Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivki were murdered, along with three other hostages, at the Chabad community center which they ran in Mumbai. And as much as I am hurting over their deaths, I am more devastated by the scope of the terror (over 160 dead and more than 350 wounded) than the fact that among them was a rabbi.
Even the fact that some appear to have been targeted because they were Jews does not make me so profoundly angry and sad. What is going on in Mumbai is bigger than that. And while I appreciate that fellow-blogger, Rod Dreher, focuses our attention on those victims who were probably killed because of their religion, that is not the point upon which to focus today. Nor is any broadside about Islamic Terrorism. Why? I'll tell you.
Even if such analyses are correct, and in my opinion they are less correct than those who publish them believe them to be, and more correct than those who need to hear them will admit. But that's the point. What good is accomplished with harangues that can not be meaningfully heard by those who may need to hear them most? And if they can not be hear they are nothing more than angry posturing - hardly what is needed at this moment.
As I wrote yesterday:
Now is not the time to justify, politic, or rationalize anything. But too many people seem not to know that. English newspapers repeatedly remind readers that the Rabbi is Israeli, as if that fact somehow mitigates the horror of his fate or lends some justification to the terrorists' actions. Jihad Watch managed to post a headline which "explains" the events as a "natural outgrowth" of the deep hatred that is "intrinsic" to Islam. And multiple Muslim advocacy groups have sent out press releases calling on us to pay less attention to the dead and wounded and focus instead on the "root causes" of global terror in the name of Islam. It's a real race to the bottom.Now is the time for all of us watching these events from afar to do three things: pray for the safety of all people still involved in the Mumbai attacks, the full and speedy recovery of the injured and that all those burying their dead, find consolation in the face of their loss.
Frankly, I want time to feel the sadness and the loss before jumping to righteous indignation.
I want to honor the memory of Rabbi Holtzberg and Rivki who journeyed to India to create an open, warm, inviting home which welcomed all comers. Honor their memory with a random act of kindness, the kind that made up their daily work in Mumbai.
We need to hold off, for a few days at least, on the analyses which may force us into battles that are so painful. I have fought them and I know. We may have to have those battles, but before we do, I hope we can remember the words of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook. He taught that in the face of senseless hatred we should show unreasonable love, in the face of tears we must laugh, and in the face death we must celebrate life.
Many families will be in mourning during the coming week, including those of Rabbi Gabi and Rivki. Let us honor them by living that teaching of Rabbi Kook, a spiritual giant who had roots in the same Chabad community which the departed couple served until the last moments of their too-short lives. May their memories be blessed.
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Author, radio and TV talk show host, and President of CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, Brad Hirschfield is the author of 
Only a fool tells people how and how much they should grieve. Let us all grieve as our hearts tell us. All people of good will should understand the imperminance of this life and the eternal life to come
whenever and wherever there is disturbing, to say the least, acts such as these committed by humans of all kinds against one another and then the reactions show us that in many ways we have evolved less then we thought and also in some ways more.
We all need to look in our hearts and minds and try every day to do our part to make ourselves better. If everyone did this they would be too busy to be doing unspeakable acts and the world would be a better place.
It would be a good thing if the Messiah would come sooner rather then later imho.
hugs
Laura
I think, when tragedies on this scale occur, we tend to "personalize" the grief by focusing on just a few people who, in some way, touch us. That is why news reports tend to focus on stories of individual experiences. It is hard to imagine so many dead; such numbers are overwhelming. We feel more grief, I think, when focusing on specifics. I know that I was quite affected by the cook who had hidden under a table for hours, only to be found and shot in the back, and I will always be haunted by the image of the Rabbi's sweet-looking wife, a defenseless woman who had never done harm to anyone, dying in such terror.
It is not that I do not see the other victims' lives as equally valuable; I do. These however, are the ones I will remember. When we personalize, we remember and with any luck, take steps to prevent such tragedies from happening again.
The rabbi is right that we need to value the lives of all who were killed. It is natural however, to focus on those whose stories we find compelling and who make the horror real for us.
Lucy G.
Dear Cher and Abbi,
It would be nice if you read what I actually wrote rather than making up Straw Men
I did not blame Cheney and Bush for all terrorism. I complained that they have been grossly incompetent in Iraq and Afghanistan. I said that because of their incompetence, we are left with the unpleasant alternative of killing terrorists rather than drying up the moral, social, and intellectual swamps which breed terrorism.
I referred to Goldstein and Amir. I never hinted that we have made any unprovoked attacks outside Israel. Nonetheless the word zealot was given to the world by us and we have religious zealots in our midst right now. While they turn their lunacy agst other Jews and West Bank Arabs, their mind set is very similar to any other Thumper. Being Jewish is not an inoculation agst becoming a True Believer (Eric Hoffer, 1952)
I have seen this argument put forth by antisemites numerous times, as if he world needed us to teach them about violence and fabaticism.
The only difference between Jews and others is that we kept notes along the way which others have read. We do not posess even a few percent of the writings of even those other ancient cultures that had a literary history and a value in truth. From the first we have inhabited a world of violence and corruption and slavery and oppression and brutality and theft and exploitation and immorality and evil of every kind. Our heritage and social contract has maintained as more better and less worse than the surrounding society in every age.
For you, the past century of blood and the past centuries of oppression and humiliation endured by the Jews of Hebron by the Arabs of Hebron are eclipsed by the questionably instigated actions of Goldstein and Amir. An objective observer of the settler movement understands that the foreign dominated secular Israeli political apparatus has been provoking and demonizing the religious sector and religious zionist movemnt in particular, with such incidents as the bogus shooting staged after weeks of prepping the public with dark threats and premonitions of settler violence.
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