The Blessings on Fragrances

 

Rav Ganzfried, following our Sages, cites a Biblical source for the obligation to make a blessing on pleasing fragrances.  The verse "All the soul shall praise God" (Tehillim 150:6) teaches us that there is a praise of God which belongs to the soul alone.  The Talmud asks, "What is it that provides enjoyment for the soul, but not for the body? Fragrance" (Berakhot 43b).

 

At the simplest level, the statement that smell benefits the soul and not the body means that smell, unlike food and drink, does not fulfill any bodily need and does not become part of the body.  For this reason, we would think that it is not a significant or substantial enjoyment and thus does not require a blessing.  That is why a Biblical source (or at least allusion) for the obligation is necessary. 

 

Yet our Sages here are telling us not only what a smell is NOT - i.e. enjoyment of the body - but what smell IS - i.e. enjoyment of the soul.  This understanding is borne out by the practical halakha.  If eating were considered an enjoyment of body and soul, but scent the enjoyment of soul alone, then eating without swallowing should be considered the same as smelling.  Yet we learned in chapter 50:7 that one who tastes food without swallowing it does NOT make a berakha.

 

The Jewish idea that smell is a faculty of the soul has a parallel in secular culture, which on many levels relates to smell as a direct and unmediated connection with an object:

 

From the point of view of the object being sensed, smell represents the essence and "innerness" of the object.  (Indeed, the word "essence" is used to refer to a scent.) It is what remains when the superficialities are stripped away; it is what inheres when the object itself is gone.  Faced with a superficially satisfactory situation, we may express our instinctive feeling of unease by saying that something "smells funny."  The appearance of decay can be masked by a coat of paint, but the smell is more difficult to hide.  "The eye can be deceived, but the nose knows."

 

And from the point of view of the person, smell is the most direct, instinctive and irreducible sense.  Psychology tells us that we perceive sights by breaking objects down into lines, shapes and fields; sounds are reconstructed from a continuum of frequencies.  Scent, on the other hand, is direct.  Each smell is unique.  In science, smell is considered the most primitive sense and the one most directly "wired" into our consciousness; in literature, it is considered the most evocative sense. 

 

So of all the senses, our sense of smell creates the most direct connection between the "innerness" of the object we perceive and our own inner selves.  While the body appreciates decoration and emphasis, the enjoyment of the soul is to encounter something directly, as it truly is.

 

A SMELL WITH NO SOURCE

 

We have explained that smell represents the direct encounter with the essence of something - but there must be a "something", and not just an essence.  Although a bottle smells of perfume even when the perfume is emptied out, since there was perfume there to begin with, we are able to say a berakha on the bottle's fragrance, as we will now explain.

 

In several places (especially chapter 49) we have explained that saying a berakha enables us to connect to the spiritual aspect of the material world.  Coarse matter becomes the medium for Hashem to give us enjoyment and an uplifting experience, and thereby constitutes a medium for us to strengthen our connection to Him.  Without this encounter with reality, there is no occasion for a berakha, and indeed it is a grave transgression to say a blessing in vain, without any tangible object of blessing.  Such a "berakha levatala" suggests a partition or separation between God and His world.

 

The idea that a blessing must connect us with the spiritual within the material yields the rule that no berakha is said on a "reiach sheain lo ikar" - a fragrance which has no present and tangible source (seif 13).  The blessing we say on smelling a rose is on the rose, not on our sense of enjoyment.  The berakha is meant to connect us to the world, not to DETACH us from it by closing us up in a cocoon of sensation.

 

This explains why there is no blessing on beautiful music, even though hearing music is one of mankind's greatest enjoyments and one of our most spiritual experiences.  Music does not originate in an object, but from a person.  It is impossible to bless on the bare enjoyment of listening because we say berakhot on objects, not sensations.  And of course it is impossible to bless on the musician, because people are not objects.  The Torah strongly opposes the reduction of human beings to mere objects, and indeed this principle has various reflections in the laws of berakhot.  (See for instance Responsa Rashba I:254.)

 

This also explains the rulings in this chapter which detail how the blessing on fragrance, like that on food, assumes different forms depending on the source of the scent: "Creator of varieties of fragrance," "Creator of fragrant herbs," "Creator of fragrant wood," "Who has given a beautiful fragrance to fruit," and so on.  We recite a blessing on the inanimate elements of our world which have been elevated by Hashem to serve as a means of showing us His love and concern.  In this way we are able to discern the sanctity latent in these mundane objects.

 

SMELL AND MOSHIACH

 

Rav Nachman of Breslav draws our attention to the many sources in which the Moshiach is especially connected to the sense of smell.  The prophet Yirmiyahu refers to the Moshiach as the "breath of our noses" (Eicha 4:24).  And the word "Moshiach" itself literally means "anointed," referring to the fragrant oil with which the King of Israel is anointed.  (Likutei Halakhot, Laws of blessings on Smell.) We could add that the Talmud says that one sign of the true Moshiach is that he will be able to "smell and judge" - to determine the guilt and innocence of defendants by directly sensing their inner nature (discussed in chapter 112).

 

In turn, Rav Nachman shows how scent, as the innerness of objects which remains even when the object itself is gone, is a metaphor for the holiness immanent in the material world.  Just as scent remains in a vessel even after the perfume has been emptied out, so God's presence remains in the world even though He has partially removed Himself.

 

(Rav Nachman is relating to the concept of "tzimtzum," or contraction.  Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, the holy "Ari," explains that originally the world was so filled with God's presence that no temporal existence was possible.  In order to create the world, which contains things other than pure Divinity, it was necessary for God to partially "withdraw" or "contract" His presence.  However, a trace or impression of the original, intense Godliness remained - this is like the "scent" of the spirit.)

 

So mankind's physiological ability to instinctively apprehend objects through their scent is a metaphor and a parallel of our spiritual ability to instinctively apprehend the remnants of Godliness which inhere in our material world.  This ability is limited at this stage of history, but we can develop it by living a spiritual existence and constantly focusing on the Godly aspect of everything.  Eventually we will be able to greet the Moshiach, who will instantly and perfectly perceive the spiritual aspect of everything, and transmit his knowledge to mankind.

 

According to Rav Nachman, this is one reason why we make a special point of blessing on spices as Shabbat goes out, when we have a heightened expectation of greeting Eliahu, who will herald the arrival of Moshiach.  (See chapter 96 seifim 3 and 12.)