The Land Down Under, Hashem Is Telling Us It Is Time to Hold The World Up
Mrs. Elka Feldman – Sydney, Australia
It’s 37 degrees outside. That’s 99 F in NYC. The days are long. The nights are short. Menorah can’t be lit until 9.30pm, so every day of the week is another Chanukah street party or outdoor fair. The crowds come dressed in t-shirts and flip flops. The air is fragrant with the smell of barbecue, Australia’s national cuisine. At the market stalls, the latkes and ponchkes fly off the shelfs. The music of Benny Fried and Ishay Raboy blares from car-mounted speakers, and the kids are lining up for the jumping castle and face painting.
Welcome to Australia. The land down under. Where the eyes of the world are turned right now. And where, across Australia, all eyes are turned to Chabad.
Usually, Chanukah is the time of year when Chabad engages with the political leadership, offering photo and speaking opportunities at official candle-lighting ceremonies and events.
Confronted with a tragedy of epic national proportions and on the precipice of the traditional summer recess, Chabad Shluchim find themselves in the centre of the vortex as Australia’s leaders grapple with the enormity of the disaster and their responsibility to their people.
Indeed, for the Australian Jewish community, the entire period of Chanukah is marked by searing pain. Eight days. Not unlike the days of shiva. We mourn individually and we mourn collectively. We are shattered and through our tears, in between funerals and hospital visits, we face the community, our people, the world – and we teach them about Chanukah. About the people who didn’t give up hope of finding oil. Of a light that never went out and the people who fought and died to keep it lit.
The bouquets of flowers, the messages of compassion and care keep turning up at our shul gates. Our in-boxes are over-flowing; we can’t get back to every neighbour, every business owner, every contact whose name we can’t even place. Stunned by the loss of innocent life, alarmed by this attack upon the Australia they love – the Australia of mate-ship, of a fair-go, of multi-culturalism, for after-all, didn’t most of us migrate to this island continent – the good people of Australia have come out.
And on the 5th night of Chanukah – when the Chanukah lights are in the majority – erev Shabbos – when we are about to add to Chanukah the holy light of Shabbos – erev Rosh Chodesh – when we are about to read from not one, not two, but three sifrei Torah – and when the Torah portion is Miketz – when we are told “and it came at the end of time”, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns launches a Mitzvah campaign. Yes, a Mitzvah campaign! With credit to Rabbi Nochum Shapiro, President of the Rabbinical Association of Australia, whose inspired idea it was, the government of the state where this deadly attack occurred is recommending to its faith leaders, as they enter their festival period, to encourage their congregations to stand in solidarity with the Jewish community and add in Mitzvahs. And they are using that word: Mitzvahs. And the whole nation, the whole world is watching.
This is the Rebbe’s vision! Happening here, in Sydney, Australia. On Chanukah 2025. In those days at this time.
Our mission is to be a light to the nations. What conveys the concept of light more than the Menorah? And what is more mission than Mitzvahs? We are called “the land down under”, located at the bottom of the world. Maybe Hashem is telling us it is our time to hold it up.
