The Incense Offering: Antidote to Korach's Fractiousness

It struck me now that perhaps the reason for Aharon offering the ketoret, or incense, in response to Korach's move towards rebellion, is rooted in the unique meaning of the ketoret. But first, a recap.

Korach sought priestly obligations, failing to realize the uniqueness of having been selected to carry out the responsibilities reserved only for Levites.

Perhaps, similar to Miriam's qualm about Moshe having separated from his wife - "Hashem also speaks to us" - Korah instead incited to rebellion, espousing that Moshe had placed himself on a pedestal over the nation: "You have gone too far! For all the community are holy, all of them, and the LORD is in their midst. Why then do you raise yourselves above the LORD’s congregation?"

After Korach and his cohorts are swallowed alive by the ground, and a heavenly fire summarily consumes the incense offerors, the following day, the masses attack Moshe and Aharon: "You two have brought death upon the LORD’s people!"

With all but little warning, Hashem unleashes a plague on the people, and Moshe tells Aharon: "Take the fire pan, and put on it fire from the altar. Add incense and take it quickly to the community and make expiation for them. For wrath has gone forth from the LORD: the plague has begun!"

Why, thus, was the ketoret, or incense offering, the means of expiation, the vehicle through which atonement was achieved?

It would seem to me that ketoret was the paradigm of the recognition that each and every thing in this world has a place, a place that only it can fulfill. The smell of the ketoret, or incense, was so wonderfully aromatic that its sweet scent, relates the Gemorah in Yoma, could still be smelled in Shiloh 1,000 years after the mishkan was no longer there. Yet, one of the central ingredients, was helbonah, or pure frankincense, known to have a less than pleasant smell - though when combined with the other 10 ingredients, created a sensation that no family in the world could create except for the family in the Beit Hamikdash vested with the secret incense tradition. (For the recipe for ketoret, see here: Ketoret recipe .)

In brief, it would seem that the antidote to Korach's self-serving approach - "If someone else is great, it must diminish me" - is the recognition that every person has a unique nature to him and her, and when we, as a whole, like the ketoret, come together, it sharpens the senses, "scent" and contribution of each and every one of us. And that's why, perhaps, Aharon had to bring an incense offering to stop the devastating plague, discord uprooted by the sheer power of unity.