Dear Friend,

Five years ago this week, I was on my way to Holland to visit my newborn niece. As the plane touched down, my husband turned on his phone to check the news. We knew there had been a terrorist attack in Mumbai, but suddenly the story turned terribly personal: terrorists had occupied the Chabad House. That Shabbat the rabbi sang Av Harachaimim, the prayer for Jewish martyrs, in a voice choked with tears. Six souls had joined millions of others in the prayer’s eternal embrace.

Reflecting on Mumbai five years later, it is hard to separate the pain of the tragedy from the response it evoked. People did thousands of mitzvahs, Chabad shluchim established tens of Torah centers, and many parents honored the memory of Rabbi Gavriel and Rivkah Holtzberg by naming their children after them. We survived, and we are stronger for it. As Rabbi Sacks writes this week in Light in Dark Times, the ability to recover, to use our pain as an impetus for growth, is a trait passed down to us from our forefather Jacob. For better or worse, this has become a defining characteristic of our people. May we soon merit the time when light will overpower darkness, once and for all.

Sarah Ogince,
on behalf of the Chabad.org Editorial Team