JBD – Jews of the Melbourne CBD is now on LinkedIn. Follow us here.
Shabbat starts on Friday at 7:34pm and ends on Saturday at 8:35pm. The weekly Torah portion is Vayeira.
Mincha continues on summer schedule at 1.45pm at A-P GF/459 Collins, using the WhatsApp group to confirm a minyan each day.
Weekly sushi & shiur continues on Wed at 1.20pm at A-P GF/459 Collins – and via zoom – followed by mincha at 1.45pm. Current topic: property set-backs. Details here and on the WhatsApp group.
Thought of the Week with thanks to Michelle Coleman
Why does G-d test us? Or – phrased differently – why do good people suffer? It’s the million-dollar question that those far greater than I have wrestled with for centuries. I certainly won’t answer it in 150 words!
Yet this week’s Torah reading offers a clue. Avraham is asked to sacrifice his son in the ultimate test of Divine trust and obedience.
The midrash offers three metaphors:
- A flax worker beating his finest flax, making it softer and stronger
- A potter testing his strongest vessels, demonstrating their quality to others
- A farmer choosing his best ox for the heaviest load, allowing it to fulfil its greatest potential.
But when facing real suffering, these ideas can offer little comfort. That is where Rabbi Sacks offers his typical wisdom. In one of his final interviews, he said we are not meant to understand why G-d tests us. If we did, we might stop protesting suffering and fighting injustice.
Instead, our task is to respond: to fight injustice, comfort the broken, and heal a fractured world.