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Times: Shabbat starts on Friday at 5:10 pm and ends on Saturday night at 6:08 pm. The weekly Torah portion is Kedoshim.

Mincha in the CBD: Mincha 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 (after mincha) at Warlow’s Legal – 2/430 Lt Collins St. – and via Zoom. Current topic: muzzling animals. Details here and on the WhatsApp group.

Thought of the Week with thanks to Levi Rosenbaum. It seemed like the weekly portion of Acharei Mos would never end – even over Pesach, learning was dominated by Yom Kippur! After focusing on the holiest day of the year, where the objective is to be like angels, free from worldly matters, we move on to Kedoshim. The week we focus on commandments, specifically those dealing with mundane aspects of the world.

One of these practical mitzvos, if you’re a farmer, is orlah and neta revai. This involves leaving a tree’s fruit for the first three years, eating the fruit of the fourth year in Jerusalem and finally freely eating in the fifth year “in order to increase its crop for you” (Vayikrah 19:24). This final part indicates that the tree’s fruit is restricted for the sake of plentiful growth in the fifth year.

Even though the fruits from the first four years are considered ‘holy’, the Torah is telling us that the fifth year’s fruit also encompasses God’s blessing. Mitzvos permeate the mundane.