© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/15700704-12341368 The Review of Rabbinic Judaism 23 (2020) 165–182 brill.com/rrj The Scent of the Righteous vs. the Scent of the Wicked: Body Odor as a Social Indicator of Morality in Rabbinic Literature Abraham Ofir Shemesh Ariel University, Ariel, Israel avrahamos@ariel.ac.il Abstract Perceiving the odor emitted by one’s body or clothes as a manifestation of moral iden- tity is a cross-cultural sociological and literary phenomenon. Odors were perceived as a mark that set social boundaries and they made it possible to distinguish between groups of people by their status or identity. In the Christian, Muslim, and Bahai tradi- tions holy people, such as prophets, martyrs, and shahids, were perceived or described as smelling good. In Jewish cultural discourse, smell is a sociological-religious indi- cator that distinguishes, whether symbolically or realistically, between the good and the corrupt. The term “foul smell” is mentioned in association with negative people, mainly with regard to sexual promiscuity. In contrast, a good fragrance is emblematic of the Patriarchs (Abraham), people with stringent sexual morals (Joseph), and Torah scholars. Keywords body odor – smell in religion 1 Introduction In the last few decades, varied aspects related to the five senses—medical- biological, religious, and cultural1—have been discussed. It appears, however, 1  On the senses in religion and culture, see Constance Classen, Worlds of Sense: Exploring the Senses in History and across Cultures (London: Routledge, 1993); ibid., “Foundations for an Anthropology of the Senses,” in International Social Science Journal 153 (1997), pp. 401–412;