Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Users Search
Help Dashboard Sign In Sign Up
Q&A Challenges Divrei Torah Meta
Q&A
Posts Tags Edits
Ask Question

Welcome to the Judaism community on Codidact!

Will you help us build our community of learners? Drop into our study hall, ask questions, help others with answers to their questions, share a d'var torah if you're so inclined, invite your friends, and join us in building this community together. Not an ask-the-rabbi service, just people at all levels learning together.

Comments on Making a Bracha on a smell test.

Post

Making a Bracha on a smell test.

+3
−0

Some members of my family are required to take a "smell test" in order to attend school each day.
Are they required to make a bracha בורא מיני בשמים like when usually smelling nice things, or is this considered a special case and they wouldn't have to1?

  1. It happens to be that they use Besamim (from havdalah), but I don't think it would make a difference. ↩

halacha spices blessing
posted over 4 years ago
4y ago
user card
Dani‭
462 reputation 36 5 82 30
History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.
Why should this post be closed?

1 comment thread

General comments (7 comments)
General comments
Dani‭ wrote over 4 years ago
copy link

Crossposted:https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/117273/making-a-bracha-on-a-smell-test

manassehkatz‭ wrote over 4 years ago
copy link

The fact that is is Besamim may be very relevant. As I understand it, smelling spices and similar grown items gets a Bracha but artificial smells do not. (No source, I heard this many years ago.) My guess though is that this would be similar to questions regarding medicine - e.g., perhaps like a chewable vitamin which is Derech Achila (unlike a pill swallowed whole) but for purely medicinal purposes.

robev‭ wrote over 4 years ago · edited over 4 years ago
copy link

I really don't understand the point of this test. Not everyone who has COVID loses their sense of smell. Also, they ask the child if they smell? What's to stop them from saying they do?

manassehkatz‭ wrote over 4 years ago · edited over 4 years ago
copy link

@robev I 100% agree. Smell is the easiest thing to fake an answer to, unless you start including non-smelling items in a blind test - and then the people will claim they smelled something in the air (which could really be true). I think that's why the non-contact thermometer tests are so popular - you can't fake it. (Well, unless you take tylenol an hour before you go to the store/school/etc., but nobody would ever do such a thing, right?)

Isaac Moses‭ wrote over 4 years ago · edited over 4 years ago
copy link

Mod note: The main point of comments is to discuss potential improvements to the post at hand. For tangent discussions, consider using chat. UPDATE: This note was based on a concept from Stack Exchange that I had in my head, but that hasn't been firmly adopted here. We'll discuss commenting in Meta. I've undeleted the previously-deleted comments, and my suggestion to take this tangential discussion to Chat stands as a suggestion.

DonielF‭ wrote over 4 years ago
copy link

IMHO: You’re not smelling it because you enjoy the smell. You’re smelling it because you’re taking a smell test. I’d think there’s no bracha to be made.

AA ‭ wrote over 4 years ago
copy link

@robev when i had covid, i didn't realize i had lost my sense of smell until the following saturday night. the test may not weed out malicious rodfim, but it will alert people to something they might not have realized. (to weed out the rodfim, they could potentially give you one of two smells each day and ask if it's mint or cinammon)

Skipping 4 deleted comments.