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An unusual incense, associated with the high holidays, calls us to recognize — and then to welcome and integrate — the more difficult aspects of ourselves and our communities. Many teachings focus on one of the ketoret‘s components, which is foul-smelling on its own but sweet-smelling in compound: Often this fact is used to call Jews to unity and to remind us that not only can we pray with the wayward among us, and within each of us, but we must. What do we do with this teaching as our institutions collapse around us and our communities struggle to find space for all?

This is part of a series on Summer of Collapse.

This post was substantially updated just before noon ET, following its first posting in the wee hours of Sep 9 (16 Elul 5785), including the addition of the “Seat of Compassion” section and a link to “Stepping Away in Hope and Prayer.”

A few basic texts regarding the ritual incense/ketoret, with its foul-smelling component, chelbenah, are below. Here is an exploration of connections with the season of teshuvah/return.

This Year’s Challenge

In her book, Sacred Therapy, Estelle Frankel describes connections between ketoret and Yom Kippur:

In the mystical tradition, the ketoret was understood to be a symbol of unity and interconnectedness within and among people. According to Jewish law, it had to be made from eleven different spices, including chelbenah, or galbanum. Though chelbenah itself is foul smelling, it was an essential ingredient of the sweet-smelling ketoret offering, for according to legend, when the chelbenah was joined with the ten other ingredients, it actually added sweetness to the ketoret’s sweet fragrance.

The inclusion of the chelbenah in the ketoret suggests that when we are joined together as a community, we atone for one another. Even the sinners and schleppers among us add to the perfection and fragrance of the whole. In commemoration of the chelbenah, on the eve of Yom Kippur prior to the chanting of the opening Kol Nidre prayer, Jews recite the following invocation, which formally welcomes the sinners among them to join in and be accepted back into the community: “With permission of God and the permission of the community, we hereby give ourselves permission to pray alongside the sinners.”

…so, too, according to this way of thinking, each of us must welcome and reintegrate our own inner chelbehah on Yom Kippur. In this interpretation the chelbenah is taken to symbolize the quality or part of ourselves that is least developed and least desirable–our shadow, if you will. To the degree that we deny or reject this part, it remains split off and becomes an adversarial force in our lives. The inclusion of the chelbenah among the sweet spices of the ketoret reaches us that we must integrate our weaknesses and vulnerabilities into the totality of our being. When we do, they can actually add potency to the sweetness of our lives.
— Estelle Frankel, Sacred Therapy: Jewish Spiritual Teachings on Emotional Healing and Inner Wholeness (Shambala, 2005). p.161-162

Much of Sacred Therapy‘s focus here is on self-forgiveness and integrating parts of ourselves that we may have been trying to ignore. But Frankel also addresses what the incense means for us in community:

The vital message…is that no part of the self, nor any individual community member, may be cut off from the whole. In order for us to come into our wholeness, all parts of the self must be held together as one. And when we join together as a collective, something greater constellates than the simple sum of individuals. Joined together, we atone for one another, for what one of us may lack another makes up for, and one person’s weakness may evoke another’s strength. In community, then, we find our wholeness and healing. On Yom Kippur, Jews cease to view themselves as isolated individual persons but as members of an interconnected web, a community in which each person takes responsibility for the sins of the collective….

Yom Kippur is a time when we each gather up the broken pieces of our lives–as the ancient Israelites gathered up the broken pieces of the first tablets–and try to reestablish a sense of wholeness and coherence both as individual people and as a community. Despite whatever has been broken or shattered through our own mistakes or fate itself, Yom Kippur, the day of at-one-ment, gives us a chance to heal and be whole once more.
–Frankel, Sacred Therapy, p.162-3

Trying to reestablish wholeness and coherence as a community is enormously challenging this year, for many reasons. Atonement and healing among Jews around Zionism and the state of Israel may not be possible at all at the present moment. Jews have much work to do, particularly at the new year, to clarify which “we” is meant in our prayers. We must grapple with how we are, or are not, responsible for one another.

The challenges are not small. And there is a strong temptation to cut off what or who seems to be impeding our attempts at coherence. (See also “Repentance, Repair, and Cancellation” and “The Predator’s Tools.”) But ejecting people or defining them out of the community is not necessarily the solution we might like it to be: As Frankel points out, cutting off parts of ourselves and our communities leaves an “adversarial force in our lives.” We might think we’re leaving something, or someone, behind, but our “broken pieces” do not simply disappear. Moreover, the collapse around us and the many pressures on us this year make mending more difficult….meaning we must exercise more caution regarding ruptures.

Coherence and Brokenness

Many “broken pieces,” within ourselves and our communities, result from harsh judgment in place of compassion. Through Jewish teaching, therapy examples, and meditations, Sacred Therapy explores the effort to move from judgment to compassion. (See e.g.,”Finding the Seat of Compassion.”) On the more general topic, she writes:

Unfortunately, many of us spend a great deal more time sitting in harsh judgment (din) than practicing compassion (rachamim) or forgiveness. We are more concerned with what’s wrong with ourselves and others than with what’s right. We obsess about our own imperfections and are all too ready to criticize our friends, family, and associates whenever they fall short of our expectations. When we get stuck in our “judging mind,” life begins to seem like an endless series of disappointments! And when we relentlessly judge and find fault with ourselves and others, we unfortunately often end up worsening the problems we think we are trying to remedy.


…when we support and lovingly care for those who are ill or suffering, we sweeten an experience that would otherwise be harsh and unbearable (din).

Similarly, when we find a way to transform situations of anger and discord between people into harmonious, loving connections, we sweeten the judgments.
–Frankel, Sacred Therapy, p. 188-189, p.196

Frankel notes that work to “sweeten” harsh judgment should not be expected of us when “someone is hurting us or taking advantage of us.” In such cases, she says, it may be necessary to “set firm limits,” instead, at least temporarily (p.197). And yet…

There are, however, many situations in our daily lives when we do have the power to “sweeten” things, particularly in relation to our own harsh judgments about ourselves and others. We also have many opportunities to transform angry and aggressive verbal exchanges into respectful, loving exchanges. We have the power to set the tone of conflicts so that our discourse with others is characterized by mutual compassion and empathy. And ultimately, when we succeed at transforming potentially contentious relations into mutually empathic exchanges, we open up the flow of divine rachamim in our own lives. For as the rabbis said, “According to the quality one uses to deal with others, by that very quality is one dealt with.”*
–Frankel, Sacred Therapy, p.197
*footnote references B. Meg 12b

In some cases, we will decide, at least temporarily, to separate ourselves, as individuals or as subsets of larger communities, from one whole in order to gain wholeness in another. In some cases, the quest for coherence might leave us feeling more torn and lonely than whole. The reminder of the incense, however, is that we actually need one another and cannot atone all alone.

Judging and Sweetening

We know from our own experiences, as well as from midrashic tradition, that pure judgment is not tenable in the long run. Breishit Rabbah 12:15 tells us: “At first God thought to create the world through the quality of judgment (din), but realizing that the world could not endure at this level, God added on the quality of compassion (rachamim).” And yet too many of our communal institutions, and too many of our community expectations are too willing to stay with “judging mind.”

Being quick to judge, while refusing to engage with dissent or difference, fosters a brittle, easily shattered collective. (Again, see We Will Not Cancel Us and discussion here.) Rules and procedures which discourage sweetening leave many, avoidable “broken pieces.” Sacred Therapy suggests that we can re-member the lost and broken bits; we can retrain ourselves to be more compassionate; we can return to ourselves. This is not easy for any individual and harder for a group. But the new year is a reminder that change is possible and that we can transform — or if necessary, step away from — a situation in which breakage is the norm and softening is not valued.

In that spirit, I share the personal, “Stepping Away in Hope and Prayer,” along with more general, warm wishes that we all find — through the final weeks of 5785 and the coming year — better ways to integrate the wayward among us, and within each of us, in our communities, our mutual aid, and our prayers.

Incense rising cropped from image by József Szabó from Pixabay

Texts Regarding Ketoret/Incense

Exodus 30:34-35

And YHVH said to Moses: Take the herbs stacte, onycha, and galbanum [חֶלְבְּנָה, chelbenah]—these herbs together with pure frankincense; let there be an equal part of each. Make them into incense [קְטֹרֶת, ketoret], a compound expertly blended, refined, pure, sacred.

Midrash: Joy (not atonement)

The sin-offering is brought because of sin and guilt; the burnt offering is brought because of a thought in one’s heart; the peace-offerings are brought to atone for violations of a positive commandment, while incense [הַקְּטֹרֶת, ha-ketoret] is brought, not because of sin or transgression or guilt, but only out of sheer joy [ אֶלָּא עַל הַשִּׂמְחָה, elah ‘al ha-simchah]. Hence, Ointment and incense rejoice the heart.
–Midrash Tanhuma, Tetzaveh 15

Chelbenah in Hassidic teaching

Rebbe Nathan Sternhartz of Nemirov (1780–1845) on chelbenah (full text at Sefaria):

This concept of beirur of the good points also relates to the incense-offering, which included among its ingredients the foul-smelling chelbenah. The ketoret signifies finding and refining the good even in Jewish sinners, who are likened to chelbenah. This is similar to what Chazal teach, that “any prayer that does not also include the prayers of Jewish sinners is not a suitable prayer.” For the ketoret dimension of prayer is primarily fulfilled by finding and refining good points even in Jewish sinners, who are represented by the chelbenah.

This is also the significance of the ketoret being comprised of eleven spices—that is, ten spices aside from the chelbenah. These ten fragrant substances represent the Ten Types of Melody, the melodies made by finding and refining the good in Jewish sinners, who themselves signify the eleventh ingredient, the chelbenah.

–Likutei Halakhot, Orach Chaim (morning conduct) 1:5-6

Talmud: Wage Dispute

Babylonian Talmud Yoma 38a speaks of artisans who made the special Temple incense and a wage dispute in which less skilled artisans are brought in but cannot make the incense rise properly, so the original workers are hired back at twice the wage.

Finding the Seat of Compassion

For decades now, I’ve returned frequently to Frankel’s teaching, “Finding the Seat of Compassion,” and highly recommend checking it out and employing it. (Borrow a virtual copy from Archive.org, visit your local library, or get a copy from Bookshop.) Here’s part of the “Seat of Compassion” passage:

“…Whenever you notice that you are stuck in a place of judgment, whether of yourself or of someone else, try to imagine what it would be like if you stepped away from the judging position and viewed the same person or situation from the perspective of rachamim. You can try practicing this as a meditation in which you visualize these two qualities–judgment and compassion–literally as two seats. Imagine yourself getting up and moving away from that seat of judgment and sitting on the seat of compassion….

“…You will be surprised by how many opportunities there are in the course of an ordinary day to come from a place of compassion rather than judgment.”

— Estelle Frankel, Sacred Therapy: Jewish Spiritual Teachings on Emotional Healing and Inner Wholeness. Shambala, 2003. p.205

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