SALT

Considered the most common and essential of all condiments, salt plays an essential role in Jewish life, ritual, and symbolism. It was plentiful in Ereẓ Israel, with inexhaustible quantities being found in the area of the Dead Sea. Its first mention in the Bible is in reference to Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt (Gen. 19: 26). Salt was an essential requisite for all sacrifices. The possibility that the verse "with all thy sacrifices shalt thou offer salt" (Lev. 2:13) may, in fact, refer only to the meal-offering mentioned in the context, is denied by the Talmud (Men. 20a) which lays it down that the statement applies to all sacrifices. The significance of this injunction seems evident from the prohibition, in the same context, of honey and leaven to be used in sacrifices. Honey and leaven symbolize fermentation and subsequent decay and decomposition; salt is a preservative. The idea of permanence is the basis of the "covenant of salt" mentioned on various occasions in the Bible. The rights of the priests to their share of the offerings is "a due for ever, an everlasting covenant of salt" (Num. 18:19), and Abijah, king of Judah, assures Jeroboam, who had seceded from the House of David, that God has given the kingdom to the House of David by "a covenant of salt" (11 Chron. 13: 5). It is in this sense that the passage in Ezra (4:14), in which the enemies of the returned exiles protest their loyalty to the king of Persia "because we eat of the salt of the palace" is to be understood as an expression of abiding loyalty to the palace, and not as the Authorised Version's "maintenance of the palace." The extent to which salt was used in the sacrifices may be seen in the statement in Josephus (Ant. 12: 140) that Antiochus the Great made a gift of 375 medimni (bushels) of salt to the Jews for the Temple service, and there was a special Salt Chamber in the Temple (Mid. 5:3). The cleansing and hygienic power of salt is reflected in Elisha's act of purifying the bad waters of Jericho by casting salt into the springs (II Kings 2:20, 21), and in the custom of rubbing newly born infants with salt (Ezek. 16:4). On the other hand, it was known that salinity in soil caused aridity (Deut. 29:22; Job 39:6), and when Abimelech captured and destroyed Shechem, he "sowed it with salt" as a sign that it should not be rebuilt (Judg. 9:45). The importance of salt as a condiment is also stressed in the Bible. Job asks rhetorically whether "that which hath no   savor be eaten without salt" (6:6), and Ben Sira includes salt among the nine essentials of life (Ecclus. 39:26). Salt was an essential element of the Jewish table, and it became customary to put salt on the bread over which grace before meals was recited. A Yiddish proverb has it that "no Jewish table should be without salt" which is in accordance with the homily that makes one's table "an altar before the Lord" (cf. Avot 3:4). The ability of salt to absorb blood (Ḥul. 113a) is the basis of the important laws of kashering meat so that all blood be removed (see dietary laws ). Salt of Sodom (Melaḥ Sedomit) was particularly potent, having an admixture probably of the acrid potassium chloride of the Dead Sea. Its presence in common salt ("one grain in a kor of salt"), and the harmful effect it might have on the eyes, caused the custom of mayim aḥaronim, the washing of one's hands after a meal, to be instituted, in addition to the statutory washing before meals (Ḥul. 105b). There is a difference of opinion as to whether this washing of the hands is obligatory or merely advisable. Tosafot (loc. cit.) lays it down that, since salt of Sodom does not exist in France, the custom of mayim aḥaronim did not obtain there. Despite this ruling, the retention of the custom is widespread today. Salt of Sodom was also an ingredient of the incense used in the Temple during the period of the Second Temple (Ker. 6a). In modern Israel the custom has developed for the mayor of Jerusalem or the elders of the city to greet distinguished visitors with an offering of bread and salt at the entrance of the city, and not with bread and wine as Melchizedek, king of Salem (Jerusalem), greeted Abraham (Gen. 14:18). There is no rabbinic authority for this practice. Philo (Jos. 35: 210), however, states that Joseph invited his brethren to a meal of "bread and salt" (cf. Gen. 43: 16, 31), and among the ancient Arabs it was the custom to seal a covenant with bread and salt. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Loew, in: Jewish Studies G.A. Kohut (1935), 429–62 (inc. bibl.); EM, 4 (1962), 1053. (Louis Isaac Rabinowitz)