Personal Reflections

Two weeks ago, I did not know you. Now, I am searching your beautiful face, reading about you everywhere, haunted that a Jewish sister was murdered because of who she was, and the goodness she did...

The most significant memories that will remain with baby Moshe will be the images of his loving parents welcoming guests with a warm smile, a hug and a kiss...

"If this is how we mourn in Judaism, then I want to be a Jew. And if this is how they weep and eulogize in the Chabad movement, then today, I would like to be connected to your movement, Rabbi."

The military terminology isn't metaphorical. Only those with a soldier's strength and stoicism can take on the harsh conditions, the constant discomfort of blazing trails of Judaism through rugged terrain...

Tell me how do we say goodbye to the angels that have fallen from our life. And how do we say goodbye to the angels that have flown away at night…

I feel so tired. But something pulls me out of my slumber, out of the haze, the grumbled good morning and the fantasy of even five more minutes of sleep...

When we beg G‑d in our daily prayers to gather the Jews from the four corners of the earth, we dare not dream of the return of an orphan baby with his righteous Indian nanny to his mother's birthplace...

We sat in the large ballroom-dining room at the convention, asking for second helpings of gefilte fish... We talked, laughed, sang traditional Shabbat hymns. While underneath it all, the soul seethed, churned, screamed.

I wish I could explain to you / Why a nation burns in senseless hate / Why our shaken prayers and acts of kindness / Couldn't break the clouds of certain fate...

Pain packs a punch, and it has an intensity that's waiting to be channeled

Our collective hearts are broken over this tragedy. The Holtzbergs lived the life of our Patriarch Isaac. They lived a life of sacrifice, and unfortunately, died that way as well.

The brittle fanatic minds that countenanced the Mumbai massacre were too inept to have realized the irony and paradox of their target.

Perhaps if we reach into the fog, into the ashes / And drop a seed - a seed of the fallen / And fertilized by the pain and by the love / Perhaps a seedling of exuberant life and vitality will sprout and grow / Penetrating the haze

He transformed my why why why to wow wow wow. Turning negative into the positive, up to down, in to out, physical to spiritual—this is the magic of Judaism...

Chabad doesn't quit. They stood their ground in Czarist Russia, they didn't quit after the Holocaust, and they didn't abandon Crown Heights after the 1991 riot. Chabad doesn't quit even in Islamic countries that might blow up any minute...

Is there someone whom you have something against? A grudge, or a hurt that you harbor in your heart? Isn't it time we all got past our petty limitations to find the connecting threads of unity that connect us all?

We have calculations, logical ones, Torah-based ones, that we are certain about and we have a license to be. We know certain things can't happen... You're right, says the Talmud. But . . . nonetheless . . . it happened...

We can all put our grief, our disbelief, our desire to do something into action—and we must do it quickly. Send money to a Jewish cause. Spend some time telling your parents, children, and friends how much you love them...

For the past five years, Rabbi Gavriel and Rivkah Holtzberg were the Rebbe's shluchim, emissaries or ambassadors, to Mumbai, India. As of today, however, they have become his emissaries to the world.

Maybe I'm crazy, maybe I'm just ranting, but you heard it here first: one day the children of those who sought harm will benefit from the legacy that Gabi and Rivky left behind. And that will be the sweetest revenge of all