Endnote 3 – “Secret Mark”: Restoring a Dead Scholar’s Reputation
The word used in the Mishnah is “salt [melach] sal-conditum.” For some inexplicable reason, the word melach is omitted from both the Danby and Neusner translations of the Mishnah. Jacob Neusner, The Mishnah, Avodah Zara 2, 6 (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1988), p. 664. It is there in the Hebrew text, however, not only here, but elsewhere when this kind of salt or salt similar to it is referred to. Pinhas Kehati translates the reference “salkentit salt.” According to his commentary, this refers to “a salt mixed with spices into which they used to mix lard and fat from unclean fishes” (emphasis supplied). Rabbi Pinhas Kehati, Roy Abramowitz, tr., Mishnah with Commentary, Avodah Zarah 2, 6 (Jerusalem, 1994).