Finely Ground Incense

And he shall take the censer full of coals of fire from off the altar before the Lord, and his hands full of fine incense of spices and bring it within the dividing curtain.                                                         Leviticus 16:12

The incense was offered daily. However, the incense of Yom Kippur was prepared differently than the daily incense. In our verse, the Torah instructs that the incense of Yom Kippur be dakka (“fine”). While the spices were ground for the daily incense, for Yom Kippur they were ground a second time, in order to be “fine.”

Ba’al haTurim connects the word dakka as it appears in our verse with the same word which appears in describing God’s revelation to the Prophet Elijah:

... and after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice (kol d’mama dakka).                                   I Kings 19:12

and explains that it is the “cloud” [Leviticus 16:2] of the incense which facilitates God’s appearance with the “still small voice.”

My father explained the connection between the incense and divine revelation, based upon a unique aspect of the incense. One of the eleven ingredients of the incense was ḥelbana, which by itself was foul-smelling. Yet without the ḥelbana, there can be no incense. Our Sages taught that the lesson is that we must include even the sinners as part of the People of Israel. Thus, the incense represents the unity of Israel. It is this unity which allows us to experience divine revelation.

We can note that the greatest divine revelation, at Mount Sinai too was preceded by the unity of the Israelites. The Torah tells us that “Israel encamped before the mount (Sinai)” [Exodus 19:2], using the singular, not the plural. As our Sages commented “Israel encamped as a single person, with a single heart.”

The additional implication of Ba’al haTurim’s comment is that ultimately Israel’s unity is crucial in effecting national atonement. Indeed, Alshikh writes that our Sages insisted that High Holiday prayers be said with “love of peace between man and fellow-man” that they be accepted.