In this week’s parashah, as well as in those that have preceded it, we have come to understand the exact nature of this burden.

Our expressions of revelation — in our holiest texts — bear witness not only to the light of God but also to the darkness of our own narrow vision, our biases and our prejudices.

While today, like Dorian Gray, we have mostly succeeded in severing the connection between our bodies and souls, back then, our sins showed.

But what is the meaning of “strange fire?”

There is something alluring about that long gone era.

We would be wrong to dismiss the Levitical model of atonement out of hand.

While God commanded Moses from the inside out, Bezalel, the artisan of the tabernacle, builds from the outside in.

Distance and duration are central to this reconciliation narrative.

We are being asked by the Torah to picture. This is no small thing.

For those who seek a philosophically perfect God, this parashah presents a challenge.