במדבר יז: 11-14
וַיֹּאמֶר מֹשֶׁה אֶל־אַהֲרֹן קַח אֶת־הַמַּחְתָּה וְתֶן־עָלֶיהָ אֵשׁ מֵעַל הַמִּזְבֵּחַ וְשִׂים קְטֹרֶת וְהוֹלֵךְ מְהֵרָה אֶל־הָעֵדָה וְכַפֵּר עֲלֵיהֶם כִּי־יָצָא הַקֶּצֶף מִלִּפְנֵי יְהֹוָה הֵחֵל הַנָּגֶף: וַיִּקַּח אַהֲרֹן כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר מֹשֶׁה וַיָּרץ אֶל־תּוֹךְ הַקָּהָל וְהִנֵּה הֵחֵל הַנֶּגֶף בָּעָם וַיִּתֵּן אֶת־הַקְּטֹרֶת וַיְכַפֵּר עַל־הָעָם: וַיַּעֲמֹד בֵּין־הַמֵּתִים וּבֵין הַחַיִּים וַתֵּעָצַר הַמַּגֵּפָה׃ וַיִּהְיוּ הַמֵּתִים בַּמַּגֵּפָה אַרְבָּעָה עָשָׂר אֶלֶף וּשְׁבַע מֵאוֹת מִלְּבַד הַמֵּתִים עַל־דְּבַר־קֹרַח׃
Then Moses said to Aaron, “Take the fire pan, and put on it fire from the altar. Add incense and take it quickly to the community and make expiation for them. For wrath has gone forth from the Lord: the plague has begun!”
Aaron took it, as Moses had ordered, and ran to the midst of the congregation, where the plague had begun among the people. He put on the incense and made expiation for the people; he stood between the dead and the living until the plague was checked. Those who died of the plague came to fourteen thousand and seven hundred, aside from those who died on account of Korah.
Over the many centuries that Jews have recited prayers for protection against plagues and pandemics, the content of these prayers varied depending on the location, local custom, and the whims of the person compiling them. The one feature that remained fairly constant was that they often contained a section known as Pittum Haketoret [The Mixture of the Incense]. If you think back just a couple of years to the COVID pandemic, you yourself may have recited this passage to ward off the virus. But did you ever wonder why it was this passage that was chosen as a central part of our pandemic liturgy?
As we will learn, the origin of the custom to recite Pittum Haketoret to ward off a pandemic is found in this week’s parsha.
What is Pittum Haketoret?
Pittum Haketoret are the opening words of a list of ingredients that were used to make the incense for the Temple in Jerusalem, as recorded in the Talmud:
How is the blending of the incense [Pittum Haketoret]) performed? Balm, and onycha, and galbanum, and frankincense, each of these by a weight of seventy maneh, Myrrh, and cassia, and spikenard, and saffron, each of these by a weight of sixteen maneh. Costus by a weight of twelve maneh; three maneh of aromatic bark; and nine maneh of cinnamon. Kersannah lye of the volume of nine kav; Cyprus wine of the volume of three se’a and three more kav, a half-se’a. If one does not have Cyprus wine he brings old white wine. Sodomite salt is brought by the volume of a quarter-kav. Lastly, a minimal amount of the smoke raiser, [a plant that causes the smoke of the incense to rise properly]. Rabbi Natan says: Also a minimal amount of Jordan amber…
There is nothing in this talmudic recipe to suggest any role for the incense as either a prophylactic or a cure for diseases. But there is a cryptic passage elsewhere in the Talmud that indicates just such a role.
The Ketoret as a Cure for Pandemics
In a fanciful discussion that takes place immediately before the Torah is to be given at Mount Sinai, the angels object. Human beings, they claim, are not worthy of such a sublime document; it should stay with them. Moses, who had ascended to heaven to receive the Torah, provided a series of clever answers. He asks God to give an example of something written in the Torah. Perhaps sensing an opportunity here, God replies with the very first of the Ten Commandments: “I am the Lord your God who took you out from Egypt, from the house of bondage (Ex. 20:2).” Moses then asks the angels: “Did you descend to Egypt? Were you enslaved to Pharaoh? Why then should the Torah be yours?” Moses asks for other examples. God mentions the fourth commandment, “to remember the Sabbath day,” but the angels do not work and so they have no need for a day of rest. The fifth commandment is to “honor your father and mother.” But the angels have neither a father nor a mother. How then, Moses asks rhetorically, could they be commanded to honor their parents? The angels quickly cede the case, “and they agreed with the Holy One, blessed be he” that the Jewish people deserved to be given the Torah. In fact, they were so impressed with Moses’ powers of persuasion that “immediately, each and every one of the angels became an admirer of Moses and passed something to him” as a gift. The Talmud only records one of those gifts, along with its donor.
שבת פט, א
מִיָּד כל אֶחָד וְאֶחָד נַעֲשָׂה לוֹ אוֹהֵב וּמָסַר לוֹ דָּבָר… אַף מַלְאַךְ הַמָּוֶת מָסַר לוֹ דָּבָר, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״וַיִּתֵּן אֶת הַקְּטֹרֶת וַיְכַפֵּר עַל הָעָם״, וְאוֹמֵר: ״וַיַּעֲמֹד בֵּין הַמֵּתִים וּבֵין הַחַיִּים וְגוֹ׳״ — אִי לָאו דַּאֲמַר לֵיהּ מִי הֲוָה יָדַע?
Even the Angel of Death gave him something, as Moses told Aaron how to stop the plague, as it is stated: “And he placed the incense, and he atoned for the people” (Numbers 17:12). And the verse says: “And he stood between the dead and the living, and the plague was stopped” (Numbers 17:13). If it were not that the Angel of Death told him this remedy, would he have known it?
And so according to the Talmud, the secret that the holy incense, the ketoret, can cure a plague was delivered to Moses by none other than the Angel of Death, who surrendered the means to thwart mortality itself. This is the earliest Jewish reference connecting the incense with pandemics.
Pittum Haketoret in the Siddur of Amram Gaon
It was Amram Gaon (d. 875), the ninth century leader of the Jewish community of Sura in Babylon who first formally arranged the prayers that became the standard Jewish liturgy who included Pittum Haketoret. It was to be recited towards the end of the daily morning and evening prayers “because this was the commanded time” to make the incense. But he made no mention of reciting this passage to prevent plagues.
Ramban on the Ketoret
That connection was made later, and among the earliest rabbis to ascribe magical healing powers to the incense was the Spanish exegete Nachmanides, Rabbi Moses ben Nachman, (c.1194–c.1270), known best by his acronym Ramban. He noted that in the description of the construction of the Mishkan, (the Tabernacle) and its many vessels found in the Book of Exodus, the command to build an Altar of Incense was not written with the commandments to build the other objects. Commenting on the verse in the Torah (Exod. 30:1) that reads “You shall make an altar for burning incense; make it of acacia wood,” Ramban wrote that this altar had an additional task, beyond that of burning the incense. It was somehow to sanctify the glory of God, and in so doing it was endowed with special power:
רמב’ן על התורה שמות 30:1
אמר כי עוד יתחייב להם שיעשו מזבח מקטר קטרת להקטיר לכבוד השם. וזהו רז שנמסר למשה רבינו שהקטרת עוצרת המגפה (שבת פט.), כי הקטרת במדת הדין (זוה''ק ויקרא יח), שנאמר ישימו קטורה באפך (דברים לג י),
Therefore, he now said that they will yet be obliged to make an altar for the burning of incense, to burn it for the glory of God. This was a secret which was transmitted to Moses our Teacher, that the incense stops the plague…
In support of this claim, Ramban cited another passage from the Torah - the one in this week’s parsha. In the aftermath of the Korach-led rebellion against Moses, “the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up with their households, all Korah’s people and all their possessions.” But while this destroyed the rebel leadership, it did nothing to quell the uprising, and so God next brought a plague [nagef] against the rebels. And then comes the passage with which we opened:
Then Moses said to Aaron, “Take the fire pan, and put on it fire from the altar. Add incense and take it quickly to the community and make expiation for them. For wrath has gone forth from the Lord: the plague has begun!”
Aaron took it, as Moses had ordered, and ran to the midst of the congregation, where the plague had begun among the people. He put on the incense and made expiation for the people; he stood between the dead and the living until the plague was checked. Those who died of the plague came to fourteen thousand and seven hundred, aside from those who died on account of Korah.
What Happens when there are no more Ketoret?
But just knowing that the incense could cure a plague was not helpful, for two reasons. First, the precise identification of its ingredients had long since been lost, and second, even had they been known, it was strictly forbidden for outsiders to create the incense used in the Temple. The solution came with the creation of a brand-new approach in which merely reciting the section of the Talmud called Pittum Haketoret would end a pandemic.
This next step was made by the Zohar [Book of Splendor], the central work of Jewish mysticism. It was written by the Spanish rabbi and kabbalist Moses de Leon (c.1240-1305) who himself attributed it to the second century talmudic sage Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai. Despite its murky origins, it quickly became widely read in Europe and beyond. And it is in the Zohar (Midrash Hane’elam, 200) that we find the following passage about the power of Pittum Haketoret to halt a plague.
Rabbi Pinhas said. I was once walking when I met the prophet Elijah. I said to him “could my master tell me something that will be good for people’s health [ma’aley leberiasah]?” He replied…“when there is a pandemic, a decree is made to the heavens that if everyone enters the House of Prayer or the House of Study and recites the passage about the Making of the Spices [Ketoret Hasamim] with great concentration and intention, the plague among Israel will end.
One who is being pursued by Justice needs this incense…for it helps to remove the claims of Justice against him, and in this way he rids himself of it. Other passages from the Zohar suggests a similar power:
זוהר פנחס 224א
מַאן דְּיֵימָּא פִּטּוּם הַקְּטֹרֶת, בָּתַר תְּהִלָּה לְדָוִד, בָּטִיל מוֹתָנָא מִבֵּיתָא
No harm will befall one who recites Pittum Haketoret after [Psalm 145 that begins with the words] “A Psalm of David” [in the morning service], neither to him nor his family.
Hayyim Vital, The Safed Circle, and Pittum Haketoret
These passages from the Zohar played a central role in the later adoption of the custom to recite Pittum Haketoret during a pandemic. They were popularized by the kabbalist Hayyim Vital (1542-1620) who lived in Safed in northern Israel. He was the most important and influential student of the mystic Isaac Luria, who himself died during a plague in 1572 at the age of only thirty-eight. Vital recorded Luria’s teachings in many manuscripts. These were later edited by Vital’s son Shmuel, who organized them thematically into a work known today as Shemonah She’arim [The Eight Gates]. Shemonah She’arim remained unpublished until it was eventually brought to the printing press in Jerusalem between 1850 and 1898.
In Vital’s mystical universe there were layers of interposing kellipot or shells of evil that prevented God’s divine light from properly illuminating the word.These shells also played a role in pandemics and plagues.
These kellipot...are responsible for infecting and attacking a person during a plague. And they do not leave a person after attacking him, but remain attached to him and surround him in every direction. Furthermore, they remain in the neighborhood where there are sick people, and are even found in pots and pans and clothes. Anyone who ventures there can be contaminated through these very same kellipot…
But there was hope; Pittum Haketoret had the mystical ability to intervene:
The eleven ingredients of the ketoret are that which remains inside the kellipot…they correspond to the eleven lights of holiness which animate the kellipot. And when they [the ingredients] rise up [to the celestial heights] they remove the lights from the kellipot which are left without any life. They die, and can no longer do any damage…
Hayyim Vital made the recitation of Pittum Haketoret part of his innovative nightly ritual of prayer and study called Tikkun Hatzot [The Midnight Order]. He encouraged it to be recited in a minyan [quorum] of ten Godfearing men, because that is when “it will make the greatest impact above.”
There were others in the Safed circle who also adopted the custom of Pittum Haketoret. Moses di Trani (known by his acronym Mabit,1505-1585) was appointed as a rabbi in Safed in 1525 and was a contemporary of and knew Hayyim Vital. In his Bet Elohim [House of God] published in 1576, Mabit wrote that Pittum Haketoret was to be recited twice a day “for it has a special power [mesugal] over plagues.” In a demonstration of his exegetical skills he focused on one of the eleven ingredients called helbona, (usually translated as galbanum,) which was the only one to have an unpleasant taste and smell.
The foul smell of the helbona is mixed with the other ingredients until it smells as agreeable as they do. This is an allusion to the Angel of Death who resembles the helbona and who hides among people…when the people are good and honest in their hearts, and when they truly repent, the Angel of Death cannot overpower them. In fact, it is they who can overpower the Angel of Death…just like the helbona whose foul smell cannot be detected when it is mixed with the other ten ingredients…
The Italian Jewish physician Abraham ben Hananiah Yagel (1553-c.1624) also emphasized the importance of Pittum Haketoret, in his work on the etiology and treatment of plagues called Moshia Hosim [The Savior of Those Who Seek Refuge]:
I heard from the mouth of the great sage our teacher and rabbi, Rabbi Judah Moscato, (may his Rock protect him), that when our eyes are opened to the incense offering [ma‘aseh ketoret], and when we see all the elements in it one by one, we will see that all of them are beautiful and treasured [and work] by natural means to stop a plague or devastation, for by their strength the air will be purified.
The Pivotal Role of Ma’avar Yabok
About forty years after Yagel’s book was published, another work highlighted the importance of Pittum Haketoret. It was called Ma’avar Yabbok [Crossing the Yabbok], and was written by another Italian Jew named Aaron Berahia Modena. The book contained all the rituals, prayers, customs and practices that surrounded the process of dying, death, burial and mourning. It is a lengthy but extremely popular book that has been republished in more than forty editions over the last three hundred years. The author began a section dedicated to the mystical properties of reciting Pittum Haketoret by reminding his readers that while it was no-longer possible to offer the incense in Jerusalem, by the study of the ingredients and the words of the recipe “the light of the Upper World is revealed.” He continued with what is perhaps the strongest exposition of the power of Pittum Haketoret to heal found in all of early modern Jewish literature.
