Condolences to John Searle and family on the passing of his mother

JBD – Jews of the Melbourne CBD is now on LinkedIn. Follow us here.

Shabbat starts on Friday at 7:10pm and ends on Saturday at 8:06pm. Purim is on Saturday night & Sunday. The weekly Torah portion is Vayikra and Parshat Zachor.

Mincha at Ainsworth Property – GF/459 Collins is in recess for the summer and will resume on 8 April after DST ends. Join the WhatsApp group for updates.

Weekly sushi & shiur continues on Wed at 1.30pm at A-P GF/459 Collins – and via zoom. Current topic: default terms for short/long term leases. Details here and on the WhatsApp group.

Thought of the Week with thanks to David Prins.

This week’s Torah reading (and much of the book of Vayikra which we start to read this week) is devoted to the subject of the offering of sacrifices in the Mishkan (the temporary sanctuary in the desert), and later in the Temple. The subject is introduced by referring to “when a man brings an offering” (Vayikra 1:2). The word used for “man” is “Adam”, which was the name of the first man Adam Ha‑rishon.

The normal-sized letter aleph in the spelling here of “Adam” contrasts with the large aleph which is used to denote Adam in I Chronicles 1:1.

Adam there is introducing a genealogy that is large in ego, and self‑centred. Already in the second generation, Cain cannot share the world with his brother Abel. Within ten generations, the world is corrupt and full of violence (Bereishit 6:11). Adam’s large aleph in I Chronicles contrasts further with Moshe’s humility which is denoted in the small aleph in the word Vayikra itself.

In our daily life, we must cut down our large ego, and become normal sized, even if we can’t achieve the extreme humility of Moshe.