Mazal Tov to Eli & Aliza Amzalak and families on the birth of a baby girl!
JBD – Jews of the Melbourne CBD is now on LinkedIn. Follow us here.
Shabbat starts on Friday at 5:39pm and ends on Saturday at 6:35pm. The weekly Torah portion is Metzora and Shabbat HaGadol.
Pesach begins on Monday night (22/4). Finish eating chametz before 10.28am, sell and burn chametz before 11:23am. Candle lighting at 5:25pm, then on Tuesday (23/4) light candles after 6:22pm. Yom Tov ends on Wednesday night (24/4) at 6:21pm.
Second Days of Pesach begin on Sunday (28/4) with candle lighting at 5:18pm. Then on Monday (29/4) light candles after 6:15pm. Pesach ends Tuesday night (30/4) at 6:14pm.
Our special Pre-Pesach lunch & shiur was well attended. For those who missed it or want to relive the experience, you can catch the audio recording here
Mincha 1pm at Ainsworth Property – GF/459 Collins Mon-Thu and will resume after Pesach. Join the WhatsApp group where we take a count to confirm each day.
Weekly sushi & shiur continues will resume on Wed 1 May at about 1.10pm (after mincha) at A-P GF/459 Collins – and via zoom. Current topic: revenue share partnership disputes. Details here and on the WhatsApp group.
Thought of the Week with thanks to Benji Jones.
There are four names for the festival of Pesach: Chag HaPesach – The Festival of Passover, Chag HaMatzot – The Festival of Matzot, Chag HaAviv – The Festival of Springtime, and Zman Cheirutaynu – The Time of Freedom. I’d like to focus on the first two names.
We commonly call the festival Pesach (Passover), in recognition of G-d passing over the houses of the Jews when He killed the Egyptian firstborns.
In the Torah however, the festival is never referred to as Chag HaPesach, and is rather called Chag HaMatzot – the festival of Matzot. This is obviously due to the Jews eating the matzot as they departed Egypt.
What is special about these two names is that both credit the other entity. We refer to the Chag as Pesach in honour of G-d, crediting Him for his part in our redemption. On the other hand, G-d in His Torah calls the festival Chag HaMatzot, crediting the Jews for following in His ways and eating the matzah in order to leave Egypt, even though their dough had not yet risen.
May we learn from this the importance of giving credit to others.