Last Friday morning, during Shacharis at Chabad of Latchi, Cyprus, shliach Rabbi Mendy Lipsker received an unexpected message in English from a local phone number.

“My name is Ilya,” the message read. “I’m standing outside your synagogue and see that you’re praying. May I come inside? I’d like to see the place.”

Mindful of security concerns, Rabbi Lipsker asked what had brought him to the shul.

“I’m not Jewish,” Ilya replied. “But my mother is Jewish, and I’m interested in seeing her tradition.”

Rabbi Lipsker welcomed him inside, noting that according to halacha, a person born to a Jewish mother is Jewish.

As Ilya looked around the shul and asked questions, Rabbi Lipsker asked whether he had ever put on tefillin.

“No, what is that?” ” Ilya asked.

Rabbi Lipsker explained the mitzvah and helped him put on tefillin for the first time in his life.

Ten years after the age of bar mitzvah, the young Ukrainian Jew found himself on a Friday morning in the small coastal town of Latchi, putting on tefillin for the first time.

After shachris, Rabbi Lipsker read aloud the Hayom Yom for Chof Hei Tammuz. Its words, coming immediately after what had just taken place, made the hashgacha protis impossible to miss.

“A Yid recognizes Elokus and senses the supernatural and needs no proofs for this. A Yid doesn’t want, and cannot, be separated from Elokus.”