JBD – Jews of the Melbourne CBD is now on LinkedIn. Follow us here.
Shabbat starts on Friday at 5:50pm and ends on Saturday at 6:48pm. The weekly Torah portion is Ki Tavo. Selichot starts on Saturday night.
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: laws of neighbours. Details here and on the WhatsApp group.
Thought of the Week with thanks to Levi Rosenbaum.
This week’s Torah reading opens with the mitzvah of Bikkurim – bringing the first fruits to the Temple. Unlike other offerings, which were burnt to varying degrees on the altar, these fruits were simply presented, waved and then eaten by the Kohanim in their original form.
Another unique detail was in the baskets which contained the fruit. If the farmer used a simple, handmade basket woven from local materials, the basket itself was accepted as part of the gift. But if he brought the fruit in an ornate, metal basket, the fruit was accepted, but the basket returned. Why? Because the handmade basket showed personal effort and care, using the very produce of the land to fashion something for a mitzvah. The message is to work with the raw, physical world and turn it into holiness.
This theme appears again later in the portion, when Moshe inscribed the Torah on stones in seventy languages. Stone is the most basic of materials, yet it became a vehicle for the holiest of words, teaching us that the physical itself is not a barrier to spirituality but the very medium through which it is expressed.
As we approach the High Holidays, the lesson is direct: our mission is not to reject the physical, but to engage with it in our food, our homes, our work and daily routines and infuse it with Godliness.
May we succeed in making every part of our lives into a dwelling place for God, as we prepare to crown Him as our King this Rosh Hashanah.
Good Shabbos and Shana Tova!