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Why does Rashi (רש"י) emphasize that Hashem (ה׳) spared tzadikim from bad smells during traumatic moments—Moshe in the basket, Yosef being sold? Smell is the strongest memory trigger. The protection wasn't for the immediate experience but for the thousands of times these tzadikim would relive those traumas; each memory would carry the smell, deepening the anguish.
This shiur explores two seemingly puzzling Rashis concerning smell and tzadikim. The first appears in Parshas Shemos, where Moshe's mother prepares the basket with tar (chemar) on the outside and cement on the inside. Rashi (רש"י) explains she did this "so that the tzaddik should not smell the bad odor of the tar." The question is glaring: Moshe was only three months old—how could he be called a tzaddik, and why would the smell matter at such an age? The second parallel case appears in Parshas Vayeishev with the sale of Yosef. The Torah (תורה) goes out of its way to mention that the caravan of Ishmaelites was carrying spices—nechos, nechosos, and tzri—rather than their usual cargo of kerosene and foul-smelling materials. Rashi says this too was to spare the tzaddik from a bad smell. But this seems equally absurd: Yosef was being torn from his family, sold into slavery, traumatized beyond measure. What difference could a pleasant smell make during such a catastrophic moment? As the shiur puts it, "Mrs. Lincoln, how was the air conditioning?"—it's nonsensically trivial in the face of such trauma.
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Shemos (Moshe in the basket), Vayeishev (sale of Yosef)
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