Times: Shabbat starts tonight with candlelighting at 7:47pm, ends Saturday night at 8:44pm. Early Shabbat – light candles between 6:45pm-6:50pm. The weekly Torah portion for Shabbat is Ki Tisa.

Upcoming Event: Wednesday, 2 March: Lunchtime lecture with Captain Ophir Anidjar and Nati Hakashur “For Nati and Ofir the war didn’t end when the fighting stopped.” Hear their miraculous stories of survival and success.  1:00pm at Arnold Bloch Leibler, Level 21, 333 Collins Street. Space is limited so RSVP to events@jbd.org.au.  For more information click here.

Mincha in the CBD: Kugel and whisky today from 1.50pm today, then mincha at 2.05pm using the SMS system to confirm numbers. Please respond so we can sustain the Friday summer mincha minyan.

Study: Wed Shiur @ Billing Bureau: new summer time of 1:40pm, followed by mincha at 2.05pm using the SMS system to confirm numbers.

Kosher Food in the CBD: Nifla Kosher Catering (KA Hechsher)
Offers Corporate Catering, specializing in individual and board room lunches. For further details visit www.nifla.com.au
10% Discount on your first website purchase. Enter promo code “FIRST TIME”. Kosher sandwiches, muffins and salads are available at the following locations:
CUPP- Manchester Unity Building- Ground Floor-220 Collins Street
CBW EXPRESS-181 William Street.(Entrance Little Bourke St)
IN A RUSH CAFE-616 St Kilda Road-(Ground Floor-Lowe Lippmann Building)

Thought of the Week with thanks to Avi Gordon. In this week’s parsha we read that G-d told Moshe than the Jews had sinned by creating and serving a golden calf. Moshe came down from Mt Sinai, saw the idolatry and the dancing around the calf with his own eyes and then smashed the tablets.

The obvious question is, why did Moshe only destroy the tablets upon seeing the Jews serving and dancing around the golden calf? Why didn’t he destroy them as soon as G-d told him about it?

R’ Yaakov Kamenetsky explains that when Moshe first heard that Jews had made a golden calf, he gave them the benefit of the doubt. They were a stranded and homeless nation stuck in the desert without a leader. He thought they made the idol out of desperation.

However, when he saw that they were actually dancing around the calf with joy, he could see that it wasn’t desperation, rather that they were actually serving it with joy. People only do things with joy if they are passionate about it. That, he could not justify, so he smashed the tablets.

We should all be blessed to utilise joy/simcha for its true purpose.