This week we begin reading the third book of the Torah, Vayikra, or “Leviticus”, which is primarily concerned with priestly laws and sacrificial rituals. We are commanded that “You shall season your offerings of grain with salt; you shall not omit from your grain offering the salt of your covenant with God; with all your offerings you must offer salt.” (Leviticus 2:13) As is well-known, the sprinkling of salt was an absolute necessity for the offerings brought in the Tabernacle and Temple. Incredibly, the Talmud (Menachot 20a-b) says that even if a person brought a wood offering, the wood had to be sprinkled with salt! The minimum wood offering was two blocks of wood, and some say a handful was chopped off and diced up to be burned upon the altar. Others taught that wood offerings do not require salting, just like wine libations didn’t require it, nor did incense offerings. That said, we know that melach sdomit, “Sodomite salt”, was added to the Ketoret incense as one of the additional ingredients. The big question is: why is salt so important?

In ancient times, salt was an incredibly valuable commodity. It had a wide range of uses, not only for flavouring food, but more importantly for preserving food (in an era without refrigeration), as a cleaning agent and an antimicrobial agent, as a weapon of war (to “salt” the earth of the enemy), and even as a form of payment. In fact, the root of the word salary is the Latin sal, meaning “salt”! Same is true for the root of soldier, from sal dare in Latin meaning to “give salt”, since soldiers were paid in salt. (Wrote a lot more about the fascinating history of salt, including Sodomite salt, in Secrets of the Last Waters.) Agreements and covenants were sealed with salt, which we find throughout the Tanakh. In commenting on the above verse in Leviticus, the Ramban (Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, 1194-1270) points out that Hashem even forged a “salt covenant”, brit melach, with King David* to establish his eternal dynasty (as it says in II Chronicles 13:5). Similarly, the Temple offerings all had to be brought with salt to affirm that we have a binding and eternal “salt covenant” with God.

The Ramban has a lot more to say about salt. He writes that its specialness goes all the way back to Creation, when the oceans “promised” their water and salt to be used in the Temple. The Ramban then gets scientific, and says that salt emerges from the drying up of seawater along the shores, as the sun (which is like “fire”) beats down on the water. So, salt has qualities of these two primordial elements—fire and water—in harmony and balance. (Note also that salt has a very strong, “fiery” flavour, but also extracts water out of whatever it is sprinkled on.)

Today, chemistry tell us that this is very true, with the definition of a salt being an ionic compound that typically has two components, a metal and a non-metal, bound together. The most common type of salt, table salt, is sodium chloride, composed of an ion of sodium bound to an ion of chlorine. (Recall that an ion is the charged version of the atom.) Individually, sodium and chlorine atoms are very dangerous. Sodium metal is extremely reactive and will even catch fire when touching water or explode with fireworks (see here for a video from my lab several years ago demonstrating this). Chlorine, meanwhile, is highly poisonous. And yet, when combined in ionic form, sodium chloride becomes stable, edible, and incredibly useful.

The Ramban concludes by saying that salt in small quantities is beneficial and healthy (indeed, both sodium and chloride ions are essential to our health and biology), but in large quantities it is harmful and can destroy the earth and life within it. Our “salt covenant” with Hashem reminds us that life and death are ultimately in Hashem’s hands, as is the continuation or destruction of this world. Our Torah service and avodah (which needed a sprinkling of salt) keeps the world going.

The Arizal (Rabbi Itzchak Luria, 1534-1572) gives another reason for the uniqueness of salt. When speaking about the four levels of creation—domem, “inanimate”; tzemach, “plant”; chai, “living animals”; and medaber, human or literally “speaking” beings—he notes that there are “transitions” or “intermediates” between all the levels. For example, carnivorous plants like the Venus fly trap or pitcher plant are “between” plant and animal, since they are plants but are also carnivorous and eat bugs and little animals. Surprisingly, he notes that apes are intermediates between animals and humans! And between inanimate and plant life he notes corals and sponges—as well as salt. Apparently, salt is not strictly inanimate, but has an aspect of “living” energy within it. (See Sha’ar haMitzvot on Ekev.)

Elsewhere, Rabbi Chaim Vital (1543-1620, the Arizal’s primary disciple) records that salt is, of course, inanimate and under the category of domem. In fact, offerings in the Temple spiritually rectified all categories of Creation, since there were grain offerings (tzemach) and animal offerings (chai) and salt added (domem), and the human (medaber) bringing the offerings did teshuva and was thereby rectified (see Sha’ar haPesukim on Beresheet). When we eat, too, we are able to rectify all of Creation since we consume plant produce, animal products, and salt. This adds a very important mystical dimension to dipping bread in salt as we begin our meal. Finally, the Arizal taught that bread represents Chessed (kindness and positivity), and salt represents Gevurah (restraint and judgement), so by dipping the bread in salt we soften and sweeten the negative judgements (Sha’ar haMitzvot on Ekev).

Salt on the Table

In addition to the above mystical reasons, there are simple and practical reasons for all sacrifices having salt. Many have noted that salt was added simply so that the sacrificial meat tasted good, which is the same reason we keep salt on our meal table. Today, in lieu of a Temple, we dip our bread in salt after reciting hamotzi (see also ‘The Secret of HaMotzi’). The Talmud (Berakhot 40a) says that this is also in order to make the bread taste better. The Talmud adds that it’s good for health reasons as well, helping to prevent bad breath and askara, a respiratory illness (possibly croup or diphtheria). This likely ties back to salt’s antimicrobial properties.

It is worth noting that we also need sodium ions for our brains and nerves to work properly, as every electrical impulse in our neurons is facilitated by the flow of sodium and potassium ions. (Fun fact: about 10% of all the calories you burn go towards powering just one type of protein, the sodium-potassium pump, which puts all the sodium and potassium back in place after an electrical impulse, to allow another impulse.) That said, we know that too much salt in the diet is not good, and the Talmud itself says that excess salt can be unhealthy (see Gittin 70a).

Now, the above teaching brings up a classic question: Today, we typically add salt (and other flavourings) directly into the batter when making our bread. The bread already has salt in it, and already tastes good even without dipping it in salt. So, does this mean that in our days one does not have to dip bread in salt after reciting hamotzi?

The answer is no, because the same tractate gives an even more significant reason for keeping salt on our tables: The Sages stated that “when the Temple stood, the altar atoned for Israel; now [when there is no Temple] a person’s meal table atones for him.” (Berakhot 55a) The meal table is like our own personal altar, and through it we can achieve atonement and great spiritual heights (for lots more on this, see Secrets of the Last Waters). Thus, since salt was brought with all offerings in the Temple altar, we should symbolically have salt upon our “altar” as well when we eat.

Yet another reason for salt on the altar is given by the Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, 1138-1204). In Moreh Nevukhim (III, 46), he notes that in pagan sacrificial offerings, it was typically honey that was offered to the gods, or some other sweet substance. In contrast, the Torah commands salty sacrifices, not sweet ones, to counteract the idolatrous practices. That would explain why the Torah absolutely forbids adding honey to offerings in this week’s parasha (Leviticus 2:11). Apparently, this was widely done by pagans. If that’s the case, we are presented with a major conundrum.

Is Sugar “Sweet Salt”?

There is a widespread custom to dip bread in honey on Rosh Hashanah, and many continue to do this throughout the High Holidays and all the way to the end of Sukkot. If the meal table is our “altar”, and we dip the bread in salt to resemble the sacrifices that were brought with salt, should it therefore not be forbidden to dip bread in honey? The Torah clearly says sacrifices should not be brought with honey!

One could argue that when the Torah speaks of “honey”, it typically refers to date honey, while the honey we use today is usually bee honey, so it’s not the same. (On why bee honey is permitted in the first place, see ‘Why is Honey Kosher if it Comes from Non-Kosher Insects?’ in Garments of Light, Volume Two.) The solution would depend on the extent of “sweet substances” used in ancient idolatrous rituals—does it refer strictly to honey, or all sweet things? (Might it be better to dip the bread in, say, maple syrup?) This question was addressed four centuries ago by one of the great Moroccan rabbis, Yakov Hagiz (1620-1674).

Originally born in Morocco, Rabbi Hagiz spent time as a rosh yeshiva in Jerusalem where he taught an entire generation of scholars. He fiercely opposed the false messiah Shabbatai Tzvi (1626-1676) and excommunicated him. Ironically, it was Rabbi Hagiz’s own student Nathan of Gaza who was Tzvi’s biggest supporter and propagandist! Most of Rabbi Hagiz’s works have been lost, but several do remain. A collection of his responsa called Halakhot Ketanot was published by his son, Rabbi Moshe Hagiz (1671-1750). In Part 1 (response 218), Rabbi Yakov Hagiz answers the question of whether sacrifices were allowed to be sprinkled with sugar instead of salt (אם מותר למלוח הקרבן באסוקא”ר).

He begins his answer by pointing out that salt and sugar are actually very similar. Both are used as preservatives. In light of the notion of the “salt covenant” being something permanent and long-lasting, a “sugar covenant” would fit too! (Rabbi Hagiz does not say this, but I think it might explain why some cultures and communities, including my Bukharian one, do a “sugar-eating” engagement ceremony before a wedding.) Rabbi Hagiz argues that sugar can be viewed as a type of “sweet salt”. He refers to the chemists of his day (בעלי הקימי”א) saying that even sugar has some salt in it. Rabbi Hagiz gives an example of an Egyptian plant that is salty in one part of it but sweet in another. (It’s true that the raw plant will have various salts in it, but refined sugar does not have any salt! Also, sugar is not an ionic compound like salt, but a covalent compound.) Rabbi Hagiz’s position is that sacrifices could have been sprinkled with sugar if regular salt was unavailable.

Rabbi Hagiz then addresses our earlier question: how can you sprinkle the sacrifices with sweet sugar if the Torah says that no (sweet) honey was permitted to be brought with sacrifices? His answer is not so easy to decipher. He seems to say that, ultimately, sugar looks nearly identical to salt, while honey bears no visual resemblance to either sugar or salt. The flavour is essentially irrelevant, and neither is the preservative aspect. After all, honey can be used to preserve things, too—and so can vinegar. Practically, sugar looks like salt (and chemically has some salt mixed in, at least back in those days), so it can be classified as a “sweet salt” and would be okay. He concludes by saying that one can even be lenient in the case of meat being accidentally “salted” with sugar. Based on this, the Ben Ish Chai (Rabbi Yosef Chaim of Baghdad, 1832-1909) ruled that if one does not have salt at the table, they can dip the bread in sugar after hamotzi! Perhaps we can meditate on this as we start a new month of Nisan this week, and along with it a new Jewish year—may we have a sweet and healthy one ahead.

Chodesh Tov!

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*King David is the quintessential Jewish king. There is an interesting alliteration between the words for “king”, melekh (מלך); “angel”, malakh (מלאך); and “salt”, melach (מלח). What is the common denominator? The purpose of an angel is to serve as a conduit between Heaven and Earth, and to drive humanity and the course of history forward according to God’s plan. More specifically, an angel is a positive force that helps a person do their best. Similarly, the purpose of a Jewish king is to lead and inspire his people and to serve as a holy role model for the nation, to help them become their best. Interestingly, salt has the same function, since we add salt to enhance food and bring out its inner juices and flavours, making it taste its best.