Smells and Bells

What a google search revealed a nard to be Starting on Valentine’s Day, we started reading The Aroma of Righteousness by Deborah Green, explores the imagery of fragrance in rabbinic literature. Two months later, we had Dr. Rachel Herz from Brown give a lecture on her work unraveling the neural processes of olfaction and gustation. The readings and lecture gave the class a well-rounded understanding at how scent is employed in ritual for invoking emotion. As mentioned earlier, our sense of smell is the most memorable due to its proximity to the pre-frontal cortex. Although research behind this phenomenon is relatively recent, practitioners of religion understand the influence of associating scents with divine concepts. In her introduction, Green mentions how we lack a vocabulary to describe our sense of smell, and refer to such using simile, metaphor or simply naming the scent. The explanation for such is that the olfactory bulb is located so “far down” that the circuitry co...

Deborah Green explained the importance of metaphor, simile, and metonym in describing scents, because of the connection with emotional reaction.   In the Song of Songs, she states, “we must assess the scent comparisons and even the emotions they may evoke, completely and on their own terms, however difficult this may be” (85).   The link between the words shemen (oil) and shem (name) is important as the name of the individual and fragrances are not mentioned, rather the words discuss flowing oil.   By using the word shemen, a metaphor is used to generate a connection between scented oil and the lover.   This metaphor also indicates that that both the name and fragrance of their lover’s perfume is pleasing.   By using scent, the woman is able to yearn for her lover when he is not present by recalling his perfume, indicating a seductive aspect to fragrance.   Scent becomes erotic through references to spices, flowers, and even vines, because they are used ...