Yesterday I stumbled upon an old post from 2019 and the conversation I had with an extraordinary rabbi who shared it with Humans of Judaism.
“A congregant sent this to me to check whether they had put their mezuzah back up correctly after it had ‘fallen.’ I immediately noticed a despicable engraving etched next to the holy mezuzah. My grandparents lost their entire family in Nazi Germany. Today they have over 100 descendants who honor their memory by living Jewish lives openly. My response is to put up 100 mezuzahs by Chanukah.”
A few weeks later the rabbi messaged me excitedly to share that he had met his goal. “100 MEZUZOS DONE!” he wrote.
Following the post, he received countless messages from people requesting a mezuzah. It took 40 days to hang all 100 which he described as divine providence. Forty is a deeply significant number in Judaism. The Great Flood in the time of Noah lasted 40 days.
What stunned him even more was that the original mezuzah that had been vandalized was discovered on Friday on the Hebrew date of 17 Cheshvan, the very date the Great Flood began.
That rabbi was Rabbi Eli Schlanger, the assistant rabbi at Chabad of Bondi. This past December, Rabbi Schlanger was among the victims of the Sydney terror attack on the first night of Chanukah at Chabad’s Chanukah event on Bondi Beach.
May this story inspire more people to proudly hang their mezuzah in memory of Rabbi Schlanger and in defiance of hate and may his memory be a blessing.
