Chevre, this week’s parsha is Shemini (שמיני). This week I was playing with some new software I heard about online. I spun up a small virtual machine in my home lab, ran all the updates, and installed the docker container. The containers were running, but I couldn’t access the software. I was actually more interested in getting the mesh VPN (Tailscale) working in the containers than in the software itself and off to the logs I went. It is not unusual for a new deployment to fail the first time. We try things in a safe environment (not in production) and we learn what is missing and we start fixing things.

In this week’s parsha, the Priestly Service begins in the Mishkan and soon after (seemingly the same day) we have the death of Nadav and Avihu, the sons of Aharon. When dealing with the immense spiritual energy of the Mishkan, a mistake can be life threatening. However, the blessings upon Am Yisrael when the service is done right are immense. From this episode we learn a great deal of lessons learned (almost like an AWS COE). What not to do (don’t come to the Mishkan intoxicated). We learn the laws of mourning in a disagreement between Aharon and Moshe. We learn the laws of Kashrut.

And through these spiritual and technical lessons learned, we learn how to be closer to HaShem and be better technical engineers, operators, etc. Shabbat Shalom