Reflections on Mumbai
December 1, 2008 / 4 Kislev 5769 Dear friends, It was with profound shock that I heard the terrible news: Rabbi Gabi and Rivky Holtzberg, directors of Chabad of Mumbai, were among those brutally murdered in the recent attacks. Our hearts and prayers go out to all the people of India, and to the innocent victims and their families. But for me, Gabi was different, for he was an old school-mate at Yeshiva. He was a year younger than I, but the program was small and encouraged collaboration between the classes. Later, we traveled to Thailand as rabbinic interns, where we—and others—helped lead Passover Seders. I think that he felt his calling in that environment, and it seemed natural to me when I learned that he was returning as a Chabad Shliach to Mumbai. Gabi and Rivky were motivated by the vision of boundless love and service of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, of saintly memory. A part of the global Chabad Lubavitch family of over 3000 rabbis and rebbitzens in 47 US states and 80 countries around the world, they lived in a crowded section of one of the most crowded cities on earth, unnoticed and unknown to many of their neighbors, without glory or financial stability. Instead, they opened their home to thousands of people, Jews from every conceivable affiliation and background—providing a meal, an embrace, a home. They provided teaching and counseling and help to people caught up in unhealthy behavior, and spiritual inspiration to the many seeking it. Expatriates, backpackers, local Jews, and the occasional Wash. U. student were all part of their community. Gabi was, and it is painful to discuss Gabi in the past tense, an intellectual activist with the deep grounding in the extraordinary weltschauung of Chasidism. He was—to borrow a line from baseball—a "five tool rabbi." Gabi could do it all. He was deeply learned and richly appreciative of the human condition, he served his community as a teacher, a mohel, and a shochet. While the attack was on a