Mazal tov to Asher & Elisheva Seifman and family on the birth of a son.

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Times: Shabbat starts on Friday at 7:07 pm and ends on Saturday night at 8:02 pm. The weekly Torah portion is Shemini, Parshat Parah (not last week as stated), and Shabbat Mevarchim Nissan. Rosh Chodesh is next Shabbat.

Mincha in the CBD: Mincha will resume on 4 April (after DST ends) at Warlow’s Legal – 2/430 Lt Collins St. Join the WhatsApp group to stay across the latest details.

Study: The Weekly Shiur continues on Wednesday at 1.20 pm at Warlow’s Legal – 2/430 Lt Collins St. – and via Zoom. Current topic: Boundaries of worker eating rights. Details here and on the WhatsApp group.

Thought of the Week with thanks to Annette Charak. This week’s Torah reading contains a distressing scene: the death of two of Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu, at God’s hand.

“Now Aaron’s sons Nadav and Avihu each took his fire pan, put fire in it, and laid incense on it; and they offered alien fire before the Lord, which [the Lord] had not commanded them. And fire came forth from the Lord and consumed them; thus they died before the Lord” (Vayikra 10:1-2).

We can imagine the shock for both Moses and Aaron in that harrowing moment of total obliteration. In the aftermath, Moses speaks, but Aaron remains silent. On one view, that silence displays great faith (Rabbi Eliezer Lipman Lichtenstein).

To Rabbi Isaac Abravanel, however, Aaron was silent because his “heart turned to lifeless stone. He did not weep and mourn like a bereaved father, nor did he accept Moses’ attempts to console him, for his soul had left him and he was speechless.” Aaron was a father. In the words of Rabbi Shai Held, he was “stunned into numbness by the unthinkable—the sudden, completely unexpected death of two of his children. He does not speak because there are no words.”