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Shabbat starts on Friday at 7:28pm and ends on Saturday at 8:29pm. The weekly Torah portion is Noach.

Mincha continues at 1.45pm 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 1.20pm (before mincha) at A-P GF/459 Collins – and via zoom. Current topic: governance of charity collectors. Details here and on the WhatsApp group.

Thought of the Week with thanks to David Prins.

There is a well-known riddle: “Who was the world’s first financier?” The answer is Noah, because he floated a company while the rest of the world was in liquidation.

Noah, his immediate family, and a collection of animals were saved in the Ark that Noah built, while the rest of the world’s inhabitants were wiped out. The Torah promises that such a destructive flood covering the entire world will never recur, and the rainbow in the sky is a reminder of this promise. But history can repeat itself in other ways. The two major world stock exchange crashes which caused financial wipe-out in the last 100 years were the Wall Street crash in October‑November 1929, and Black Monday on 19 October 1987. Both occurred at the time of this Torah reading. The numerical value (gematria) of Noah (as written in Hebrew) is 58, and these crashes were 58 years apart.

At the time of Noah the vast majority chose evil and were destroyed. Only Noah and his family were worthy to be saved.

At all times as individuals and societies we must avoid evil which will inevitably lead to cycles of destruction. Instead we must seek out good to enjoy sustainable success and redemption.