of the incense. According to this there would have been a total of eleven ingredients making up the composition of the incense: the ones (5+4) spelled out in the Torah plus two mentioned only as סמים when that word is used the second time in our verse. According to tradition these latter two were שבולת נרד and כרכם. The title the Torah accorded to the finished product of the incense is טהור קודש, “something pure and holy.”

נטף ושחלת וחלבנה, “stacte, onycha and galbanum; נטף is the same as צרי, balsam, which Rashi translates as theriaque. Nachmanides disagrees and writes that it is a tree’s resin called gome. According to him it is a single kind of spice, supposedly similar to שחלת, חלבנה and לבונה, frankincense. The spice (mixture) called theriaque mentioned by Rashi is a mixture of a variety of spices. It includes honey, yeast, and the ashes of dead scorpions as well as the flesh of the hyena. It is quite inconceivable that such a mixture should have been included in incense which the Torah has described as טהור קודש, “something pure and holy.” How could the remains of reptiles or creeping animals which are the epitome of ritual impurity be part of such a mixture? Even honey and yeast (leavening) are matters which the Torah has expressly forbidden as being offered on the altar (compare Leviticus 2,11). To believe that they could be part of the incense is sheer nonsense! The resin called נטף (from “drippings”) which is from the balsam tree is a single ingredient of a specially aromatic quality. The tree is called קטף, as one plucks the leaves which are dripping with resin. All of this accounts for Rabbi Shimon ben Eleazar saying in Shabbat 25 that one must not light the Sabbath lamp with resin from the balsam tree as its fragrance is strong (and one may be tempted to use some of that oil for himself thus diminishing the supply for the lamp and causing it to be extinguished prematurely). The incense called חלבנה is foul-smelling (Keritut 6); nonetheless the Torah saw fit to include it in the list of spices for the incense. It suggests the lesson that on a fast-day, a day of supplication we must not congregate in prayer without also including people whose conduct stamped them as sinners. Our sages (in Keritut) have taught us that any congregation which does not include sinners is not really called a congregation. The meaning of this strange statement is that G’d’s “reputation” is enhanced at a time when sinners join the righteous in prayer indicating that they are becoming penitents. This also reflects positively on the righteous assembled in prayer. If there were no potential penitents in that congregation the “righteous” would share the fate of the sinners as they share responsibility for the conduct of all the Jews, not just for themselves. Every Jew has a responsibility to help the sinners return to the fold. This is the reason that the willow branch, a plant without fruit or pleasant fragrance, must make up one of the four species of plants over which we recite a benediction on Sukkot. The willow branch symbolises the Jew who neither observes the commandments regulating life between people (good deeds) nor the commandments regulating our relationship vis-a-vis G’d (performance of religious ritual) and His requirements of us directly.

ממולח, “salted.” This is what our sages referred to when they said (Keritut 6) that a quarter measure of salt from the Dead Sea was added to the mixture. It is also possible to understand the word ממולח as meaning “thoroughly mixed,” as Onkelos translates it. The purpose was to make it impossible to recognise any one of these spices separately. This may be the reason that sailors are called מלחים, as they thoroughly mix up the waters of the sea with their oars. The word occurs in such a context in Ezekiel 27,27 מלחיך וחובליך, “your sailors and your pilots.”