This sheet on Exodus 30 was written by Diana Lipton for 929 and can also be found here
When we think about recipes today, we are likely to think about food. Bookstores and the internet are overflowing with cook books, not least Jewish ones. Need to make gluten-free vegan challah? Reach for your smartphone! There's no dearth of instructions in the Torah concerning which animals are permitted for food (Lev. 11; Deut. 14:3-21) and where they may be eaten (Lev. 6:19). There are rules and regulations about when certain agricultural produce (Deut. 26:10-11) and fruit of trees can be eaten (Leviticus 19:23-25).
But there are no recipes—at least for food. Instead, the kind of instructions and ingredient lists we might associate with an Ottolenghi cookbook are reserved for incense (Ex. 30: 34-37), and inedible blends of oil (vv. 22-25): “...[T]ake choice spices: five hundred weight of solidified myrrh, half as much—two hundred and fifty—of fragrant cinnamon, two hundred and fifty of aromatic cane, five hundred—by the sanctuary weight—of cassia, and a hin of olive oil. Make of this a sacred anointing oil, a compound of ingredients expertly blended, to serve as sacred anointing oil.”
Today, the legal protection of ingredients and processes is most familiar in the fast-food arena, notoriously with certain soft drinks. Coca Cola’s ‘secret ingredient’ was famously – perhaps apocryphally – said to have caused problems for kashrut authorities. But Coca Cola is by no means unique in this respect. In his life-changing 2007 book The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, Michael Pollan shares an eye-opening account of his visit to the maximum-security lab where scientists are inventing the latest … breakfast cereal.
By contrast, the list of ingredients for anointing oil and incense are published in the Torah for all to see. But some things haven’t changed. There’s a strict ban on inappropriate usage (think, ‘for external use only’), and unlicensed producers will be shut down – forever: “This shall be an anointing oil sacred to Me throughout the ages. It must not be rubbed on any person's body, and you must not make anything like it in the same proportions; it is sacred, to be held sacred by you. Whoever compounds its like, or puts any of it on a layman, shall be cut off from his kin” (Exod 30:31-33).
Adapted from From Forbidden Fruit to Milk and Honey: A Commentary on Food in the Torah, Diana Lipton (Urim Publications, 2018).
But there are no recipes—at least for food. Instead, the kind of instructions and ingredient lists we might associate with an Ottolenghi cookbook are reserved for incense (Ex. 30: 34-37), and inedible blends of oil (vv. 22-25): “...[T]ake choice spices: five hundred weight of solidified myrrh, half as much—two hundred and fifty—of fragrant cinnamon, two hundred and fifty of aromatic cane, five hundred—by the sanctuary weight—of cassia, and a hin of olive oil. Make of this a sacred anointing oil, a compound of ingredients expertly blended, to serve as sacred anointing oil.”
Today, the legal protection of ingredients and processes is most familiar in the fast-food arena, notoriously with certain soft drinks. Coca Cola’s ‘secret ingredient’ was famously – perhaps apocryphally – said to have caused problems for kashrut authorities. But Coca Cola is by no means unique in this respect. In his life-changing 2007 book The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, Michael Pollan shares an eye-opening account of his visit to the maximum-security lab where scientists are inventing the latest … breakfast cereal.
By contrast, the list of ingredients for anointing oil and incense are published in the Torah for all to see. But some things haven’t changed. There’s a strict ban on inappropriate usage (think, ‘for external use only’), and unlicensed producers will be shut down – forever: “This shall be an anointing oil sacred to Me throughout the ages. It must not be rubbed on any person's body, and you must not make anything like it in the same proportions; it is sacred, to be held sacred by you. Whoever compounds its like, or puts any of it on a layman, shall be cut off from his kin” (Exod 30:31-33).
Adapted from From Forbidden Fruit to Milk and Honey: A Commentary on Food in the Torah, Diana Lipton (Urim Publications, 2018).
Diana Lipton is a Teaching Fellow in the Bible Department at Tel Aviv University, and the author and editor of books on a range of biblical subjects.
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