It’s an ideal time of year to think about travellers on camels carrying precious gifts, so I imagine the British Museum’s gift shop is doing brisk business with all the camel memborabilia from its current Silk Roads exhibition. The exhibition itself is even more worth a visit, as it expands the idea of a single silk road linking east and west to trace a network of silk roads (plural); trading routes that linked communities across thousands of miles and across millennia. In addition to the camels, its survey of areas from Japan to Britain features many different desirable commodities, from silk to metals to spices, and depicts how they also led to exchanges of culture. The ambitious exhibition sumptuously shows how religions, languages and technologies spread along with material goods: each carried from one area to the next, creating a rich and complicated network covering thousands of miles.
Some of those travellers, with their camels and valuable cargo, make an appearance in Parashat Vayeishev. Just after Joseph’s brothers have decided to kill him, then been diverted from murder to simply throwing him into a pit, they leave him there alone and sit down for a meal. Then Torah tells us that, “Looking up, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, their camels bearing gum, balm, and ladanum to be taken to Egypt” (Genesis 37:25). On seeing this caravan, Judah suggests selling Joseph instead of leaving him to die: soon, for 20 pieces of silver, Joseph is on his way to Egypt as yet another of the commodities carried by the traders, ready for another stage of his story to begin.
After visiting the Silk Roads exhibition, it made sense to me that when a camel train appears in Torah, it’s necessary to specify what goods are being carried by that particular train in that particular location. When the Rabbis read this chapter, however, they pause to take an interest in the Ishmaelites’ inventory: why does Torah need to mention that they were carrying gum, balm and ladanum? Isn’t it superfluous to mention the specific merchandise being carried along with Joseph into Egypt?
Midrash (Genesis Rabbah 84:17) explains that these fragrant spices are specifically mentioned because they are not the Ishmaelites’ usual cargo: normally Ishmaelites would carry leather hides and resins, which both smell unpleasant. On account of Joseph’s righteousness, however, God arranged it that the Ishmaelites should be carrying sweet-smelling spices, which would counteract the bad smells. Another version of this explanation (Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Vayehi Beshallach 6:5) takes it a step further: the usual smells of camel and resins were so bad that someone unused to them might have died from them, so God arranged for the camels to carry sweet spices.
Torah does not record Joseph’s responses in this moment, only his brothers’ plotting, so it is hard to know how much he was able to appreciate this divine favour. Perhaps we should imagine him sniffing the fragrant spices on the journey much as medieval Europeans sniffed pomanders to ward off the plague; perhaps Joseph found gum, balm and ladanum unpleasantly linked with near-death at the hands of his brothers; perhaps these smells were already familiar and so became a reminder of home that accompanied him into a strange land. (One that reappears years later, apparently by coincidence: when famine drives a reluctant Jacob to re-send his sons to request food from Egypt, he instructs them to take gifts of “a little balm and honey, gum, ladanum” (Genesis 43:11).)
Like Joseph, our lives have many different phases: in some of them we’re stuck with the smelly camels, leather and resin; in others, the air is sweetened by spices. This can feel especially obvious in the times when we feel carried along by something beyond our control, perhaps even against our will. Midrashic teaching about the Ishmaelites’ cargo suggests that there may be small things that make difficult times bearable, or at least survivable, and that those things may change from one stage to another.
In our times, the upcoming festival of Chanukkah provides a visual reminder that we needn’t wait for God to provide these things. Having passed the full moon of Kislev, we are now heading into the darkest weeks of the year, with the shortest days and the longest nights: so when Jewish tradition prompts us at this moment to light lamps, it’s a little like bringing out the sweet spices on a difficult journey. Whether the story you tell of that Chanukkah journey involves miracles or Maccabees, milk or maidens of great virtue (see Bavli Shabbat 21b, 1 Maccabees, Book of Judith and Scholion to Megillat Ta’anit respectively) – or all four – the end result is kindling flames that shine out into the world.
Lighting lamps at Chanukkah gifts us with a reminder that we can do something to bring light when darkness is all around; telling the many versions of the Chanukkah story reminds us that our traditions followed a whole network of paths to reach us today, not just a single road. Beyond the eight days of Chanukkah, we are challenged to discover the metaphorical lamps and spices that may help us and others to make it through difficult times, and to keep rediscovering them in new forms as life takes us from one stage to another.
Wherever our roads lead us, may we find sweet smells and bright lights to accompany us. Wishing you Shabbat shalom and chag urim sameach – happy Chanukkah!
Rabbi Eleanor Davis
The views expressed in this D’var Torah do not necessarily reflect the position of Leo Baeck College.