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Shabbat starts on Friday at 5:55pm and ends on Saturday night at 6:53pm. The weekly Torah portion is Ha’azinu and Shabbat Shuva.
Yom Kippur starts on Sunday at 5:57pm and ends on Monday at 6:54pm.
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 Isaac Balbin
The Torah in the weekly portion of Ha’azinu states:
“I shall hide My face (hester panim) from them and see what their end will be.” (Devarim 32:20)
R’ Dov Berish Gottlieb, in his Yad HaKetana, explains that hester panim does not mean that G-d ceases to watch over us. Rather, His presence is concealed from us. This is reflected in the verse:
“Behold, he is standing behind our wall, gazing through the windows, peering through the lattices.” (Shir HaShirim 2:9)
A person looking through a crack in a wall can see his friend just as clearly as through an open doorway. The difference is that the one being observed is unaware he is being watched. So too with hester panim: G-d continues to watch over us, but we do not perceive Him.
There is, then, a fundamental distinction between Divine absence and Divine concealment. Concealment does not mean an absence of providence. Indeed, the very survival of the Jewish people is itself testimony to that providence.
This also exposes the fallacy of the historical Christian claim that the Jewish exile proved G-d had rejected the Jewish people. Hester panim means precisely the opposite: G-d may be hidden, but He has never abandoned us. Our continued existence, and ultimately the re-establishment of Jewish sovereignty in Israel, stands as powerful testimony to that truth.
The wall may conceal Him from our sight, but, as the Yad HaKetana teaches, the One behind the wall has never stopped watching.