Monday, December 01, 2008

Chabad and Mumbai

I usually don't post on stuff like this not because I don't find the story tragic and worthy of reflection, but simply because there is already so much to read about it elsewhere that there is little I can add that has not been said. One article in particular that I think deserves your attention is this one entitiled, "In the Wake of Mumbai: An Agnostic Jew Considers Chabad", written by Roger Simon. Read the whole thing if you can.
Chabadniks really are religious Jews in the best sense. Whether we admit it or not, Reform Jews from my background are hardly religious at all. It’s more of a social club. There’s nothing wrong in that, of course, as long as you are honest about it....

Which leads me to the topic of the hour – Mumbai. It’s clear the young Lubavitcher couple murdered by the terrorists, Rabbi Gavriel Holzberg and his wife Rivka, were the finest of human beings. They were dedicated to promoting goodness in the world in the deepest spiritual sense. They wished only the best for all humanity and also did their best to encourage it, in fact gave their lives for it. You don’t have to believe in G-d or even God to understand that. Their horrifying deaths reminded this agnostic that there is indeed something called evil in the world.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:40 PM

    WOW!!so few words so powerfull

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  2. Excellent and thought-provoking link. Avraham Avinu spent his life doing kiruv; we don't do kiruv for gentiles, having been separated by the Bris of Matan Torah; but what happened to that definitive middah of hachnasas orchim, of kiruv, of chesed? Who among us most represents those traits? The yeshiva world? The Briskers? Of course, we don't find this kind of focus in Yitzchak or Yaakov; they were too busy doing more important things. But it appears from the Lubavitch experience that it's not a tarti desasri; you can acheive serious dargas in BA lechaveiro at the same time as BA lamakom.

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