Times: Shabbat starts on Friday at 5:08 pm and ends on Saturday night at 6:08 pm. The weekly Torah portion is Va’etchanan.

Mincha in the CBD: We will try to resume mincha next week as we emerge from this latest lockdown. The Thursday mincha at 1.50pm (following shiur & lunch at 1.00pm) at L1 28/101 Collins is planning to resume in August. Join the the WhatsApp group to stay across the latest details.

Study: The Weekly Shiur continues on Wednesday at 1:10pm either online or combined in-person/online with lunch, depending on numbers. Current study: exactly when a borrower’s duty of care begins and ends. Details here.

Thought of the Week with thanks to Geoff Bloch. In this week’s Torah reading, Moshe warns the Jews: “When you raise children and grandchildren and you become old and successfully settled in The Land, you will grow weary and will fall into a rut of tedious existence where spirituality is relegated to a low priority, which will lead to your exile and dispersal”. This depressing prediction is juxtaposed against the ultimate antithesis of tedium – the Jews receiving the Torah at Mt Sinai.

This juxtaposition is perhaps explained by the sentiment Moshe expresses which separates these two episodes: “From there you will seek God and you will find Him, if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul.” This is the same sentiment we just read on Tisha B’Av: “Dirshu Hashem … ” – “Search God when He is near”

The Torah and the prophet Yeshayahu provide the formula for eternal youth by which the Jews can avoid the predicted catastrophe. We can defeat the ravages of time by constantly making the effort to improve ourselves spiritually and living lives of religious principle.

As the footy season is drawing to a close, we Tiger supporters might draw an analogy. lehavdil, how can our team, so “successfully settled” for so long, maintain its once youthful vigour and avoid the unfolding and somewhat inevitable and predicted decline and exile from the final series?

The cornerstone of the Torah and the prophet’s formula for eternal youth is constant effort to improve oneself. Indeed the formula applies to every field of human endeavour.

Therefore, just as we supporters strive to improve ourselves spiritually, so too may our beloved players stop resting on their laurels and make the required effort and exertion to improve their sporting prowess!