Shalev Maor

If all of Am Yisrael was waiting for the messiah as anxiously as they awaited the naming of this baby, we would be in pretty good shape. That's what a reputation will do for you.

I had two problems in finding the name of this child. First of all I hoped that it would be born in any week other than parshat Korach. The weeks before and after are fine torah portions, why in the portion named after a basicly messed up person who's name even means divisivenss. The second problem was incense, ketoret. I've been very interested, partly as a result of discussions with Dov Berkovitz, in incense lately. The only problem is that Ketoret only works as a girls name. So what we did was to name our child after the incense, but what would have been direct and simple with a girl, in typical male fashion became indirect, complicated, and all tangled up in the intellect. But incense he is.

What's Korach problem? Korach can't stand the fact that someone else has a better connection with God than he has. He rejects the world as it is. He questions Moshe's authority, or the whole idea of authority. Why, he asks, should a piece of clothing that is comletely blue, need a blue tzitzit? Or why should a room full of Sifrei Torah, need a mezuzah on the door? One could ask a similar question about Creation. God creates light on the first day. Why does he have to add Lights (meorot) on the fourth day?

There is a limit to how large and abstract a thing a person can really relate to. A person does not awaken in the morning and make a blessing on the entirety of creation. He doesn't look out at the world as a whole and appreciate it and its maker. On the other hand, specifics, an immmense waterfall, a gigantic valley, he can appreciate. It is the specific, and not the general, that enables us to percieve the greatness of God. It is the sun and the moon, the Lights that we can see and appreciate.

So it is with Korach's questions. One can wear a blue shirt because he likes the color; one can have a room full of Sefer Torahs in order to study the age of the parchment or the like. It is only the specific, the tzitzit, the mezuzah, which is there in order to express the awareness of God, that focuses one on the creator of the universe. What does Korach actually do? He and those with him bring incense which they put on the fire they carry in scoops. Fire, by the way, is the blessing we say for havdalah, creator of the lights of fire boray meoray haaish. The word incense in Hebrew is related to the word connection kesher. Korach wanted a better connection with God. A person could ask for worse. In addition, he succeeds. His offering is accepted, and the scoops become sanctified, being gathered up after the earth swallows up Korach and his followers, to be used inside the Temple.

But Korach himself isn't satisfied with his position in the world. He rejects it. He isn't calm, shalev.

The second time that incense appears in the parsha teaches us more about the normal use of incense. Am Yisrael is in bad shape. They have just witnessed the plagues in Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, free food in the desert, and now the wiping out of a renegade (Korach), and they still don't seem to believe in God. They complain that Moshe has taken them out of a land flowing with milk and honey. They don't understand that the divine presence is with them, guiding them.

It's fairly similar to the Jewish people today. Out of total destruction a Jewish State has arisen, from the many Diasporas, from the degradation the Jews have been subjected to, they now stand as an independant nation. Cities and settlements have sprouted everywhere. And a large part of the Jewish people still doesn't see what is happening.

God hears the Jewish people complaining again, and is disgusted. Anyone who has ever taught a child who has difficulty learning knows the feeling. You explain something simple. You explain it again. And he just doesn't get it. Sometimes you lose patience and explode. It seems that God here turns toward Am Yisrael in , in strict justice, and repays them for their infidelity. Moshe senses this, and quickly sends Aaron running down into the camp to stop God. How? With incense in his hands.

What does incense do? It has a pleasant scent. What does scent do to people? Neurologically it is our most primitive, our most elementary sense. It arouses memories, sensations at a level well below that of intellectual appraisal. Apparently it has a somewhat similar function in relation to God. When God "forgets" himself, and turns to the people in Justice, incense reminds him that he also has other characteristics, mercy, compassion, and "persuades" him to ease off on the harshness of Justice.

There is a gemorrah (brachot) that tells the following story. Rav Yishmael ben Elisha tells that once he entered the holy of holies to burn incense, and he saw the Master of the Universe sitting on his throne, and God said to him My son, bless me. So Yishmael answered him: May it be your will that your compassion will rule over your anger and all your other attributes and that you will treat your children with compassion. And God answered me with a nod.

While it is noteworthy that God asks for man to bless him, and that God grants his request for compassion, it's especially important to note why he was there in the holy of holies in the first place. The same reason that the chief Cohen enters on Yom Kippur.

To burn incense. To atone. To move God from anger to calm.

It is unclear today exactly how the incense was made. One of the theories is that it was made of 13 components, parallel to the 13 attributes of God. It was also made of different spices, to represent all the different kinds of people that make up Am Yisrael.

That helps explains how the incense works. The incense, the connection, connects between Am Yisrael and the Holy One Blessed Be He, and moves him from the attribute of Justice to his other attributes. There are some other details concerning the incense which are worthy of mention. A Cohen was allowed to bring incense just once in his life.

A person who brought incense was said to become wealthy for it. Incense is a flood of chesed, of grace. It was forbidden to leave out even one of the spices in the incense. If each one represents a different part of Am Yisrael, and a different attribute of God, it's clear that one cannot represent the whole when a part is lacking.

There were also two things that were absolutely forbidden in the mixture. The first is yeast. From Pesach we know that yeast is compared to the id, to the desires. One cannot come before God and declare how great you are. How wonderful your deeds. The second is honey. There were sweet components in the incense, like cinammon, that may represent the "sweet" attributes of God, like compassion. But there is a limit. Excess sweetness, flattery, has no place before the Master of heaven and earth.

Incense is a way of appealling to God. How do we appeal to God today? We have no way of bringing incense, no Temple. In general, there is nothing that we can show God.

Physical things are more his than ours. To point out a beautiful sunset would be preposterous. To point to a new computer? What we can offer him are some very basic things, like the smell of incense. Like a voice. Our pleas to God we can offer him. At the end of morning prayers where we describe the mixing of the incense, we say: grind it well, for the sound is good for the incense. The voice that man can send up before God is parallel to the incense we once sent up. The gemorrah says that three things can't be desecrated, sound, smell, and sight. They aren't physical realities. They are in the abstract or spiritual world.

We raise our voice. When God answers we say his countenance, his face shines light upon us panav mair. Vision is more connected to God. From him goes out the light.

I mentioned that in addition to the general light, God created the two Lights. We know today that in fact only one of them is a source of light, although the second is capable of lighting up the earth. This is perhaps a parable for God and Am Yisrael. Only God is a source of light. We ourselves have no internal source of light to shed on the earth. But we can, like the moon, reflect light, return light. And in this to light the earth.

Our son was born close to the new month, the new moon. We travelled to Jerusalem under a sliver of a moon, but in silhouette we could see the full shape. The Rabbis speak of the mercy of the Lights, that they come and go slowly. Were the sun to appear and disappear in an instant, it would be much more difficult to run our lives. Just as the moon reflects the true light source, we hope that the name Light will help our son to always remember from where cometh the light.

While I knew that the incense calmed God, and I sensed that there was a further connection to Shalev, I couldn't find it until someone showed me an article about incense by the late Rabbi Shlomo Deutsch ztz"l of Shilo. He writes that the speciallty of Jerusalem was always Torah, and the specialty of Shilo, incense. Even the name Shilo according to one of the commentators, is calm, tranquillity shalva. Incense converts Justice to compassion. Incense, and Shilo, is the quintessence of good deeds ma'ase hesed. Giving and helping. And who in Shilo hasn't experienced the good deeds so prevalent within the community? If Korach is divisiveness, and this is again a problem in our generation, than the answer is tranquillity, calm. Shalev also means security. The word Korach relates to Ruah (spirit), which relates to raich (scent ). Raich is incense. Incense is Shilo, which is Shalev. The answer to anger is security and calm. The answer to a lack of faith is to recognise the source, the Light. Everything comes from God. May we merit raising our son and living in the Tranquil Light.