Infinity Child

Rabbi Shlomo Nisanov On Faith, Loss, & Achdus After A Florida Tragedy

Rabbi Shlomo Nisanov recalls the phone call no parent ever wants to make: “Mom, I’m okay. Please just pray for your granddaughters.” What was meant to be a simple family vacation in Fort Lauderdale became a tragedy when a jet-ski accident claimed the life of his 13-year-old daughter, Racheli, and left her sister, Aviva, critically injured. What followed—raw grief, public heartbreak, and a community’s embrace—became a testament to emunah and achdus.

 

Roots & Resilience

The Nisanov family’s story begins in the Soviet Union, where Jewish practice was suppressed but never extinguished. Rabbi Nisanov’s lineage traces back to 1640, with generations of rabbanim persevering through exile. His grandfather became the first Bukharian Jew awarded the Medal of Lenin for establishing a Bukharian school. Despite accolades under communism, the family remained committed to Torah. When they immigrated to Queens in 1980, his father refused to send his children to public school, enrolling them in yeshivah instead.

“They had a special ESL track,” he recalls. “The idea was integration. You daven in the same building, learn in the same building, and eventually become part of the yeshivah world.” By 19, he was already giving shiurim in Bukharian, Hebrew, Russian, and English. He would go on to master five languages, following a father who knew seven and a grandfather fluent in twelve.

When classmates teased him as the “Russian Jew,” he replied firmly: “I’m not Russian. I’m Bukharian.” That pride shaped his identity as one of Queens’ most outspoken rabbinic leaders. His father instilled a creed: “It’s not what you know—it’s who you know. And Whom you know.”

 

Tragedy Strikes

This was supposed to be a rare getaway—just Rabbi Nisanov, his wife Ora, and their two daughters. On that Tuesday morning, after davening and attending a Tanya shiur in Surfside, they rented jet skis. “The instruction was almost nothing,” he remembers. “No helmets, no training—just ‘this is the throttle, this is reverse.’ And the guide disappeared when we needed him most. Later I learned the company was already under investigation.”

Then, the unimaginable. “I turned and saw my daughter speeding straight into a cement dock. My wife and I jumped into the water. I flipped my older daughter face up—baruch Hashem, she coughed up water. Then I reached Racheli. She had severe head trauma.”

Construction workers from a nearby home rushed to help, hauling the girls out as his wife screamed for 911. His hands were bloodied from gripping dock poles while pushing from below as the men pulled from above. “Where was the guide? Nowhere.”

At the hospital, state troopers stood guard because a child’s death triggered a homicide investigation. It was freezing inside while they were still in wet bathing suits. Doctors mistook Aviva Bracha’s age for 20. She underwent surgery for a damaged spleen, kidney trauma, broken hand, bruised knees, and lost teeth. She survived. For Rachel Aliza, after ninety minutes of compressions, the doctors told her parents the unthinkable: she was gone.

Rabbi Nisanov recalls calling his mother from a hospital landline: “Mom, just pray. I don’t have time to explain. Just pray.” For hours, they sat in a cold waiting room, shadowed by troopers, before hearing the final word.

 

Jewish Embrace

If the first half hour felt like an abyss, everything after felt like an embrace. “Other than those thirty minutes in the water, I never felt alone,” the rav reports. Friends, leaders, and strangers poured in—from Queens, Miami, and Israel—until 2 a.m. “We are called Adam—one body. When one part hurts, we all feel it.”

The outpouring was overwhelming: trays of sushi and full meals arriving nonstop during shiv’ah, so much that the family gave away food in takeout containers. Anonymous donors covered the burial in Yerushalayim—tens of thousands of dollars—along with airline tickets. He even received an expedited passport in two hours. “People thought I made calls. I didn’t. klal Yisrael did it.”

Community members reminded him of his own acts of kindness: helping families in court, signing a shul as collateral for bail, intervening to prevent deportation. “When you do good, people don’t forget,” he says.

 

A Father’s Creed, A Daughter’s Light

His father’s creed guides him still: “Mean what you say, and say what you mean. Don’t give false hopes. If you can help, help.” For decades, the rabbi lived that way—advocating in court, assisting families with the NYPD, ensuring Jews in crisis had someone to call.

And then there was Racheli—“my eighth, my infinity child.” The rav explained the symbolism: “Eight has no beginning and no end. It comes from six and nine. Six, the connecting sound, exists in every language—shesh, seis, six. Nine, the months of pregnancy, is the inversion of six. Put them together—six and nine—and you form eight, the symbol of infinity. That was Racheli. She held us together.”

Her life reflected that truth. At her eighth-grade graduation, her wish was simple: “I wish eighth grade never ends.” Above her bed she placed a sign: “Don’t count the days. Make the days count.”

When accepted to high school, she cried not for herself, but for her best friend still waitlisted. When siblings argued, she would retreat in tears. Weeks before the accident, she wrote in her journal: “Is everything going to be okay, Hashem?”—and answered herself: “I think so.”

Her grandmother’s refrain guided her father too: “It could always be worse.” On the dock, in the hospital, and even during shiv’ah, those words echoed as he chose faith over despair.

 

Lessons For The Klal

Rabbi Nisanov warns parents and grandparents estranged from children: “There’s no divorce from children. There’s no divorce from grandchildren. Don’t let adult fights steal the next generation.”

Jewish law has names for many losses: yatom for orphan, alman/almanah for widow. But there is no word for a parent burying a child. “Maybe because you’ll never forget,” he reflects. “Kaddish for a child is thirty days—not because the pain is less, but because no reminder could make it greater.”

Even in pain, his emunah is unbroken: “We’re born against our will, and we die against our will. What matters is the dash in the middle. Make that dash count—with emunah, with achdut, with deeds that outlive us.”

 

What Endures

A week after shiv’ah, new babies were born in the family—one niece now carrying the name Aliza. “She’s doing more up there than I can ever do here,” he says softly. But his charge to the community is clear: believe not only in words, but in action.

“Talk is cheap. Show it. Prove it when tested. Choose light. Choose Hashem. Choose each other—today.”

May the memory of Rachel Aliza Nisanov, a”h, be a blessing.

By Shabsie Saphirstein
Based on Yaakov Langer’s podcast “Inspiration for the Nation” (Living L'chaim), recorded August 30, 2025