Chai Elul ...

Tuesday:

CHESHVAN - Sense: Smell

The sense of smell is the most spiritual of all senses. The Hebrew word for "smell" (רֵיחַ) is cognate to the word for "spirit" (רוּחַ). The sages teach us that smell is the one and only sense that "the soul enjoys and not the body."

The sense of smell is the only sense (of the five senses) that did not participate, and thereby was not blemished or polluted, in the primordial sin of man in the Garden of Eden. It is explicitly stated that the sense of Mashiach is the sense of smell. "And he shall smell with the awe of God"—"he shall judge by smell" (rather than by sight or hearing. Isaiah 11:3; Sanhedrin 93b). By his sense of smell (his "holy spirit") the Mashiach will know how to connect each Jewish soul to its Divine root, and thereby identify its tribe (branch) in Israel.