If there were a bright spot to the horrific terror attack carried out in Mumbai, it was the stark contrast between the perpetrators and the victims, illustrated so poignantly at Nariman House, the local Chabad's headquarters.
The testimonials at events held by our New Jersey Chabad-Lubavitch chapters go something like this: "I am not observant, but the rabbi and his wife treated us as if we were royalty"; "My kids were never happy in preschool until we enrolled them in the Chabad's preschool, where they are cared for as if they are the rabbi and rebbetzin's own children"; "This is my first time lighting Shabbat candles in 40 years"; "The Chabad center is the only place I don't feel judged"; etc.
The praise for Chabad is always effusive and proud, and it's not uncommon to see an audience at a Chabad event devoid of dry eyes, the participants having suddenly experienced a rush of emotion as their love of Judaism and its traditions is remembered and unearthed.
On Nov. 26, the siege of Mumbai by Islamic terrorists began, ending with the news that Mumbai's Chabad Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, were among the victims. And in this, the world should learn a very important lesson about us and our enemies.
According to the Chabad Web site, the Lubavitch mission is described thus: "Appropriately, the word Lubavitch in Russian means the 'city of brotherly love.' The name Lubavitch conveys the essence of the responsibility and love engendered by the Chabad philosophy toward every single Jew."
Of course, Chabad goes beyond "every single Jew": when I was a student at Rutgers, my roommate, the son of Cuban immigrants, and our friend, the son of Indian immigrants - neither of whom is Jewish - both spent time at the Rutgers Chabad House. The atmosphere of inclusiveness at Chabad must be experienced first-hand to be believed.
This, of course, is the polar opposite of the perpetrators of the Mumbai massacre: Jihad-obsessed Muslims. The Islamists' motto is not "convert or die." It's simply, "die." Their brand of Islamic outreach is to annihilate all nonbelievers, starting with Jews. Chabad's Jewish outreach is quite the reverse: everyone is welcome; every human being has intrinsic value and accordingly deserves the utmost respect.
I remember listening to a lecture by the late Rabbi Avigdor Miller, after which he took questions, as he always did, on any subject from the audience. One questioner asked Miller if it was permissible to be nice to Jews, but not be so friendly or considerate to non-Jews.
Miller answered that not only was this not permissible, the question was moot: there is no such animal, he said. You are either a nice person, or you aren't.
Chabad lives by the same motto: you can't pick and choose when to be nice person. Because of this, there is nothing but warmth around Chabad.
When I was a reporter for Greater Media Newspapers, in Freehold, I often drove to the Chabad House in Manalapan for afternoon prayers. One year, before Hanukkah, the yeshiva students there gave me a bunch of menorahs to hand out to my Jewish co-workers. I doubted there would any takers, since I was sure that anyone who wanted to light a menorah would already own one. Of course, I was wrong. The woman who worked at our front desk was practically giddy when I walked in with a bag of menorahs. She was Jewish, and immediately began calling the extensions of all the company's advertising executives she knew to be Jewish, asking them if they would like a menorah.
I took the editorial side of the office, and sheepishly asked the reporters I thought were Jewish if they needed a menorah. When I had originally expressed my doubts about the menorahs to the Chabad students, they smiled and told me it was no problem - I should feel free to return any unused menorahs to them. They enjoyed seeing me walk into the Chabad House the following week with no menorahs to return.
Chabad takes to heart the Jewish directive to be a light among the nations. And here's the lesson to our enemies: Chabad will continue to shine.
Violence and tragedy will never defeat the Jewish spirit. Radical Islam's adherents can learn this lesson one of two ways. They can learn it the hard way, by continuing to try to destroy Israel and attempting to wrest a devoted people from our beloved God. They will fail.
Or they can learn this lesson the easy way, by watching as Chabad's work continues, undaunted and resolute, to spread love in the face of hate.
This originally appeared in the Dec. 5, 2008 issue of The Jewish State.
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