Smells and Bells

 I found this specific part of the Aroma of Righteousness very interesting. I did not think about how much of an impact a smell can have on a person's thoughts or memories. From personal experience, a not-so-pleasing smell can put me in a bad mood or even make me vomit. A bad smell can also make me think about the last time I experienced that smell. A good smell can make me feel happy, which results in me having positive thoughts. A good smell can also trigger you back to great memories from the last time you smelled it. This part also goes into biblical messages that correlated with smell. Women were considered to be honorable by men if they had a pleasant perfume smell. Perfume has the qualities of arousal and seduction, which becomes an interpretive device. I thought this message truly showed the power of pleasant scents.

It's interesting to think about what is and isn't going to taste good. Growing up, my mom saved our 'ethnic' food for when we were home together as a family. I'd get burritos for lunch (in a thermos where the tortillas we brought back from Mexico would get soggy and 'zombie-like,' according to a friend), sure, but most American kids are more familiar with burritos than they are with menudo . Menudo  is probably the last thing on earth my mother would make for any guest at our house. For one, because she prefers the canned menudo over the freshly made kind, and two because it's such an 'out-there' food.  Image from Open Food Facts  CC 3.0 Unported My friend, and then-girlfriend, wanted to try menudo after reading Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe . My mom bought a can for us two to share. She told me Rachel wouldn't like it, and she was right, she couldn't eat much more than a bite or two. I think the texture of the ...

 In Chapter 6 of The Aroma of Righteousness by Deborah Green, she talks about how smell can be thought of as being attached to the dead. I have never thought of smell in this way before. If we're talking about smell being linked to death in a literal sense, I'm not sure if it's something I relate to. If death doesn't smell like a rotting corpse or food gone bad, then I associate death with silence, a lack of smell, a lack of a person. Whenever I smell something that reminds me of one of my passed-on loved ones, I don't think to myself, "Oh, that reminds me of my dead loved one." Instead, I think, "Oh, now I miss them. I remember how that's how they smelled when they were still here..." or, "This smell reminds me of this memory we both shared before they were gone." I don't have a very pleasant outlook on death, however. Perhaps if I was a part of a religion that connected death with anointments and fumigation and pleasant smell...

I've taken probably too many classes on death (2), but specifically I took Prof. Henry's class on the history of death, in which we talked for a while about medieval Christian relics. Interestingly, bodies of saints were supposed to have a good scent, smelling like spices or flowers even long, long after death.                                                The difference between the medieval Christianity and rabbinic Judaism immediately stood out to me. Both claim death is tied to smell, but the associations and rationales are completely different. This line from Green stood out to me particularly:   "And fragrance is also intimately tied to death-- perhaps as a representation of what we desire in that finality-- that death too will be fleeting, tempora...

 While it isn't the only prominent example of smells in Jewish texts, one that logically made many appearances was the smell of the priestly offerings, both the offerings of animals or other sacrifices, and the burning of special incense. It's no wonder that this was considered an important smell during the time period that these texts was written. Until the destruction of the second temple sacrifice was essential to the way that the Jewish people worshiped. It's a theme of great importance throughout the Tanach and the commentary texts that followed. However in a modern context, smell is less prevalent of a sense in Jewish worship. It's not completely absent, aromatic spices are a major part of the Havdallah ritual for example, and probably others I just don't know about, but the burnt offering is no longer a part of Jewish life, which seems like it might take the central importance of smell out in some way too. An example of a Havadallah spice box from 19th centur...

Green’s subtle feminism throughout Aroma of Righteousness sparked many ideas in my head. In another course I’m taking, Psychology of Women, we recently discussed Freud’s “groundbreaking” psychological theories of women and girls being born with this innate “penis envy”, yes, penis envy. His theory proposes the idea that men are superior, and when girls get to an age when they realize that they do not have a penis, they realize their inferiority and are therefore envious. As a rebuttal to Freud’s prospections, psychoanalyst Karen Horney proposes that power inequalities, not biology, cause the psychological differences observed in girls and women and that there is more likely to be “Womb envy” present among men- an envy of women’s reproductive ability, which motivated men’s desire to dominate women. This made me think of the ways in which, throughout religion specifically, scent has been so heavily associated with women and their oh so evil seductiveness and sexuality. I get really confu...

Image from IMDb I had to make a second post because Green’s text reminded me of a pop culture reference. The second point I would like to bring up is in response to the midrash that we interpreted on Tuesday. Green wrote that “odor, whether pleasing or foul, enters almost every aspect of our lives- its subtle pervasiveness affects our attitudes and judgments toward both the mundane and the sacred.” This quote reminded me of the movie “Parasite” where the rich Mr. Park comes to hate his housekeeper/driver simply because his scent is one of poor people. Green wrote about how fragrance provides a lens through which to view hierarchy, social constructions, and theological motifs, like those in the Bible, and it also affords the same lens for viewing the families in this movie. As Mr. Park begins to notice the unsettling and distasteful aromas of the Kims, the audience also becomes hypersensitive to their presence, and the Parks’ privileged position leaves them feeling entitled to dictate w...

Photo of the three essential oils that I used the most this week (L to R): Uplift (sweet orange), Calmness (geranium, vetiver, grapefruit), Asleep (lavender) I was unsure what to write about this week because, to be honest, I had a rough week. My uncle Fred passed away, and I couldn’t go to the funeral or wake, so I had to grieve in isolation away from my family which was difficult. The best thing that I did for myself this week was concentrate on “self-care,” as one does when they are sad, and part of my self-care was putting on my essential oil diffuser in my room to change my mood. You might be able to tell where this is going.  When I was being consoled by my friend this week, I told her about this recent self-care practice of mine, and she took out her collection of essential oils to let me smell them and borrow one. For ones like lavender and sage, I realized that I didn’t need to open them to smell them because I could already imagine the scent, probably because I have them ...

Lately, the more I read about smell, the more enigmatic it seems too me, "Most of us cannot smell a fragrance of an orange by mentally concentrating on the idea of an orange" When I Initially read this statement, I tried to think of an orange and though in my mind, I know that its a fresh, sweet yet citrus smell, I know that I like the smell, but in that moment the orange in my mind, didn't have the smell. It makes me thing of the fleeting, impermanent yet highly impressionable nature of smell. It is able to stick in memory and trigger biological processes without us consciously processing it. Green talks about how its pervasiveness overwhelms our body when we inhale certain scents, but I also think its pervasiveness overwhelms our existence as a society.  The heavy description of Women though these opulent smells is testament of this idea. The way women smelt and the scents they used, as well as the scents used for worship being categorically different from the rest, are...

I wasn't sure what to write about for this reading until yesterday. After class, I reread the last section of the reading from Tuesday and it gave me a lot to think about. The sentence "The aroma of victory and the stench of death, decay, and defeat are identical in terms of smell but represent opposite values..." struck a chord in me because of the atrocities currently occurring in Ukraine. What do bomb sites smell like, or burning bodies, or homes that have been abandoned by the people who once celebrated life there.  https://nnc.com.ng/ One of my closest friend's entire family is from Ukraine and I remember what she told me after coming home from a three week long trip to visit her family there many years ago. Apparently, it is customary in Ukraine for visitors to be fed a lot and they cannot say no or else it is considered extremely impolite. My friend laughed as she remembered how much food was being given to them everywhere they went and how the "offering...

  CW: Accidental death. Mira and her two cats, Keko and Cuddles Before reading Deborah Green’s The Aroma of Righteousness , I was really excited to learn about the different scents mentioned in the Hebrew Bible and what they were associated with. I hadn’t realized the rich, religious histories behind, and uses for, some of my favorite scents: myrrh, frankincense, balsam, rose, flowers, etc. Amanda’s post on Green’s analysis of women and smell in Rabbinic texts definitely inspired me to think about the highly debated “scent of women”. My best friend Mira lives in a house with her mom and grandmother, two lady cats and a female yorkie terrier named Bella. I have spent a lot of time at this house filled with ladies and the scent of their perfume, cigarette smoke, candles, nail polish, incense, shampoo, lotion, and food on the stove. Mira’s Nana smokes Winston Reds inside, and it makes its way into everything in every room of the house. It’s faint, but it’s her signature touch! When I ...

  Image owned by: Marco Verch Well there's no denying the fact this book was a lot different from the ones I usually read but that doesn't mean I didn't like it. In fact, I found myself being quite interested through out a lot of the earlier sections of the book BECAUSE I've never read anything like it before so that was a nice experience at the very least. Towards the ending though, my feelings were a bit different but overall not that negative. On the plus side, I did like the ideas being presented and how Green gave the reader a chance to see how the rabbis back in the day thought while also dumbing down the stories for people like me who wouldn't get it. On the down side, apart of me couldn't help but feel like there was some serious repetition along the way and as a result the ending became a bit tough to get through in my opinion.  That being said, seeing how the rabbis chose to interpret these stories and how they relate to God, his relationship with Isra...

The concept of martyrdom is interesting. Growing with this idea of martyrdom as a straight pathway to heaven, Green brings up an interesting point in " Ephemerality and Fragrance." This is probably a terrible point to bring up, but I don't think I ever thought about the physical sacrifice  aspect of martyrdom. At least in Catholicism, there are so many saints who were burned alive. In my history class, we just read St. Perpetua's account of her own death and that of St. Felicity, where they were sentenced to death by cow (this is important, I will mention this later). Now, Perpetua and Felicity weren't burned at the stake. St. Joan of Arc was, and probably a few others I can't name.  Again, this is a rather gruesome take-away from Green's writings, but I was so morbidly fascinated by this line from page 207: "God can [...] be soothed by the burning flesh of martyrs." That's a weird line. It's a really weird line to hyperfixate on, but it...

       Green spends quite a bit of time talking about Rabbinic tradition revolving around the perfuming and smells of women. To summarize what I understood of the readings, women perfuming themselves was popular, especially in the context of things like fumigating clothing and personal smells. However, the smells of women were of high debate, as there were various levels of respectability and rules regarding what smells could be used or how various individuals react to that smell. This also has to do with the role of the seductress in Rabbinic tradition, and something about that struck in me and I realized, after thinking of it, that typically attractive or seductive women are usually associated with smells.             I think primarily of women from the golden age of Hollywood, shown lounging in photoshoots with a cigarette and smoke, giving the cameras lust-filled looks. The animated pink “perfume” that waft...

As an avid gardener, I found myself drawn into the words of Deborah Greene in her “Aroma of Righteousness, ” and her description of how the Hebrew Bible uses gardening and its smell as a form of the erotic. To some, this may seem strange, but as someone who spends summers revering the dirt permanently under my fingers and having permanent dirt lines outlining my feet from my Chacos (the elite gardening sandal,) I appreciate and can see how this can be powerful as a form of passion and love. Greene speaks on the connection between the garden in the Song of Songs, how it is similar to the bond of the dove and Eve, and how the dove and garden are symbols of the beloved. She connected the garden of Eve and the garden of Songs by its “fragrant” spices and how through the closure of males from the gardens, the arguments spices also bring with it arousal. (120) While I don’t grow cinnamon or balsam in the gardens of Farm House, we do have an array of spices, that bring a range of emotions. W...

Like the other senses smell is really important in our lives. It can alert us to things like gas leaks or rotten food. It also closely linked with the parts of the brain that process emotions and memories. Meaning when we like the smell of something we'll have good memories of it and when we smell it again, we'll have the same feeling. Just as when we smell something bad, depending on how badly it smells, our brain will be programmed to react a certain way to it. For me smell is very important in my life especially when I am eating food, because if it smells good I'm more inclined to eat it. 

Ackerman and Green both make the same claims about the importance of scent in our daily lives, depicting our difficulty in describing smells to others without making a reference to something else, and arguing that studying smell is just as important in understanding culture as studying sociology and anthropology. As a natural scientist, I was skeptical about Green’s arguments—how could smell, something unable to be measured or quantified, be as important as objective, scientific theory? But as I read further, I began to resonate with this argument; scent’s subjective nature means that we cannot recover past articles of it. Our difficulty in describing them makes understanding their connotations difficult, especially when the only archaeological evidence we have are containers and jars for perfumes and topical oils. What did certain scents mean to ancient civilizations? Are there any patterns between how we react to smells and how they reacted to those same smells? Answering these quest...

  “The suggestion of wafting aroma, emotional arousal, and the allure of the exotic” (Green 64). For some reason, the only thing this intro section reminded me of was that trope in cartoons where a character starts floating towards a freshly made baked good, like in this clip. Joking aside, scent really is everywhere in the Bible and rabbinic literature, with the example that stuck out to me being a callback to an Old Testament class I took last semester: offerings to God were burnt not so that He could taste them, but because the odor was pleasing to Him. The confusion of different terms all relating to scents and incense helps solidify this: there wouldn’t be so many different words for the same thing unless it was important enough to deserve precise categorization. Interesting to see that the instructions for making and anointing with sacred oil indirectly confirms that the ancient Israelites were making and anointing themselves with other oils. Also interesting to see ...