Why do hundreds of people travel from distant lands to see the Mona Lisa but then when they finally get there, their first act is to take out their cameras and snap a picture of it? Walter Benjamin's 1936 essay "On the Reproducibility of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" discusses how, in modern times, art can be reproduced on a massive scale. This technology causes copies of art, even if identical to the original work, to seem paltry in comparison to the original work, which retains its "aura." When Moses ascends Mount Sinai, the first thing God tells him is how to build a temple in the wilderness, known as the Mishkan. Yet, the instructions God gives are awfully tedious and allow for the temple to be easily copied. The Torah, read ironically, suggests that this "replacement" for God, we might say, lacks the "aura" of the original work. In a war between Art and God, God will always have the last word.

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Music: Led Zeppelin - "Kashmir"