This parasha poses questions for which I have no easy answers. Why did Nadav and Avihu have to die before God (!) understood that specific instructions are needed before a human being—even a member of the priestly caste—can properly approach the Divine and safely return to earth?

Matters now become even more difficult—at least for me. As I read and re-read all the many prohibitions against incest (half-sister, paternal aunt, maternal aunt, paternal uncle, your uncle’s wife, etc.) I cannot find father-daughter, father-son, mother-daughter, or mother-son incest included. Have I missed it? Are we to assume that it is so obviously reprehensible, that there is no need to explicitly prohibit it? Knowing all that I know about the pandemic nature of incest within the modern family—surely something is missing here. But why? Forgive me dear People, for not having the answers to these very compelling questions. I am open to all your thoughts.

A sweet Shabbat Shalom.

P.S. Even though the Kohen HaGadol, Aharon, below, the subject of the painting, is not in all his priestly vestments, nevertheless, I am taken by his intensity, gravity, pensiveness, perhaps his suffering, which are all portrayed so well by the 17th century Swiss-Italian painter Pier Francesco Mola.