Shabbat Eykev Do as you would be done by

The weekly reading of Eykev follows the pattern of the previous three weeks. Read more

Shabbat Balak – Listening to Magicians

It seems strange that the whole part of the Torah we read this week should be named after a Midianite/Moabite King, Balak, and devoted to a non-Jewish magician Bilam. Read more

Shabbat Chukat: The Unknowable

There are various words for law in the Bible. Read more

Shabbat Behukotai: What am I worth?

As we reach the end of the book of Leviticus, we’ve run through a series of laws, ethical and ritual, that relate to other human beings, the Land, and God. Read more

Shabbat Acharei Mot: Forbidden Sex

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Shabbat Metzora – Shabbat HaGadol:  Elijah

“Behold I will send you Elijah (Eliyahu) the prophet before the great awesome Day of God and he will reconcile fathers to children and children to fathers” (Malachi 3:24). Read more

Shabbat Yitro: Belief

“I am Ad’nai, your God, who took you out of Egypt” (Exodus 20:2).  Read more

Shabbat Bo: Lessons from the Exodus

There are two themes amongst the many in this week’s Torah that stand out as being particularly relevant at this moment in time. Read more

Shabbat Vaeyra: Persuasion

This week, we read about the process through which Moses and Aaron try to persuade the pharaoh that he should let the children of Israel go. Read more

Shabbat Shemot: Knowing, Forgetting, remembering

A new king arose who did not know of Joseph (Exodus 1.8). Read more

Shabbat Vayehi – Fear not

As we complete the book of Bereishit, Genesis, this week, Jacob has died, and the brothers now turn to Joseph and say, “Our father asked us to beg you to forgive us for what we did to you”( Genesis 50:15-21 ). Read more

Torah scroll, hidden during Holocaust, brought to Yad Vashem

A Torah scroll hidden in the attic of a synagogue in Poland that was ransacked on Kristallnacht was placed in the Holy Ark at Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust remembrance centre. Read more

Shabbat Vayigash: Diplomacy

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Shabbat Mikeytz: End of Days

This week’s Torah reading starts when Joseph had been in jail for a crime he had not committed. Read more

Shabbat Vayeytzey: Initiative

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Shabbat Toldot: Esau or Ishmael

Last week, we read about how Isaac and Ishmael came together to bury their father. And in fact, they lived together at the same place, Be’er Lechai Roi. Their coming together seems to have been complete. Read more

Shabbat Lech Lecha: Bad people and good

We are living under conditions that remind us of how much we Jews can be hated and to what extremes our enemies can go in order to express such hatred. Read more

Shabbat Ki Tavo: The Land of Israel

“When you enter the land that your God is giving you as a heritage, and you possess it and settle in it, you shall take the first fruit of the soil, which you harvest from the land that your God giving you, and put them in a basket and go to the place that God chooses and to the priest in charge at that time and say to him, “I acknowledge this day before your God that I have entered the land that swore to our fathers to assign us.” ( Deuteronomy 26:1-2). Read more

Shabbat Ki Teytsey: Long Life

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Shabbat Shoftim: Kings and Judges

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Shabbat Re’eh: Adding or Subtracting

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Shabbat Devarim: The books of the bible

Why do we call the fifth book of the Torah that we start this week Devarim but non-Jews ( and some Jews) call it Deuteronomy? Read more

Perth’s Carmel School educator selected to embark on empowering learning journey

Carmel School’s Teacher of Jewish Studies, Hebrew and Food Technology, Shohan Taub, has secured one of only ten available Australian scholarships for the Torah L’Am course. Read more

Torah and bible burning in Stockholm was never going to happen

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Shabbat Behar & Behukotai – The Good the Bad and the Ugly

The book of the Torah called Vayikra or Leviticus, is also called the Book of Purity. Read more

Shabbat Tazria & Metzorah: Healthy in body and mind

The chapters of the Torah that we are reading now are concerned with health and what happens when our bodies do not function effectively or normally. Read more

Shabbat Vayikra: Sacrifices

At this time of the year, the Torah readings are all to do with sacrifices. I shall confess that the thought of killing animals does not fill me with any great enthusiasm. Read more

Shabbat Vayakhel Pekudei: Repetition is Good

It is an interesting phenomenon that the major events of the Torah that play a crucial role in the life of the people from a philosophical point of view are repeated in slightly different ways. Read more

Shabbat Ki Tisa: What does God look like?

The dominant theme of the Torah this Shabbat is the episode of the Golden Calf. Read more

Shabbat Vaeyra: Hard Hearts

Moses and Aaron are locked in a power struggle with Pharaoh, who seemingly holds all the cards.  Read more

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