The Best Oil
For what purpose?
In the last post, I showed how hand-crafted, or even Stack Exchange, could produce better answers than an AI predictive text model, for making a regex to recognize “Chanukkah”. See here:
I noted how people had started using ChatGPT to answer questions on Stack Exchange sites, and how the mods had temporarily banned it, because they were being flooded with answers that superficially seemed correct but were actually quite wrong.
When I first saw that news, I tried ChatGPT on a Mi Yodea / Judaism Stack Exchange question, to compare / contrast with how I would answer it. I selected this question, which is kinda-sorta Chanukkah related, since it has to do with oil and the menorah:
What type of olive oil was used for the shemen hamishcha (Anointing oil)?
I have looked through the relevant gemoros in Menachos and Krisos as well as the Rambam in H' Klei Hamikdosh but I can't find a source for what quality of olive oil was used for the shemen hamishchah. Was it "kasis" or not? Was it okay to bring any of the nine levels mentioned in Menachos (86a-b)? Thanks.
Though I haven’t done so, I would personally have answered there as follows. And maybe I would be wrong, and maybe I would be right. Let us explore the sources from the start, and see why katit / crushed is preferred specifically for lighting.
The verse which states it should be zach and katit is the first in Tetzaveh, Shemot 27:20:
וְאַתָּ֞ה תְּצַוֶּ֣ה ׀ אֶת־בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֗ל וְיִקְח֨וּ אֵלֶ֜יךָ שֶׁ֣מֶן זַ֥יִת זָ֛ךְ כָּתִ֖ית לַמָּא֑וֹר לְהַעֲלֹ֥ת נֵ֖ר תָּמִֽיד׃
You shall further instruct the Israelites to bring you clear oil of beaten olives for lighting, for kindling lamps regularly.
It is not katit, but lama’or, for the sake of lighting. Assuming we take this katit as oil quality, namely virgin or extra virgin olive oil, is this purely a mental distinction or is there something qualitative or quantitative about it?
From a culinary perspective, extra virgin olive oil has a different taste than regular olive oil. That shouldn’t seem to matter for purposes of burning it for light. However, there is also the smoke point, which is “the temperature at which an oil or fat begins to produce a continuous bluish smoke that becomes clearly visible, dependent upon specific and defined conditions”. Extra virgin olive oil has a smoke point of 350 to 410 degrees Fahrenheit, while regular olive oil’s smoke point is higher, from 390 to 470. Perhaps this would impact on the quality of the light produced by the oil.
I don’t know how this maps to the nine grades (first [pressing?] of first harvest, second of first harvest, third of first harvest, first of second harvest, all the way to third of third harvest.)
The Mishnah in Menachot 86a tries to establish a kal vachomer, an a fortiori inference, that if katit was used for mere lighting in the Temple, then certainly something that goes on the altar, the mincha offering, should require it. But then it rejects that (as it always intended to) be means of a verse, that restricted it to לַמָּא֑וֹר, specifically for lighting. In the gemara, Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak interprets another source, so that when it comes to mincha offering [which isn’t for lighting], all oils are on equal level.
In terms of olive oil for anointing kings, the shemen hamishchah, no verse states it should be katit, that high quality oil. It was simply oil in which they mixed all sorts of exemplary spices. Absent any Biblical, Talmudic, or Rishonic source suggesting otherwise, I would not assume that katit should be required. This is the kind of detail that, if true, we’d expect some rabbinic source to mention. In this instance, absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Furthermore, to drill down, without a verse, how are you going to establish that the anointing oil requires it? By analogy? By kal vachomer? If so, we already have an explicit verse cited in the Mishnah, לַמָּא֑וֹר, to shoot down that kal vachomer. Further, does having specifically refined oil poured on someone’s head qualitatively enhance the experience, as much as it would by illumination or culinary purposes?
So that is how I’d answer it.
(Tangentially, I’m reminded of my discussion years back on parshablog, about whether olive oil with floating wicks were better than wax candles. My argument is that the only reason olive oils are Talmudically preferred (see Shabbat 23a) is that they produce brighter light. But, due to the cutoff in air supply as the wick sinks in the glass container, I’ve found that wax candles produce larger and brighter flames. So wax candles should be preferred. However, rabbinic literature since then has supplemented other reasons — the miracle happened with olive oil — and essentially supplanted the original reason, so it is difficult to now back away from it. I don’t know. In the gemara, Rabba was initially fine with poppy seed oil, and only shifted because of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi’s statement.)
Now let’s ask ChatGPT, and evaluate it’s response:
Joshua Waxman: I have looked through the relevant gemoros in Menachos and Krisos as well as the Rambam in H' Klei Hamikdosh but I can't find a source for what quality of olive oil was used for the shemen hamishchah. Was it "kasis" or not? Was it okay to bring any of the nine levels mentioned in Menachos (86a-b)? Thanks.
ChatGPT: According to the Talmud (Menachot 86a-b), the olive oil used for the Menorah in the Holy Temple was of the highest quality, known as "kasis." This oil was made from the first pressing of the olives and was the purest and most refined of all the grades of oil. It was also the most expensive.
The Talmud states that there were nine levels of quality for olive oil, with kasis being the best and the ninth level being the lowest quality. It is not clear from the Talmud if any of the lower grades of olive oil were acceptable for use in the Menorah. However, the Rambam (Maimonides) in his work "Hilchot Beit HaBechira" (Laws of the Holy Temple) states that only the highest quality olive oil, kasis, was acceptable for use in the Menorah.
In summary, it seems that according to the Talmud and the Rambam, only the highest quality olive oil, kasis, was acceptable for use in the Menorah in the Holy Temple. It is not clear if any of the lower grades of oil were acceptable.
Wow! That looks impressive, and I could well imagine someone pasting it in as an answer at Mi Yodea. It is knowledgeable of sources, and brings in the Rambam’s discussion of it.
But, on closer inspection, we see it didn’t really answer the question. It answered about the oil quality needed for the Menorah, and not at all about the oil quality for the anointing oil. I’m not entirely sure of the quality of what GPT does say. But the response ends, anyway, with a shrug.
I tried to get it back on track with a follow-up:
Joshua Waxman: What about for the anointing oil, shemen hamishcha?
ChatGPT: According to the Torah, the ingredients for the anointing oil (shemen hamishchah) used for consecrating the Tabernacle, the Ark of the Covenant, and the garments of the High Priest were as follows:
Olive oil (Exodus 30:23-24)
Myrrh (Exodus 30:23)
Cinnamon (Exodus 30:23)
Calamus (Exodus 30:23)
Cassia (Exodus 30:24)
The exact proportions of these ingredients are not specified in the Torah. The Talmud (Shekalim 6:1) states that the anointing oil was made from 500 units of olive oil mixed with 6.5 units of myrrh, 3.5 units of cinnamon, 3.5 units of calamus, and 3.5 units of cassia. However, the Talmud also states that the ingredients for the anointing oil were a secret known only to the High Priest, and it is not clear if the proportions given in the Talmud are accurate.
In any case, it seems that the anointing oil was made from a mixture of olive oil and various aromatic spices. The quality of the olive oil used in the anointing oil is not specified in the Torah or in the Talmud, so it is not clear if it was required to be of a certain grade or quality.
OK, very informative. But ultimately, it does not answer the question. Yes, the questioner knew it wasn’t specified, which was why he asked it. But this just gives extra background on ingredients, and shrugs, since there is no available data. It doesn’t try to reason from the absence of details — shouldn’t the Torah or Talmud have specified such an important detail, or draw an analogy from the diyuk in לַמָּא֑וֹר, used to shoot down the other kal vachomer. It doesn’t try to reason based on why we should care about this particular aspect of the oil for specific purposes either. So the answer is a non-answer. But maybe the question merited it.