Times: Sukkot starts on Friday night; light candles at 6:07pm. On Saturday night, light candles after 7:06pm from a pre-existing flame. DST officially starts on Saturday night; clocks move forward one hour. Yom Tov ends on Sunday night at 7:07pm AEST (8:07pm AEDT). Last days of Sukkot (Shmini Atzeret & Simchat Torah) start on Friday 9 Oct; light candles at 7.14pm. On Saturday night, light candles after 8.13pm from a pre-existing flame. Yom Tov ends on Sunday night at 8.14pm. 

Mincha in the CBD: Mincha is still virtual as we await people returning to work in the city. That means we all daven at an agreed time, which is 1.45pm now that we’re on summer schedule. Details at the WhatsApp group.

Study: Weekly Shiur is on recess during Chol HaMo’ed and will resume next Wednesday 13 Oct at 1:20pmvia zoom, with virtual mincha to follow at 1.45pm. BYO lunch. Details here.

Thought of the Week with thanks to Annette Charak. On Sukkot, we sit in the sukkah, a simple, fragile, impermanent structure open to the sky, with flexible walls and leaves for a roof. Each year, we are reminded how vulnerable, how exposed to the elements we are, despite the security we may feel we have built.

And yet, despite the structural uncertainty of the festival, Sukkot is also the festival of joy, z’man simchateinu. In the Torah, we are told three times to be joyous on this festival (“v’samachta b’chagecha”).

We are reminded to find joy in the fragility and simplicity of life. We are reminded that we can live with insecurity and still celebrate life.

In this year unlike any other, we know uncertainty and insecurity only too well. Sukkot is a timely reminder of the joy we can — indeed must — find in the one “wild and precious life” we have to live.