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Times: Shabbat starts on Friday at 8:19pm and ends on Saturday at 9:21pm. The weekly Torah portion is Bo.
Mincha has moved to Ainsworth Property – 7/459 Collins St (North Tower), and we will attempt to resume from Monday 30 Jan. Earliest mincha is about 2.08pm and we will use the WhatsApp group to confirm numbers.
The weekly lunch & shiur will resume on Wed 1 Feb at 1.40pm at A-P 7/459 Collins – and via zoom, hopefully followed by mincha at about 2.08pm. Current topic: duty of care for a borrower. Details here and on the WhatsApp group.
Thought of the Week with thanks to Geoff Bloch.
In his Haggadah, Rav Hirsch z”l focuses on a common feature of the festivals of Pesach and Chanuka.
In this week’s parasha, Bo, Hashem through Moshe commands Bnei Yisrael that on the tenth of the month a paschal lamb should be taken for each parental home, for each household (Shemos 12:3).
On Chanuka, we are commanded that there should be a candle for each man and his household (Shabbos 21B).
On Pesach we gather as families around the seder table and on Chanuka, around the Menorah.
The Torah and our traditions have always promoted the primacy of the household, of the family unit, as the building block of every civilized society. Our fate depends far more on what occurs in the home than in colleges, universities, institutions of arts and sciences or even in houses of worship.
We live in a supposedly enlightened age, yet we are witnessing relentless attacks on the traditional family unit throughout the Western world, by redefining marriage, by teaching gender fluidity, by celebrating race over character, by denigrating individual achievement and promoting equality of outcome – the list is endless.
Today’s societal decline and the progressive secularization of society over our lifetime is hardly coincidental. Let us hope for leadership which respects the wisdom of the ages as the key to reversing the trend. Taking note of the important lesson of our parasha would be a good start.