Korach
What does incense represent?
Reflection by OHL teacher Moran Peled:
"The characteristic of incense is revealed in this week's Torah portion, Parshat Korach. Incense serves as a border, a differentiation between things. It is incense that sets Korach and his rebel commission apart from Aaron the priest, as they stood together with incense offerings waiting for God's judgment. Aaron then uses incense to block the plague that has spread to the people, by running and using it to mark the boundary between the dead and the living. The boundary between the ordinary world and the world of practice is represented by incense. It is an airy border, made of smoke, of a material that is not a substance.
Incense teaches us that between the living and the dead, between holiness and the day-to-day, between heaven and earth, and between the spiritual and the physical, there is a thin boundary, which in its very nature both exists and does not exist.
When we approach mindfulness practice, we must distinguish our practice from the rest of the everyday by creating some kind of border - a ritual, a special corner, a certain time in the day, a sitting group, retreats throughout the year.
Only after we make the distinction, after we carve out space for our practice, can we find the space within ourselves to then reconnect and re-merge our practice with our whole life, bringing mindfulness into each moment, connection into every action."