Times: Shabbat starts on Friday at8:05pm and ends on Saturday night at9.10pm. The weekly Torah portion is Vayeitzei.

Mincha in the CBD: As the earliest time for mincha is now after 1.45pm, our “virtual minyan” where we all daven at an agreed time will now be in recess. We look forward to opening up next year when people return to their offices and we have sufficient numbers. Details at the WhatsApp group.

Study: Weekly Shiur continues Wednesday at 1:20pm via zoom. BYO lunch. Details here.

Thought of the Week with thanks to Ezra May. Famously, Yakov agreed to work for Lavan for seven years to marry his daughter Rachel. After seven years, Lavan then tricked Yakov into marrying Leah and proposed that Yakov could marry Rachel the following week if he agreed to work for a further seven years.

The question is, Yakov committed to work for seven years to marry Rachel, and fulfilled this obligation. He never agreed to work an additional seven years to marry Leah. So why did he do so after Lavan deceived him, instead of returning to Canaan to study Torah?

Rabbi Dovid Feinstein, who passed away only a few weeks ago, answers that Yakov wasn’t legally required to do so. However had he left immediately, Leah would have felt that he valued his beloved Rachel as being worth seven years work, but not her.

Even though the additional seven years of work came at the expense of Yakov’s ability to escape the evil influences of Lavan and study Torah in his home of Canaan, it was worth seven years of spiritual sacrifice to avoid hurting the feelings of his wife Leah.

Mishnah Avos 3:17 teaches that without proper character traits and sensitivity to others, there is no value and can be no success in Torah.