Times: Shabbat starts on Friday at 8:11pm and ends on Saturday night at 9.11pm. The weekly Torah portion is Yitro and Shabbat Mevarchim Adar. Rosh Chodesh is on Friday & next Shabbat. Purim is coming … a few people have registered that they be in the city, and we will be organising a Megillah reading. To register your interest, join the WhatsApp group here.

Mincha in the CBD: Mincha is in recess for the summer. We look forward to opening up when people return to their offices and we have sufficient numbers. Details at the WhatsApp group.

Study: The Weekly Shiur has resumed and continues on Wednesday at 1:30pmvia zoom Details here.

Thought of the Week with thanks to Gaby Silver. This week’s Torah reading brings us the biblical highlight of the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai.

As momentous and utterly pivotal as this event is, if we look past the pyrotechnics and pizzazz, it’s fair to ask: what exactly changed at Matan Torah? Didn’t our forefathers and their progeny learn and observe the Torah, along with all its commandments, even up to the detailed laws of Eruv Tavshilin (as it states in Talmud Yoma)? If so, then why the big deal?

The fundamental difference lies in the nature of the Torah’s revelation. Prior to Mount Sinai, the physical and spiritual existed as two separate and parallel entities. With the revelation at Sinai, a monumental fusion of the two occurred that forever altered our relationship with the Divine. G-d “descended” into the physical sphere, while Moshe “ascended” to the spiritual. G-d’s “voice” reverberated throughout all of creation, permeating it with holiness. This latent spirituality remains ours to reveal, infusing our Torah observance and performance of Mitzvot with a holiness that our forefathers could never have achieved.

It is this qualitative difference – the elevation of the mundane to the holy, and the infusion of the physical world with divinity that is the true revolution that occurred when all our souls gathered at the foot of that nondescript mountain.

As we prepare to hear the Ten Commandments repeated this Shabbat, may all of us be reinvigorated and re-inspired to reveal G-dliness in everything around us by serving G-d with increased joy and awe. Thus may we merit the ultimate revelation of G-d’s majesty, when all that latent spirituality will be turned outwards and visible to our physical eyes.