From Canberra to a Gundaroo Farm

Roving Rabbis Mendy Kesselman and Yitzchak Einstein touched down in Canberra this week to reach out to the Jews of Canberra and the region.

The Rabbis’ mission was to meet as many Jews in Canberra as possible, working under the auspices of Chabad of the ACT.

The two hit the ground running making appointments to meet local Jews and working hard to reach out to the disenfranchised and unaffiliated.

One of the first tasks the Roving Rabbis set out on was to help set up a Kosher kitchen for Bernette, who lives over an hour outside of Canberra.

Rabbi Dan Avital, Chabad shliach to the ACT, said, “I have known Bernette for a while, and recently she expressed the desire to increase the Kosher standards of her kitchen. It’s a big task to fully Kosher a kitchen which requires that all existing dishes be Koshered (if possible) and immersed in a Mikvah, as well as the Kitchen appliances and surfaces also need to be Koshered.”

It took the Rabbis over two full days to Kosher Bernette’s kitchen, they carried out their work with joy and devotion taking time to explain the intricacies of running a Kosher kitchen. Bernette was thankful to the Rabbis who carried out all the koshering work including driving for over two hours with all of Bernettes dishes to be immersed in the recently opened Mikvah Chaya Mushka in Canberra.

The Rabbis especially took time to meet with the elderly and unaffiliated members of Canberra’s community, spending time discussing aspects of life in Canberra and learning about the Jewish landscape. The Rabbis also managed to squeeze in an afternoon of Jewish education for a Jewish family living in Gundaroo, spending the afternoon discussing the Parsha and running Jewish activities for three of the family’s four children.

“It’s always meaningful spending time in small Jewish communities and meeting the local Jews,” said Mendy of the experience. “We thought we came to teach, but now we see, we really came to learn. We had so many rich experiences – from learning about the difficult life and immigration of Holocaust survivors to saying the Shema and putting up a mezuza with a young Jewish boy on a farm in Gunderoo.”

The Roving Rabbis departed on Friday morning, returning to their studies at Rabbinical College of Australia & NZ wrapping up a week of inspiration both for them and those they met on their travels in Canberra.