Besamim box, or spice tower (Hebrew: besamim)
Weekly Jewish holiday – Shabbat – concludes on Saturday evening with the Havdalah ceremony, which means "separation" in Hebrew. One of the ritual acts accompanying the ceremony is the smelling of fragrant roots, herbs, or crushed rose petals. They are placed in a decorative spice tower over which a blessing is recited (M. Goldstein, K. Dresdner, Kultura i sztuka ludu żydowskiego na ziemiach polskich, Lwów 1935, pp. 40-41).
The earliest mentions of using a special container for herbs during Havdalah date back to the 12th century. The custom became more widespread several centuries later, and the oldest artifacts date back to the early 16th century (Judaica ze zbiorów Muzeum Narodowego w Warszawie, edited by E. Martyna, Warsaw 1993, p. 157).
The scent of the herbs is symbolically meant to invigorate the body that has been left by the additional Shabbat soul (Hebrew: neshamah yeteirah). It is also believed to help the faithful cope with the hardships of the coming week.
The forms of spice towers have changed over different periods but with the preservation of traditional designs. They took the shape of towers, buildings, boxes, fish, and even locomotives.
The besamim box from the collection of the District Museum in Leszno represents the most commonly occurring tower-shaped type. It is supported by a dome-shaped base and has a baluster-shaped stem with a thickened knop and a rectangular-shaped container. The central fields on two side walls of the container and the back wall are decorated with stylised vine. Decorative framing in the form of a wavy line was created around it. A smooth door was placed in the centre of the front wall. Small pennants are attached to the upper corners of the container, and bells are attached to the lower part. The whole structure is crowned with a conical roof topped with a sphere and a pennant. An engraved inscription "MET" is placed on the edge of the base, which in the interwar period served as a mark for base metals.
The besamim box was purchased for the collection in 1994 from Edwin Nowacki's Antique Shop in Poznań.
Dariusz Czwojdrak
