Half a batch was fine, but one missing spice was not. What is the rule?
Two lines near the end of this passage seem to pull in opposite directions. If only half the amount was made, the incense was still valid. If even one spice was left out, the person was liable to death.
The rule that ties them together is proportion. The Gemara of the Land of Israel (the Yerushalmi) explains that "half" means half of each spice. This passage gives the rule in the name of Rabbi Yehudah, another sage it quotes: if it is in its proportions, it is valid even in halves. A smaller batch is the same recipe. A batch with a spice missing is a different one.
The Torah uses the same idea. The ban on copying the incense says not to make it "in its proportions." The Rambam (Maimonides, who died in 1204) rules from this that someone who makes it to enjoy the smell is liable to karet (being cut off from the people) even for half or a third, as long as the weights match.
The Gemara does not settle every case. The teaching says that for a third or a quarter, "we have not heard." Rashi reads this to mean that the Temple never made so little, so a private person who did would be exempt. The Sages in the same teaching disagree. They say the incense could be made each day "in its proportion." Rashi explains that on their view even one day's amount counts. The Rambam's ruling fits their side: for him the weights decide.
So the two ends are clear. The right proportions at half size are valid. A missing spice is not. For the cases in between, the sources split.
Talmud Yerushalmi, Yoma 4:5,Shemot 30:37,Rambam, Laws of the Temple Vessels 2:9,Keritot 6b, with RashiIf urine would have worked, why did "respect" ban it?
Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, a teacher from Mishnah times, says what the helper ingredients are for. Soap rubs the onycha so it looks good. Cyprus wine soaks it so its smell is strong. Then he asks: wouldn't urine be good for it? It would. But urine is not brought into the Temple. (The Pitum HaKetoret prayer has more on the Hebrew word.)
Is that just squeamishness? The Gemara of the Land of Israel adds the words your siddur has: out of respect. The Babylonian Gemara adds a second angle. It ties the line to a teaching of Rabbi Yose son of Rabbi Chanina: "all its making must be only in a holy place." Rashi says the incense was mixed in the Temple courtyard. On his reading, the Gemara's point is that the soaking could not be done somewhere else, where urine was allowed, and then carried in.
The Kol Bo (a collection of laws and customs from the Middle Ages) points out that a bad smell alone cannot be the reason. Galbanum smells terrible, and it is in the recipe. So the problem is not how the incense would smell. It is bringing something foul into the holy place, out of respect for it.
The Temple had a whole code of respect. The Mishnah (the core text of the Oral Torah) says a person may not go up the Temple Mount with a walking stick, with shoes, with a money belt, or with dust on his feet, and may not use it as a shortcut. The urine rule fits that standard.
Not everyone reads it as urine. The Kol Bo and the Kaf HaChaim (a Sephardic law commentary from the early 1900s) record a view that the name is a spring called Raglayim, because it never crossed anyone's mind to soak the spices in the real thing. Both readings are in the books.
Keritot 6a, with Rashi,Talmud Yerushalmi, Yoma 4:5,Kol Bo 38,Mishnah Berakhot 9:5,Kaf HaChaim, Orach Chaim 132:21I said this recipe earlier. Why again, and why do some shuls skip it?
Start with the Tur (a law code from the 1300s). He asks why the incense passage is said morning and evening, while the day's psalm is said only in the morning. His answer: the incense was commanded for both times of day, and the psalm only for the morning. The Torah says Aharon burns it "in the morning" and "between the evenings," every day.
In the Tur's order, then, the incense comes after the prayers, morning and evening. The Rema (Rabbi Moshe Isserles, who added Ashkenazi practice to the Shulchan Aruch) repeats it: say Pitum HaKetoret "evening and morning, after the prayer."
The Kaf HaChaim (a Sephardic law commentary from the early 1900s) gives the order of the Shelah (Rabbi Yeshayahu Horowitz, who died in 1630), and says it matches the Arizal (Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, the Kabbalist of Tzfat in the 1500s). Say it after the daily offering passage early in the morning, at the end of Shacharit after Kaveh (the verses that open "Hope for Hashem"), and at Mincha before Ashrei. Weekday or Shabbat, and nowhere else.
So no incense at night, though the Tur reports a custom to say it after Maariv. The Kaf HaChaim says this is the custom of the Land of Israel, Egypt, Turkey and some European cities. This siddur prints it in those places.
Other communities said less. The Rema writes that the custom became not to say it on weekdays, when people rush to work, in case someone skips a spice. The Mishnah Berurah (a central commentary on daily Jewish law, around 1900) reports that Rabbi Yosef Karo doubted this worry, since the death penalty was for burning it, not for reading it. So careful people say it every day. Some add that those who say it only on Shabbat are not fluent in it and should read from the siddur.
None of the sources we opened says why the morning has two places for it. They report the orders communities settled on. The Kaf HaChaim says that someone whose town does not follow this order should do it on his own, quietly.
Tur, Orach Chaim 133,Shemot 30:7-8,Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 132:2, Rema,Kaf HaChaim, Orach Chaim 132:19,Mishnah Berurah 132:17