The Twelve Apostles along the Great Ocean Road in Australia

During the winter school break when I was at the Yeshivah studying in Melbourne, many of the overseas boys went skiing. I decided that I had not traveled from Canada to Australia to go skiing. Australia is not known for its great skiing.

I decided instead to take some time bicycling along the Great Ocean Road and some of the surrounding National Parks. It was my first long bicycle trip.

Some of my memories:

1. I had with me a meimar (a Chassidic discourse) from the Rabbi Yossef Yitzchock Schneerson. I remember being cuddled in my sleeping bag at night, studying for a few hours by flashlight.

2. The tent fell off my bicycle halfway through the trip.  The tent poles were still attached to the bike. I noticed within 20 minutes of having left my campsite. I covered the route a few times searching for the tent but never found it. One car passed me during that time along the dirt road and my guess is that they picked it up.

3. Seeing whales along the shore.

4. Shocking Israeli travelers. I’d be at a lookout and someone would start a conversation with me. Halfway through I’d take off the bicycle helmet, revealing underneath a kippah. It always surprised them to see a religious guy traveling by bicycle with tefillin, a siddur, and keeping kosher.

5. I rode into one seaside town late in the afternoon. I was looking out at the ocean, and heard someone shout “Hey, you want a schnitzel?” I turned around and found a few of the older students standing over a BBQ. It was a random chance at meeting them, and I was delighted for the kosher hot BBQ’d schnitzel.

If you do visit Australia it’s worth a trip along the Great Ocean Road. There are many lookout spots along the way that make for a lovely place to have a kosher picnic.

Read the PDF here: L’chaim New Caledonia

Bicycle trip in Australia along the Great Ocean Road in 1999

It’s great to be back in Australia after having been away for three years. Rachel and I are at New Town Synagogue for the next month over the Chagim, where I’m acting as Rabbi/chazzan.

New Town has some very interesting Jewish history. I’m told that at one point there were six kosher butcher shops in New Town. New Town was where many Jews settled on their arrival to Australia in the 1800’s. The New Town Synagogue has that old Synagogue charm to it.

Anyway, being excited to be back in Australia I scanned some old photos from my pre-digital days of traveling around Australia and will be uploading them soon to the Australia country page.

Shana Tova!

You know that saying, “hindsight is 20/20″?  I know we’ve all seen how true it is, but most of us think about it in terms of looking back and wishing we’d done something differently.  What if we took a different perspective?  Instead, many times, we look back and realize the totality of what was going on at the time, how every piece of the puzzle fits perfectly.

I got kicked out of Sao Paolo and sent back to Argentina, which turned out to be a big bonus for me in the end.

I remember once I was traveling from Uruguay to Brazil.  Due to a clerical error on my visa, I was turned away at the Sao Paolo airport and sent back to Argentina, where I was living.  Of course at the time, this really seemed bad – I did miss seeing Sao Paolo, after all! – but upon looking back it wasn’t bad at all.  I got a full refund of my Sao Paolo to Iguazu flight, which I was able to rebook for cheaper to fly from Buenos Aires to Iguazu, I got a good night’s rest in my own apartment, and I was able to stock up on super yummy kosher empanadas (mmmm cheese empanadas!) for the rest of my trip.  The truth is, if I hadn’t ended up in Buenos Aires for that night, I actually would have run out of kosher food and would have had a mighty tough time getting hold of some wherever I was.  It was also comforting to be back “home” – and I had a lot I needed to do, which I managed to get done.  There were all sorts of benefits.  My parents, who were able to enter Sao Paolo without a problem, also had a great time (I had booked them in a 5-star hotel) and they got a romantic little getaway without me, which I think they thoroughly enjoyed.

Sometimes the stories are even more stark than this.  There’s the famous story of a man missing his flight because he misplaced his tefillin – and as a result avoided a crash.  Or of the men who were davening special prayers for the deaths of Jews in the Grand Canyon crash that preceded the 9/11 attack who were late to work on that fated day.  Or those men davening near the twin towers who were just shy of a minyan and who wished the old man who made up their 10th would go faster – but on account of his slow kaddishes didn’t make it back to work in time for the attacks.  The stories of miracles go on and on.  But we don’t need to see miracles to find this happening in our everyday life.

In Parshas Haazinu, we notice that the entire parsha, which is mostly composed of a song, is written in the present tense.  Yet, it talks about the Jews going astray from G-d, their punishment, and their eventual consolation.  It certainly seems like a timeline for me!  Yet, in the realm of G-d there is no timeline.  In the mind of a prophet there is no time.  So all of these things come together and happen at once, forming a complete picture.  A perfect view.

This is what we also have the ability to do – if we wish to – when we look back in time.  We can look at things that happened to us long in the past and merge them with the things that happened before and after.  When we stop looking at events that occurred as if they are isolated, then we get a clearer picture.

As we enter our new year and look back on the year that has just passed, let’s try to view it this way, as a totality, in the way that G-d views it.  It is as if every event in the year occurred at once.  A beautiful clarity, a beautiful picture.  If we do this, it will become clear to us why things happened as they did.  Our mistakes will leap out at us and we will be able to truly repent.  And with all of our mitzvot we can come to G-d and sincerely ask His forgiveness and for His love.

Shana tova and Shabbat shalom (in advance).

Traditional fishing boat at Ille Des Pins New Caledonia

This story is about my Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur experience in 1998 with the Jewish community in Numea, New Caledonia.

“A person’s earnings for the coming year are determined in the days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.” (Talmud, Beitza 16a)

The plane taxied slowly to the airport terminal and then came to a stop. I strapped on my backpack, picked up the Torah scroll, and headed to clear New Caledonian customs. As I had expected, a man met me at the exit gate. He was thrilled to see me with the Torah. “It has been so long,” the man said. “May I carry it?”

I handed him the Torah which he held reverently for a few seconds. Then his face lit up with the biggest smile. “We are so delighted you could come,” said the man. “We are maybe 150 Jewish people here, mostly from Algeria and Tunisia. It has been a long time since we have had a rabbi and a Torah.”

“I am not a rabbi,” I corrected him. “I am an 18-year-old studying in a Rabbinical seminary. Perhaps one day I will be a rabbi.”

“Yes, but you can read from the Torah. You know how to blow the shofar, lead the prayers, and put up some mezuzot. We here cannot do this very well. We are isolated on this island.”

The man’s name was Abraham. I knew this from having spoken to him on the phone. Other than knowing his name, I knew nothing about him, though I’d learn a lot as he welcomed me to stay in his home for the following weeks.

Abraham spoke with me in French. I understood most of what he was saying with my Montreal, Quebec French, though there were some differences. When we needed clarification we switched to broken Hebrew. Abraham had never been to Israel but his parents had taught him some Hebrew when he lived in Algeria.

The truth was that I had not wanted to come to New Caledonia for the High Holidays. I had just spent almost an entire year of intensive study in Australia and was scheduled to fly home to Montreal. I wanted to see my family and friends. There was also a synagogue in Montreal that had offered to pay me $800 to conduct services over the High holidays.

Placing a Mezuzah in New Caledonia

But two weeks before the end of the school term a call had come through. The Jewish community of New Caledonia wanted a rabbi for a few weeks. The senior yeshiva students laid a “guilt trip” on me. I was the only student in the yeshiva who could lead a service, blow shofar, and speak French. In addition, they knew that I had backpacked solo around Europe, so they thought I might just be crazy enough to go solo to this French Polynesian island.

After a large dose of hearing that I was the only one who could do the job, I agreed to go. I found someone who would lend me a small Torah scroll, provided I insure it. Also, as requested by the community, I purchased 10 mezzuot and 50 kippot on the agreement that they would pay me back for everything.

Though I wouldn’t earn the money I could have earned in Montreal, I imagined that I would at least have some fun exploring the island. But upon arriving in New Caledonia, I wasn’t so sure about that.

In the week preceding Rosh Hashana, I visited Jews in and around Numea. I affixed 10 mezuzot to door-posts, put tefillin on people, helped a boy find a yeshiva in Israel, and even had an interview with a local newspaper. I was kept busy teaching Torah and it seemed as if all 150 Jews wanted to meet and talk with me.

I was asked to sit through a number of community meetings and I gave my two cents when asked, and sometimes even when not. At one point they were discussing building plans for a new synagogue and mikva. One of the big donors did not want to give any money towards the construction of the mikva. “If you have money for just a synagogue or a mikva, Jewish law requires that you build a mikva,” I explained. It took a little more convincing, but in the end he agreed to contribute.

I finally did get a few days’ break in the days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. A wealthy community member rented for me a wave runner for a full day. I rode from one island to the next, stopping off to snorkel in the reefs teaming with magnificent coral and fish life. The next day he gave me a plane ticket to one of the smaller neighboring islands. I cycled around, exploring native villages where people lived in grass huts, caves filled with bats, and deserted white sandy beaches. I picked green coconuts to drink and found plenty opportunities to escape into my own tropical paradise.

When I got back Abraham set me up to go spear fishing with one of the local champions he knew well. Needless to say I didn’t spear anything but the fisherman gave me half his catch to take back for Abraham to cook for us. It was a delightful change from canned tuna.

Spear Fishing in New Caledonia for Rosh Hashanah food

The two and a half weeks flew by. As Abraham drove me to the airport, I sat in the car thinking; “Even if I did not make any money I accomplished a lot and had a great time. The money made in Montreal would have been nice, but I got to have an incredible experience.” In addition, I had flights to Montreal and would please G-d see my family in the next 24 hours.

“We are very thankful that you came and for all your help,” Abraham said, as he bid me good-bye. “We want to give you something as a token of our appreciation.” He handed me an envelope. In the envelope there were $1000 Australian Dollars, which equaled $800 Canadian based on the exchange rate at that time. I had just received the same amount of money that I would have earned had I forgone New Caledonia and gone home to Montreal.

At the young age of 18, my trip to New Caledonia had helped me realize that I could not make one penny more or less than what G-d had intended for me. I did the right thing by coming to help the New Caledonian community, I had an awesome experience, and I received the exact amount of money that was destined to be mine.

*The Talmud (Beitza 16a) states that the amount a person will earn for the year is determined in the days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, except for one’s expenditures in honor of Shabbat, Jewish holidays, and for the Torah education of one’s children.