A rad­i­cal­ly hope­ful explo­ration of faith, iden­ti­ty, moral­i­ty, and pur­pose ground­ed in time­less Jew­ish prin­ci­ples, cap­tured in a series of pro­found con­ver­sa­tions between Nik­ki Gold­stein and the man who saved her life and became her spir­i­tu­al men­tor, Rab­bi Eli Schlanger – whose teach­ings and wis­dom endure beyond his trag­ic killing in the Decem­ber 2025 Bon­di Beach Chanukah ter­ror­ist attack in Syd­ney, Australia.

Con­ver­sa­tions with My Rab­bi is an unfor­get­table true sto­ry and a pro­found book of wis­dom, offer­ing time­less teach­ings for liv­ing well in an uncer­tain world.

In Sep­tem­ber 2022, Nik­ki Gold­stein was comatose, near death in a Syd­ney ICU when her daugh­ter spot­ted Rab­bi Eli Schlanger in the hall­way. Nikki’s hus­band asked the rab­bi to come pray for her. Stand­ing beside her bed, he blew the sho­far and whis­pered ancient prayers over Nikki.

One day lat­er, Nik­ki began recov­er­ing from the life-threat­en­ing infec­tion. The doc­tors called it a mir­a­cle. As she regained her health, this sec­u­lar Jew­ish woman and the devout rab­bi formed an unlike­ly and beau­ti­ful friend­ship. Com­ing from pro­found­ly dif­fer­ent worlds – one ground­ed in reli­gious tra­di­tion, the oth­er in tem­po­ral moder­ni­ty – they dis­cov­ered they were seek­ing answers to the same essen­tial questions.

Togeth­er, they turned to ancient Jew­ish teach­ings for guid­ance on liv­ing more eth­i­cal­ly, com­pas­sion­ate­ly, and spir­i­tu­al­ly. In Jan­u­ary 2025, they began to record their con­ver­sa­tions as a book. But just weeks before they were to write the final chap­ter, Eli was mur­dered on Syd­ney’s Bon­di Beach in Aus­trali­a’s sec­ond dead­liest mass-casu­al­ty shoot­ing. He died before light­ing the meno­rah at his annu­al Chanukah by the Sea cel­e­bra­tion, an event he’d run for eigh­teen years. Dev­as­tat­ed by shock and grief, Nik­ki refused to be silenced by ter­ror. She vowed that Eli’s lega­cy and his mis­sion to bring light, love, and moral clar­i­ty to the world would not die, because his teach­ings were more nec­es­sary than ever.

Reflect­ing the dia­logue-dri­ven Jew­ish intel­lec­tu­al tra­di­tion, the ques­tion and answer for­mat of Con­ver­sa­tions with My Rab­bi invites read­ers to pon­der, to ques­tion, and to define their own beliefs as they fol­low Nik­ki and Eli’s real, raw, ten­der, some­times fun­ny, some­times fierce, yet always deeply human con­ver­sa­tions cen­tered around the time­less eth­i­cal teach­ings known as the Noahide Laws, tied to the bib­li­cal Noah: uni­ver­sal prin­ci­ples root­ed in Jew­ish wis­dom that speak to all who seek mean­ing, moral clar­i­ty, and hope in their lives. Ques­tions include:
 

• Tell Me Why I Should Believe in God?
• Why Are We So Afraid to Talk About God?
• What If Peo­ple Are Just … Terrible?
• Do Ani­mals Have Souls?
• Is Steal­ing Real­ly That Bad?
• What’s So Scary About Sex?
• What Does Jus­tice Look Like?

Con­ver­sa­tions with My Rab­bi is a repu­di­a­tion of the mad­ness we are expe­ri­enc­ing today. It is Rab­bi Eli’s eter­nal gift – a guide for all, regard­less of faith, who strug­gle to live with integri­ty, com­pas­sion, and courage in a divid­ed and uncer­tain world.