A pleasing fragrance to HaShem

(Numbers 15:3)
Sivan 25, 5775/June 12, 2015

This week's Torah reading, Shelach, tells the story of the twelve spies sent by Moshe to search out the land of Israel and return with an assessment that could then be used to advantage for the children of Israel's imminent entry into the land of Canaan. For reasons which our sages have dealt with throughout the millenia, the twelve tribal leaders chosen for the quality of their character, lost heart, and upon their return to the Israelite encampment in the desert, shared a fearful, quaking report of the immense threats which would overwhelm and annihilate Israel, should the nation dare to enter into the land that G-d had granted them. 

Only Yehoshua and Calev among the spies thought otherwise and, expressing their certainty that the nation could meet and overcome the challenges that they would meet in the land promised Israel by G-d , sought to re-energize the flagging spirits of the people, but alas, to no avail. The battle for the heart of Israel was lost.

Certainly unforeseen by the dispirited nation, G-d brooked no sympathy for the people. On the contrary, G-d's pain on behalf of the embattled promised land was expressed in His outspoken anger and in the death sentence that He pronounced on the nay-saying generation. Unlike the earlier disaster concerning the golden calf, G-d was not in a conciliatory mood.

But G-d loves His people Israel and even as He pronounced His judgement on the generation that rejected the land, He promised the successful entry and settlement of the land by their children. Torah embellishes upon the radical shift from devastating defeat to ultimate reconciliation in the land of Israel by relating G-d's instruction toMoshe to teach Israel about the offerings she will be making to G-d upon entering the land. Nothing could more quickly and completely make real for the beleaguered people the certainty of G-d's promise and reinvigorate their spirits than the mention of the Temple offerings, for in the performance of the offerings their is no barrier between man and G-d . The promise that the offerings will indeed take place as orginally commanded signals that G-d will completely exonerate and embrace His children as before.

This is most beautifully expressed in the phrase which Torah employs repeatedly here:"you shall offer up, a pleasing fragrance to HaShem." "A pleasing fragrance," in Hebrew,"re-ach nicho-ach," is repeated no less than six times. Its usage here recalls for us the first time Torah uses the expression in teaching Israel the laws of the offerings, where the phrase is used seven times in the opening chapters of the book of Leviticus. "A pleasing fragrance to HaShem" is an expression of the love and intimacy that G-d feels toward His people. It is also an expression of acceptance and reconciliation, as made clear by its prior use in Torah at the conclusion of the great flood, when Noach made an offering to G-d . We are told "And HaShem smelled the pleasant aroma," (Genesis 8:21) and G-d was reconciled with man.

The "pleasing fragrance" is not, of course, the smell of the burning flesh of the offering, as G-d has no craving for meat. The "pleasing fragrance" is the fragrance of the closeness and connection between G-d and man. This is what pleases G-d . Our sages point out that in the account of Adam and Eve's eating of the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, the fruit's appearance and taste and touch are all perceived by Adam and Eve, as well as the voice of the serpent, which they heard. The only sense not mentioned and not implicated in the eating of the fruit was the sense of smell. The sense of smell was never sullied by man's transgression and so it remains as the sense which signifies man's pure attachment to HaShem. This is the "pleasing fragrance" that G-d imbibes and celebrates when Israel offers up her offerings in the Holy Temple.

The pleasing fragrance of the performance of an offering to G-d was the signal that G-d had made His peace with Noach after the flood. It would subsequently be the sign that G-d had reconciled with Israel after the debacle of the spies. Following two thousand years of harrowing exile ending in the horror of the holocaust, doesn't it follow that Israel's complete return to the intimate embrace of HaShem will be achieved only when the Holy Temple has been rebuilt and Israel's offerings will be placed upon the altar, truly"a pleasing fragrance to HaShem?"

-The Temple Institute