Mychiel was in conversation with our new rabbinical couple, Rabbi Ephraim and Rebbetzen Malki, to find out more about them! Enjoy! (Mychiel Balshine Community Director | WHC) Mychiel Balshine | Tell us about yourselves! Where are you both from? What are your children’s names and how excited are you about your new post …
It is with great pleasure that we welcome Rabbi Ephraim to Whitefield as our new senior Rabbi. Whitefield members voted overwhelmingly in favour Rabbi Ephraim and his wife Malki becoming our new rabbinic couple. They will join the community in August this year. Rabbi Ephraim Guttentag was brought up in …
Shemini 5781 It should have been a day of joy. The Israelites had completed the Mishkan, the Sanctuary. For seven days Moses had made preparations for its consecration.[1] Now on the eighth day – the first of Nissan – one year to the day since the Israelites had received their …
Good leaders know their own limits. They do not try to do it all themselves. They build teams. They create space for people who are strong where they are weak. They understand the importance of checks and balances and the separation of powers. They surround themselves with people who are …
(Vayikra 5781) As we have discussed so many times already this year, leaders make mistakes. That is inevitable. So, strikingly, our parsha of Vayikra implies. The real issue is how leaders respond to their mistakes. The point is made by the Torah in a very subtle way. Our parsha deals …
Vayakhel-Pekudei 5781 If leaders are to bring out the best in those they lead, they must give them the chance to show they are capable of great things, and then they must celebrate their achievements. That is what happens at a key moment toward the end of our parsha, one …
Ki Tissa 5781 As we have seen in both Vayetse and Vaera, leadership is marked by failure. It is the recovery that is the true measure of a leader. Leaders can fail for two kinds of reason. The first is external. The time may not be right. The conditions may …
Tetzaveh 5781 One of the most important Jewish contributions to our understanding of leadership is its early insistence of what, in the eighteenth century, Montesquieu called “the separation of powers”[1]. Neither authority nor power was to be located in a single individual or office. Instead, leadership was divided between different …
(Terumah 5781) The sequence of parashot that begins with Terumah, and continues Tetzaveh, Ki Tissa, Vayakhel and Pekudei, is puzzling in many ways. First, it outlines the construction of the Tabernacle (Mishkan), the portable House of Worship the Israelites built and carried with them through the desert, in exhaustive and …
