Many topics appear in this week's Parshah, Parashat Ki Tisa. There is the story of the making of the Golden Calf, and of how Moses pleaded with G-d for forgiveness on behalf of his people. But before these major events there is a passage that tells us something about the way the Torah sees the Jewish community.
There was a beautiful aromatic incense that was burned on the small golden altar in the Sanctuary, and later in the Temple, every day of the year.
As explained by the Sages, there are eleven ingredients in the incense. One would expect the fragrance of each of the ingredients to be of the best. And so it was, with one exception. Called chelbona (galbanum) this in fact had a rather unpleasant odor.
And the Torah makes it clear that each ingredient is essential: if any one ingredient were missing, the whole mixture would be invalid.
From this we learn a powerful lesson. The Sages tell us that the different ingredients of the incense represent the different types of Jews. The poor smelling spice represents the person whose deeds are less than perfect. He may even be, in various ways, a transgressor. The incense tells us that he is as much part of the Jewish people as anyone else. In fact, if he is missing, if we let him feel remote and excluded, then we are not functioning properly as a people.
This relates also to the theme later in the Parshah: asking G-d for forgiveness. When we are all pleading to G-d for mercy, the "transgressors" must also be present. As we announce in the beginning of the Yom Kippur Kol Nidrei service: We are one people together, and only by being one can we come closer to G-d.
From the point of view of G-d, everyONE belongs.
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