Times: Shabbat starts on Friday at 7:20pm and ends on Saturday night at 8:20pm. The weekly Torah portion is Bereishit and Shabbat Mevarchim Cheshvan. Rosh Chodesh is on Sunday and Monday.  

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 continues Wednesday at 1:20pm via zoom, with virtual mincha to follow at 1.45pm. BYO lunch. Details here

Thought of the Week with thanks to David Prins. The Torah is a book of instruction on how to live our lives. We might therefore expect that the Torah would begin its narration with role models whose exemplary way of life we should follow. However, it is a little while until we get to Avraham who will be the role model founder of our religion.

First we have to encounter Adam and Eve who sin by eating from a forbidden tree and get thrown out of the Garden of Eden as a result; Cain who kills his brother; a world population that is so wicked that it is destroyed by flood apart from Noah and his family; the saved Noah then disgraces himself while intoxicated; and the world population again sins against G-d, and this time is dispersed with multiple languages.

There is a lesson here that in order to understand and follow a positive role model we also need to be cognisant of the behaviours to avoid. Good character may not always come naturally. Rather, we must be careful to guard ourselves at all times against mixing with the wrong people and falling into bad habits and bad behaviour.