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

Shabbat starts on Friday at 8:10pm and ends on Saturday at 9:10pm. The weekly Torah portion is Yitro.

Mincha is now in summer recess until the end of DST in early April. See the WhatsApp group for further info.

Weekly sushi & shiur continues on Wed at 1.30pm at A-P GF/459 Collins – and via zoom. Current topic: dividing common property. Details here and on the WhatsApp group.

Thought of the Week with thanks to David Werdiger.

This week’s Torah reading tells the story of the giving of the Torah at Mt Sinai. When the Jewish people camped there, the verse uses the singular grammatical form “vayichan” (Shmot 19.2). Commentators explain that this was a moment of pure unity as the Jewish people were “as one person; with one heart” and appropriately ready to receive the Torah.

However, in the previous portion (Shmot 14.10), the Egyptians are also described using a singular form as they pursued the Jews toward the Reed Sea, and in the words of the commentators “with one heart and as one person”.

The difference between the terms is subtle yet significant. For the Egyptians, their unity was led with the heart, indicating shared purpose: that of greed and the desire to enslave.

The nature of Jewish unity is person first, then heart. This is the suspension of ego before the Divine, and a unity that transcends our ideological differences.