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Shabbat starts on Friday at 5.00pm and ends on Saturday at 6.02pm. The weekly Torah portion is Matot-Masei (Chazak) and it’s Shabbat Mevarchim Menachem Av. Rosh Chodesh is on Wednesday.

Mincha continues at Ainsworth Property – 7/459 Collins St (North Tower), at 1.00pm and we use the WhatsApp group to confirm numbers.

The weekly lunch & shiur continues on Wed at 1.10pm at A-P 7/459 Collins – and via zoom, followed by mincha. Current topic: default lease notice terms and rules for eviction.  Details here and on the WhatsApp group.

Thought of the Week with thanks to Ya’akov Waller.

This week’s parsha includes the request made by the tribes of Reuven and Gad to Moshe to remain on the eastern side of the Jordan given the land’s suitability for their large flocks of cattle.

Moshe’s response is sharp and strenuous: “Are your brothers to go to war and you will stay here?” He then proceeds to accuse them of risking the entire enterprise of conquering Canaan by undermining the morale of the rest of Israel, just as the spies did in the previous generation.

To put this episode in context, it is instructive to consider that Moshe had just recently been informed of his own fate, that he would not enter the land of Canaan. Likewise, his brother and sister also died without fulfilling this ambition. How galling then might it have seemed to Moshe that these tribes were requesting the right to remain outside the land of their volition.

Ultimately, Moshe compromised. Provided that the tribes fought together with the rest of the people, they would be granted permission to settle on the eastern side of the Jordan. That Moshe was prepared to agree a resolution that did not place his own personal convictions at the centre of the bargain is a sign of his entirely altruistic leadership.