Ketoret
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The Ketoret is the incense described in the Hebrew Bible and Talmud offered in the the days of the Temple in Jerusalem.
[edit] In the Hebrew Bible
The sacred incense prescribed for use in the wilderness Tabernacle was made of costly materials that the congregation contributed (Exodus 25:1, 2, 6; 35:4, 5, 8, 27-29). The Book of Exodus describes the following prescription:
Take to yourself perfumes: stacte drops and onycha and perfumed galbanum and pure frankincense. There should be the same portion of each. And you must make it into an incense, a spice mixture, the work of an ointment maker, salted, pure, something holy. And you must pound some of it into fine powder and put some of it before the Testimony in the tent of meeting, where I shall present myself to you. It should be most holy to you people...Whoever makes any like it to enjoy its smell must be cut off from his people.
-Exodus 30:34-38; 37:29.
At the end of the Holy compartment of the tabernacle, next to the curtain dividing it off from the Most Holy, was located the incense altar. (Exodus 30:1; 37:25; 40:5, 26, 27) According to the Books of Chronicles, there was also a similar incense altar in Solomon's temple in Jerusalem (1 Chronicles 28:18 and 2 Chronicles 2:4). Every morning and evening the sacred incense was burned. (Ex 30:7, 8; 2Ch 13:11) Once a year on the Day of Atonement coals from the altar were taken in a censer, or fire holder, together with two handfuls of incense, into the Most Holy, where the incense was made to smoke before the mercy seat of the ark of the testimony.-Leviticus 16:12, 13.
[edit] In the Talmud
According to the Talmud, the ketoret was offered twice daily, once at the morning offering and once following the afternoon offering. It was also offered in a special offering by the Kohen Gadol (high priest) on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
Talmudic passages describing the composition of the incense and other Temple offerings are studied by contemporary Orthodox Jews at daily prayers as part of the daily liturgy.
The rabbis of the Talmud described the composition of the incense as follows:
The Rabbis taught: How is the incense mixture formulated? Three hundred and sixty eight maneh were in it: three hundred sixty five corresponding to the days of the solar year - a maneh for each day, half in the morning and half in the afternoon, and three extra maneh, from which the Kohen Gadol would bring both his handfuls [into the Holy of Holies] on Yom Kippur. He would return them to the mortar on the day of Yom Kippur, and grind them very thoroughly so that they would be exceptionally fine. Eleven kinds of spices were in it, as follows: (1) stacte; (2) onycha; (3) galbunum; (4) frankincense - each weighing seventy maneh; (5) myrrh; (6) cassia; (7) costus - twelve maneh; (10) aromatic bark - three; and (11) cinnamon - nine. [Additionally] Carshina lye, nine kab; Cyprus wine, three se'ah and three kab - if he has no Cyprus wine, he brings old white wine; Sodom salt, a quarter-kab; and a minute amount of maaleh ashan
According to the Talmud, the House of Avitnas was responsible for compounding the ketoret in the days of the Second Temple.
[edit] References
- Arnold Lustiger and Michael Taubes, The Kashirer Edition Yom Kippur Machzor: With Commentary Adapted From the Teachings of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, K'hal publishing, 2006.
- Incense, Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
