Pinhas (Psalms)

Psalm 141: “Let not my heart incline toward an evil thing”

This psalm, part of a small group of petitionary psalms near the very end of the book, is unusual, if not unique, as follows: it centers around a prayer, not for protection against the designs of evildoers against him, mocking him or physically harming him, but against the temptation of joining forces with them. “Let not my heart incline toward an evil thing, to engage in wicked deeds with men who do evil, and let me not partake (elham; lit., ‘break bread’; a rare verb derived from the word lehem) of their dainties” (v. 4). As if to say: protect me from my own worse self; I’m not strong enough to resist the temptations of “bad friends.” Rather than drawing a stark line of demarcation between the righteous and the evil, as do so many of the psalms of this genre (such as Pss 3, 22, 55, 140, to mention but a few of those we’ve studied this year), the lines are drawn here upon the internal struggle within the person himself—the proverbial Milhemet ha-Yetzer.

The underlying idea here is a kind of frank acknowledgement of human weakness; that a person is not automatically protected from his own propensity to do wrong, but needs Divine help to overcome it. (One is reminded of the idea taught by twelve-step programs, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, that to succeed in the struggle to change oneself, one needs to place one’s trust in a “Higher Power.”) The underlying insight is that knowledge of the good and actually doing the good are not the same thing. While this idea may seem self-evident, there is a counter theme, found in much of medieval Jewish thought, and rooted in classical Greek thought, that the intellect is all-powerful. Thus, Rambam states in Hilkhot Deot 2.1 that in order to correct one’s negative character traits one should go to a teacher who will show one the proper path—and from then on one will do it. Modern culture has a healthy respect for the power of the unconscious, for the swirling, hidden forces of human emotions and concealed motivations, which can so easily mislead a person.

In biblical times, people may not have known how to talk about the unconscious, but they surely had an intuitive grasp of the complexities and ambiguities of human behavior and of the “divided soul” of man. This is shown by the portrayals of the inner struggles and mistakes of wise and godly men like Jacob and David, et al—including their glaring blind spots about things happening in their own families. Where do they go wrong, if not as a result of the perennial human struggle between knowledge of the good and ones simple impulses? A similar sensibility is found in this psalm, in Ps 36, and elsewhere. Thus, the philosophers of the Middle Ages and of the early modern period may best be understood as a kind of deviation from these simple human truths and insights, rooted in an excessive focus on the mind (itself a well-known Jewish failing).

But the real reason I have chosen this psalm for this week, is because of the verse 2, one of my own favorites: “Let my prayer [be accepted] before You like incense; my hands raised [in prayer] like the evening offering”—a verse recited by Sephardim at the beginning of the Minhah Amidah. The latter half of this week’s parsha focuses on the daily, weekly and annual cycle of sacrifices offered in the Temple (the “list” suggests Psalm 50, also given for Vayikra, which we discussed there); hence, matters relating to sacrifices in the broad sense are apropos.

There are many hints, in the Biblical text and elsewhere, that the ketoret carries a special status. In Exodus 32:38, where the components of the incense are listed, the punishment of karet (“excision”) is imposed upon anyone who mixes together like ingredients like it—even in a purely secular setting! The incense plays a special role in the Yom Kippur ceremony, finely-ground ketoret being offered up when the High Priest enters the Holy of Holies (Lev 16:12-13); Nadav and Avihu died because they offered a “strange fire” before God (Lev 10:1)—that is, they offered ketoret without being commanded to do so. The Korah incident also seems to relate largely to the ketoret; between the lines, Korah’s challenge to Moses concerns the right of those other than the Aaronide priests to offer incense, as a sign of special “closeness” and intimacy with God (note the use of the verb qrb both in Num 16:5 and in Lev 10:3); hence, the test posed by Moses similarly focused on the ketoret: “let each man take his brazier” (Num 16:6-7, 17-18; and again in 17:1-5, 11-12).

The ketoret also has a special place in liturgy. Not only is it chosen as the subject for the Talmudic passages recited near the very beginning of the daily prayers but, more significantly, the selfsame passage from Keritut 6a listing the eleven ingredients that went into its mixture are read in a festive setting at the end of Shaharit, introduced by the proclamation, Ein keloheinu: “There is none like our God, there is none like our Lord, there is none like our King…” etc., concluding with the words, “You are He before whom our ancestors offered up the fixed incense offering.” It recently occurred to me that this recitation at the end of the service thus corresponds to the actual offering of the incense in the Temple, after the slaughtering of the Tamid, in much the same way as Prayer itself is said to correspond to the fixed daily offerings.

Thus, the question that emerges is: What is the meaning and symbolism of the ketoret, the fragrant incense offered in the Temple together with the fixed daily offerings, and what is the relation between prayer and ketoret?

The animal offerings are themselves very carnal, grossly physical and fleshly; it is only natural to say that they represent this same element in man. Some say that the animal is, so to speak, a substitute for one's own life energy, one's “animal soul,” which one offers up to God in an act of vicarious renunciation of the “carnal.” This idea is usually understood in dualistic manner: that is, one that posits a dichotomy between the physical and spiritual aspects of life—I sacrifice the earthbound body in hopes of being more “spiritual.” But can it also be read differently: that we offer a symbol of our earthly, bodily presence in this world—that in which we exist, through which we act out our role, our place in the Divine scheme of things—and it is this that we offer to God, precisely because it is so precious.

The incense, in any event, is a more disembodied: in the physical sense, it consists of fine particles of fragrant smoke—hardly substantive at all. It thus clearly suggests the more spiritual, intangible side of man: our thoughts, our feelings, the innermost longings and yearnings of our psyche and soul. Thus, one could say that statutory prayer (Tefillah, Amidah) corresponds to the daily sacrifice because it is essentially an act of addressing God from our existential human situation (as The Rav often said), as human beings with real, earthly needs and wants and inadequacies in our lives: quite simply, asking God for help with our basic physical needs: bakashat tserakhim. As against that, prayer as ketoret means: I want to be fragrant before God. The imagery is that of Shir ha-Shirim, the Song of Songs: no longer that of servants or children, asking one’s needs, but of longing for God as a lover. I desire His closeness, nay, union with Him—like a woman who wears fragrance to make herself pleasing and comely to her lover. Perhaps that is why incense is so emphasized by Kabbalah, and in other mystical traditions, and is seen as so potent: at once holy, with great healing powers, but also dangerous if misused.