Times: Candlelighting is Friday 7:24pm; Shabbat ends Saturday 8:19pm. Early Mincha: 6:15pm; Early Candlelighting: 6:30pm. Footy starts tonight! The weekly Torah Portion is Tzav and Parshat Zachor. Purim is on Saturday night & Sunday, and Shushan Purim is on Monday.

Upcoming Events: Pre-Pesach double header lunchtime Shiur featuring Rabbi James Kennard on Wednesday, 9th April at 12:30pm: Part 1: Non-Textual “Why start the Seder with kiddush?” and 1:00pm: Part 2: Textual: “From disgrace to almost praise” at Billing Bureau, Level 5 South Tower, 459 Collins St. RSVP for catering purposes to events@jbd.org.au by COB Monday, 7th April.  For more information please click here.

Mincha in the CBD: Mincha minyan is going along well at ABL – Level 21, 333 Collins St, and will continue next week at 1.59pm. The weekly Wednesday JBD shiurim have also moved, and we will continue to monitor things and adjust if necessary. After DST is over, we will move back to 459 Collins.

Study: Mon 12.30 @ East Melb Shule; Wed 1.00 @ ABL.

Kosher Food in the CBD: Kosher sandwiches and snacks are available
at the following locations:
-CBW Express- 181 William Street (Open late until 9pm)
-Pronto on Flinders – 335 Flinders Lane
Please see below for the fresh range of kosher sandwiches and snacks delivered daily to the CBD.
SANDWICHES: egg mayonnaise and tomato, tuna mayonnaise and pickles, smoked salmon and herbed cream cheese, crisp lettuce, sliced cheese, tomato, cucumber and salad
SNACKS: natural berry yogurt with oat cluster crumble, fresh fruit salad, mixed berry muffin

Thought of the Week with thanks to Isaac Balbin. There is an increasingly tendency to separate the religious/cultural/traditional aspects of our lives from the more mundane. Many Jews understand that at least on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, or to a Bar/Bat Mitzvah or wedding call-up, there is an obligation to connect, as it were, to the more Jewish aspects of our existence. Let’s call these aspects the more spiritual aspects as they have the potential to tear us away from the ordinary physical existence and connect on the plane of our Jewish identity, our “pintele Yid” –  our Jewish soul. One of the offerings of the ancient temple was the Olah offering. It was completely burnt. The high point was the sprinkling of the blood during the day on the alter. Why the blood? Because the blood signifies the soul – that self-same beacon of Jewish identity and commitment. Strangely, unlike other offerings, the Olah is expected to smoulder during the entire night. Why? That appears to be a rather self-defeating exercise. We’ve gone to Shule, we’ve connected Jewishly, we’ve “done our deed”. Why should it continue to smoulder, overnight, after the event has completed? An answer given by Rav Kook is that this is precisely the message the Torah wants to impart. One cannot or should not compartmentalise life or expect the soul to be bound by a particular event or experience. It needs to smoulder throughout the night and remind us that even in our banal physical existence, the blood of the soul which was sprinkled is able to make incursions into the more mundane, and seemingly spiritually void aspects of our existence. Nay, there is not such thing. The soul and the Jewish Identity/Pintele Yid, will burn the next day, even though it looks to have completed it’s “gig”. If we are able to mimic this lesson in our lives, then we won’t remain prisoners to sporadic events, and each day, will be a potentially holy day.