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

Shabbat Vayehiy: Favouritism

As we come to the end of the Book of Bereishit (Genesis), we can look back and see a thread in the narrative of human beings grappling with the moral and spiritual challenges that we all face. Read more

Shabbat Vayeytzey: Dreams and Fears

Jacob flees his parents’ home because he fears that Esau will kill him for taking the blessing from Isaac. Read more

Shabbat Toldot: Deception

The Torah is very clear about deception. “Do not deceive or lie to each other”( Leviticus 19.11). Read more

Shabbat Eykev: Bread is not enough

It is a strange sentence. “I provided you with the Manah so that you should know that a person does not live on bread alone.” And then, the Torah goes on to extoll the physical richness of the land the Israelites are coming to and how it will provide all the food they could want. Read more

Shabbat Shelach Lecha: Grasshoppers

Moses was instructed by God to send men to go on a tour of the Land of Canaan. Read more

Torah hidden in 1941 Iraqi riots presented to a Samarian synagogue

Over eight decades after Yitzhak witnessed as a boy the Farhud, the anti-Jewish riots in Iraq, he has presented an ancient Torah scroll saved from the riots to the synagogue at Havat Yair in Samaria, where his grandchildren live today. Read more

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