When the fire came down: Opening night at the Mishkan |
After the Mishkan’s dramatic debut ends in fire, tragedy, and silence, the Torah quietly moves holiness off the stage and into everyday life.
Parashat Shemini begins like the opening night of a very expensive production.
For weeks, the Israelites have been preparing the Mishkan, rehearsing rituals, tailoring priestly garments that could bankrupt a respectable textile industry. Moses has been directing the whole operation like a man determined that if G-D is going to dwell among the people, the lighting should at the very least be correct.
Seven days of the inauguration have passed. Seven days of rehearsal, essentially.
Then comes the eighth day.
Eight is not an accidental number in the Torah. Seven is the natural rhythm of creation, the cadence of the ordinary world. Eight is what happens when something breaks that pattern. Eight is where heaven intrudes.
So on the eighth day, Aaron begins his service as High Priest. Offerings are brought. The people watch. Moses stands nearby with the tense expression of someone who has spent forty years building something that may or may not work.
A fire comes forth from before G-D and consumes the offering on the altar.
This is not metaphorical fire. The text is quite clear. Divine approval arrives the way G-D tends to arrive in Leviticus: visibly, dramatically, and with a distinct lack of subtlety.
The people see it and fall on their faces.
It has worked. The Mishkan works. The entire wilderness project — Egypt, plagues, Sinai,........