JBD – Jews of the Melbourne CBD is now on LinkedIn. Follow us here.

Shabbat starts on Friday at 5:51pm and ends on Saturday at 6:49pm. The weekly Torah portion is Ki Teitzei.

Mincha 1pm continues at Ainsworth Property – GF/459 Collins Mon-Wed. Join the WhatsApp group where we take a count to confirm each day.

Weekly sushi & shiur will continue on Wed at about 1.10pm (after mincha) at A-P GF/459 Collins – and via zoom. Current topic: collecting on debt security. Details here and on the WhatsApp group.

Thought of the Week with thanks to Geoffrey Bloch.

Last week’s Torah reading dealt with the concept of justice, and this week’s deals with the concept of compassion. Justice and compassion are not synonymous. In fact, they are almost polar opposites.

Firstly, as Dennis Prager argues, compassion is relative whereas justice is absolute. If you are compassionate to one litigant, then by definition you must be less compassionate to the other. You cannot be equally compassionate to everyone. But you CAN be equally just, if the law is applied without fear or favour.

Secondly, it is impossible to perpetrate evil in the pursuit of justice but it very easy to perpetrate evil by misplacing compassion.

For example, Penny Wong has erroneously stated that Yehuda and Shomron are occupied Palestinian territories and that Israeli settlements are illegal under international law. Her misplaced compassion for the Palestinians (whose rejectionism has fuelled the ongoing conflict with Israel) rewards Palestinian terrorism and thus encourages more.

Justice is the higher value. At least four times in the Torah we are warned not to put compassion first. The classic example is “Do not favour the poor in judgment.” Were compassion paramount, we would be commanded to indeed favour the poor in judgment.

These considerations perhaps explain why there is an over-arching commandment to pursue justice (“zedek zedek tirdof”) in last week’s reading but there is no corresponding over-arching commandment to be compassionate.

Instead, we are given at least fifteen practical examples as to where we should direct our compassion, not only to our fellow man but to animals.

One of the world’s great ironies is that even well-intentioned people often direct their energies and compassion toward the undeserving. We are seeing this on a massive scale since October 7.

The lesson is to be very careful how we exercise our discretion to be compassionate. We must first satisfy ourselves as to where the justice, in each case, lies.