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Times: Shabbat starts on Friday at 5:12 pm and ends on Saturday at 6:12 pm. The weekly Torah portion is Matot-Massei.

Mincha in the CBD: On Mon/Tue, Mincha is at ABL – 21/333 Collins, on Wed at Warlows Legal – 2/430 Lt Collins, and on Thu at L1 Capital – 28/101 Collins. Join the WhatsApp group to stay across the latest details.

Study: The Weekly Shiur continues on Wednesday at about 1.15pm (after mincha) at Warlows Legal – 2/430 Lt Collins – and via Zoom. Current topic: duty of care for paid custodians. Details here and on the WhatsApp group.

Thought of the Week with thanks to Ezra May. In this week’s Torah reading, Moshe tells the tribes of Gad and Reuven that they must fulfil their conditions in order to be “clean in the eyes of God and the Jewish people” (32:22). The Rabbis derive from here the principle that a person is required to exceed the strict letter of the law in order that he not appear to be doing something inappropriate to those who observe him, referred to as “maris ayin.”

Some interesting examples outlined in the Talmud include from Chullin 75b that if a pregnant animal is ritually slaughtered, its foetus may be Biblically eaten without being slaughtered. However, if the foetus moves on the ground, the Sages require its slaughter before being eaten.

And from Shabbos 23a that if a person lives in a house with windows facing different directions, he must light a Chanukiah in each of them so that somebody passing an empty window won’t suspect him of neglecting the mitzvah.

The important overriding principle for us all to remember and implement is that all our actions, if viewed by others, should be easily considered and identified as being “clean in the eyes of God and the Jewish people”.