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Shabbat starts on Friday at 5:44m and ends on Saturday at 6:42pm. The weekly Torah portion is Ki Teitzei.

Mincha continues at 1pm at A-P GF/459 Collins Mon & Wed, and Thu 1.45pm at L1 Capital using the WhatsApp group to confirm numbers.

Weekly sushi & shiur continues on Wed at 1.10pm (after mincha) at A-P GF/459 Collins – and via zoom. Current topic: law of neighbours. Details here and on the WhatsApp group.

Thought of the Week with thanks to Michelle Coleman.

In this week’s Torah reading we read about the yefat to’ar, the captive woman whom a soldier desires to marry. The Torah does not allow him to take her immediately. Instead, she must undergo a month of mourning — cutting her hair, growing her nails, and weeping for her mother and father. Why does the Torah require a full month of tears?

Rav Chaim Zeitchik, one of the great ba’alei mussar, explains that true transformation takes time. A single day, or even a week, is not enough to uproot ingrained habits or reshape the heart. It takes sustained effort over the course of a month to shift one’s inner world. The captive woman is given 30 days to grieve, to release herself from the idolatrous culture of her past, and to begin preparing for a different life.

This portion always falls in Elul, and its message speaks directly to us. Elul is our 30-day gift of preparation. Just as the captive woman was given time to mourn and let go, we too are given time to weep for our shortcomings, to reflect on the past year, and to slowly realign ourselves with who we want to be.

Change is rarely instant. But a month of steady effort can accomplish wonders. If we embrace Elul as our own 30-day challenge, we can enter Rosh Hashanah & Yom Kippur transformed.