Melbourne’s Jewish Community witnessed a rare milestone on Sunday as the Adas Yisroel Kehila member, Rav Moshe Benedict, completed a 22-year journey to write his own Sefer Torah. This monumental project, which began over two decades ago, required immense discipline; R’ Moshe dedicated time every single morning after Davening to write the Sefer Torah. His work was only briefly interrupted for six months during the COVID-19 pandemic due to the lack of access to a Mikvah.

Today, Sunday, just a few days before Pesach, a large Hachnosas Sefer Torah took place on the streets of Melbourne, Australia, with over 1000 participants, including international guests and senior police officials, who escorted the new Torah to its temporary Shul, which is being used after the main Shul was damaged in a 2025 firebombing.

It is the first Torah the Shul has received since it was originally established, an Askan in the community tells with Belaaz.

R’ Moshe Benedict is described as a choshuve yungerman who balances his time between learning Torah in the morning and evening and working in the afternoons.

The completion marks a historic first for the Adas Yisrael community, as R’ Moshe is the first local to write and gift a Torah to the Shul.

The event, arranged by the dedicated volunteers of Chavivim Melbourne, turned the streets into a beautiful maamad of simcha and kavod haTorah. Local Rabbanim and community members, led by the baal hasimcha’s father, R’ Yitzchok Benedict, a prominent figure in the Chevra Kadisha and the longtime President of the Talmud Torah,

Following the Hachnosas Sefer Torah, there was a formal Seudah with 250 guests, where Gaavad Melbourne, Hagaon Rav Shlomeh Kahan Shlit’a, gave divrei bracha and expressed hakaras hatov for how far the community has come.