היום יום ששה ימים לעוםר
Hey ya'll, it's the sixth day of the Omer count. In other news, the pope is dying.

I read Parashat Shemini this week. It's the chronicle of the events of the eighth day of the inaguration of Aharon and his sons as priests of the אהל מועד, Tent of Meeting.
Aharon slaughtered the offerings and caused them to go up in smoke on the Altar. Moshe and Aharon blessed the people with hands raised, and the glory of Yahweh appeared to the entire nation of Israel! A supernatural fire descended from the King of Israel and consumed the offerings. The people saw it, rejoiced, and fell on their faces. But in the midst of the glory and joy, they are reminded of the unsavory fact that God kills people. Aharon's two eldest sons put fire and incense in their fire pans and bring a strange fire before Yahweh which He had not commanded them. Another fire comes from Yahweh, consuming the sons, Nadav and Avihu, and they die. Their bodies are removed by their cousins from the face of the Holy, and Aharon and his two remaining sons are warned by Moshe not to mourn their brothers and cease their service at the Tent of Meeting, lest they also die. Yahweh speaks to Aharon with a prohibition against drinking booze while they're serving in the Tent of Meeting. Were Nadav and Avihu drinking on the job? Later that day, Moshe becomes angry with Elazar and Itamar, the two remaining sons, because they burned the sin-offering for the nation, instead of eating their alloted portion as he commanded. Aharon steps in to remind Moshe that he was the one that offered the sin-offering, not his sons, and that he was too scared by the death of his sons to eat his portion. Moshe cools it. The parasha ends with mitzvot of clean and unclean foods. The reason we are not to eat foods prohibited by Yahweh? So that we may be holy, as He is holy.

The haftarah for this parasha is II Samuel 6, the account of Uzzah, another man killed by Yahweh, this time for touching the Ark of the Covenant. It's also the joyful tale of the Ark's entry into the Holy City, ירושלים.