Times: Shabbat starts tonight with candle lighting at 6:10pm, and ends Saturday night at 7:08pm. The weekly Torah portion is Bereishit and Shabbat Mevarchim. Reminder to move your clocks forward one hour on Saturday night. Rosh Chodesh Heshvan will be on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Mincha in the CBD: Whisky and Kugel Fridays is on today at 1.00pm using the SMS system to confirm numbers. With the start of DST, Mincha (Mon-Fri) continues next week at 1.45pm with the SMS reminder.

Study: The Wednesday shiur & lunch continues this week at Billing Bureau, beginning at 1.20pm with mincha to follow at 1:45pm.

Thought of the Week with thanks to Gaby Silver. The mayhem is over. The marathon has been run. The joy, introspection, chaos, highs, lows and obscene feats of excessive eating have reached their climax and it’s time to settle back into real life. In my family, when I was growing up, we would wearily proclaim that we were “Jewed Out” after Yom Kippur, which was our cue to take a hiatus from any formal observance until the matzos hit the supermarket shelves about 5 months later.

Surely, we’ve earned the right to take a bit of a breather, right? After all that immensely hard work on physical and religious fronts, can’t we be excused to put up our feet and grab a bit of spiritual R&R?

Apologies for being the bearer of bad news, however, that is precisely what we cannot do. If the standing before the Supreme King of Kings in judgement, receiving atonement and then partying with him like it’s 1999 teaches us anything, it’s that we can and must do more, not less. The Shabbat where we read Bereishis is a time to take a deep breath, shake off any lethargy caused by one-too-many serves of kugel and a couple too many l’chaims, and rededicate to our wholehearted service of God. Bereishis is about creation, renewal and rebirth. Let’s take the clean slate we’ve been given and decorate it with the joyful approach to serving God with the joy of Simchas Torah in our feet and the sweet melodies of Rosh Hashana still ringing in our ears. It’s up to us to ensure that 5779 is a year illuminated by our redoubled dedication to an even great commitment to G-d and His Torah. So, as Shabbat approaches, grab your siddur, gird your loins and… Let There Be Light.