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Shabbat starts on Friday at 5:43pm and ends on Saturday at 6:41pm. The weekly Torah portion is Nitzavim-Vayelech.
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: property set-backs. Details here and on the WhatsApp group.
Thought of the Week with thanks to Avi Gordon
This week’s reading of Nitzavim commences with the words, “Atem nitzavim hayom kulchem lifnei Hashem Elokeichem – All of you are standing, this day, before the Lord, your G-d.”
After telling us that we are all standing before G-d, the Torah goes on to cite different categories of people within the nation: ‘Your heads’, ‘your elders’, ‘your tribes’, ‘your officers’ etc.
The commentator Alshich Hakadosh asks, if everybody was already included in the initial statement – ‘all of us are standing before G-d’ – why do we need these specifics?
He explains beautifully that the opening statement reveals to us how G-d sees us: without titles, without descriptive terms, without professions and without careers. He sees through to our hearts and to our souls.
The second statement relates to how we see ourselves and others. For titles are only important in the minds of humans.
The message is clear: we should look at our fellow as G-d looks at us.
Without the titles, without the letters after their name, but for the people they genuinely are and the people they can be.