Times: Shabbat starts tonight with candlelighting at 5:02pm; ends Saturday night at 6:01pm. The weekly Torah portion for Shabbos is Bechukotai. Rosh Chodesh Sivan is on Tuesday, May 19.
Past Events: To listen to Rabbi Michael Beris’s lecture on“The mirror reflected: land registration and Jewish law” from this past Wednesday please click here.
Upcoming Events: Friday, May 22nd Lunchtime lecture with Rabbi Moshe Taragin “Why Doesn’t the Torah Mention the Afterlife? If the afterlife is so pivotal to religion why doesn’t the Torah mention it? Where is true heaven?” at the special early time of 12:15pm at Arnold Bloch Leibler, Level 21, 333 Collins Street. RSVP for catering purposes to events@jbd.org.au by Tuesday 19th May. For more information click here for the JBD website or here for the JBD Facebook page.
Mincha in the CBD: Mincha continues at 1.00pm Monday-Thursday.
Study: Wed shiur @ Billing Bureau: 1:15pm
Kosher Food in the CBD: Nifla Kosher Catering (KA Hechsher)
Offers Corporate Catering, specializing in individual and board room lunches. For further details visit www.nifla.com.au
10% Discount on your first website purchase. Enter promo code “FIRST TIME”.
Kosher sandwiches, muffins and salads are available at the following locations:
CUPP- Manchester Unity Building- Ground Floor-220 Collins Street
CBW EXPRESS-181 William Street.(Entrance Little Bourke St)
IN A RUSH CAFE-616 St Kilda Road-(Ground Floor-Lowe Lippmann Building)
Spot On (KA Hechsher)
Kosher sandwiches and snacks are available at the following location:
PRONTO ON FLINDERS-335 Flinders Lane
Smoked salmon and cheese sandwich, Tuna sandwich,Cheese and salad sandwich, Egg and tomato sandwich. Natural yoghurt with berries and granola clusters, Mixed berry muffin, Seasonal fresh fruit salad, Pesto pasta salad (new), Greek salad (new).
Thought of the Week with thanks to Gaby Silver. This week’s Torah reading of Behar discusses the obligations concerning Jewish slaves, concluding with the breathtaking assertion “for the children of Israel are slaves to Me, they are My slaves, whom I have taken out of the land of Egypt”. Was this the purpose of “freedom”? Did G-d rescue us from one form of slavery, simply to exchange it for another? Rashi appears to affirm this notion, interpreting this statement to say: “My contract comes first”, indicating the primacy of G-d’s claim to our indentured servitude!
Chassidic thought turns this around, interpreting the double mention of “slaves” as referring to two aspects of the Divine “contract”. On one hand, by accepting the Torah, we voluntarily took upon ourselves its obligations based on our inherently limited intellectual and emotional faculties, but nevertheless of our own free will. This is therefore not a complete “servitude”. Hashem only agreed to free us from Egypt because of this will. In doing so, He established a contract beyond intellect and emotion, based on our total submission and commitment to His Torah. In this light, we can agree with Rashi that indeed, His “contract comes first”.