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Times: Shabbat starts on Friday at 5:46 pm and ends on Saturday night at 6:41 pm. The weekly Torah portion is Metzora and Shabbat Hagadol.

Mincha in the CBD: Mincha resumed successfully this week and continues 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 about 1.15pm at Warlow’s Legal – 2/430 Lt Collins St. – and via Zoom. Current topic: prohibition against muzzling animals. Details here and on the WhatsApp group.

Thought of the Week with thanks to Asher Seifman. An interesting feature of the Torah portion this week is the use of the term  throughout the description of the purification process of the metzora. Use of this term is rare throughout Tanach and can be translated here, noting the reflexive form of the word, as ‘the person undergoing purification’. One might present a number of interesting possibilities here as to why this specific term is used (rather than simply using the term ‘metzora’/leper).

Perhaps, on one view, the Torah is emphasising that there is inherent spiritual value in the metzora’s participation of the process itself, rather than it simply being a means to an end.

One might also observe that the term, without punctuation, could be read as a reference to the kohen/priest performing the purification ritual – perhaps this suggests that the priest too, conceptually, undergoes some element of purification during the process, in the spirit of every Jew being responsible for the other.

If we also consider that hyssop and cedarwood (respectively representing the lowest and highest forms of plant life) were used in the purification ritual, perhaps, we can suggest that the Torah is teaching us that we should always be undergoing a process of conceptual self-purification and helping others, regardless of their current religious standing, to do the same.