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

Mincha continues at  1.00pm at A-P GF/459 Collins, using the WhatsApp group to confirm a minyan each day.

Weekly sushi & shiur continues on Wed at 1.10pm at A-P GF/459 Collins – and via zoom. Current topic: laws of Torah scrolls. Details here and on the WhatsApp group.

Thought of the Week with thanks to Geoffrey Bloch.

The Torah reading on Shavuot relates how the Ten Commandments were given orally by G-d to the Jewish people at Mt Sinai.

While those commandments gave us the essential, objective moral code to live by, we can also gain an insight into the Divine will, from how those commandments were subsequently given to the Jews in physical form, in two tablets of stone.

The Ten Commandments were actually delivered by G-d, in physical form, twice.

The first set of tablets was made of stone both hewn by G-d and written on by G-d. They were wholly the creation of G-d. And they lasted, figuratively, for five minutes. Moshe descended Mt Sinai and smashed the tablets at the foot of the mountain when he saw the Golden Calf.

The second set of stone tablets was very different. They were hewn by Moshe and written on by G-d. The second set of tablets was created in a partnership between Man and G-d.

Those tablets have lasted for an eternity as their moral message has resonated down through the ages, providing the moral foundation of civilised society.

What endures in this world is where Man and G-d work together in harmonious partnership.

From the very beginning of scripture, it is clear that this is what G-d desires of us. For example, after creating the world, G-d, dismayed at mankind’s inclination to evil, resolves not only to wipe out mankind from the face of the Earth, but all other forms of life as well. G-d resiled from His resolution only because “Noah found favour in G-d’s eyes,” proving that the whole purpose of creation is that we, too, forge our own harmonious relationship with Him.