I have been thinking a lot about the murder of the young Chabad rabbi and his wife in Mumbai. During my last year of rabbinical school, I had an internship with the Executive Vice President of the Rabbinical Assembly. One day, he asked me if I had ever considered going abroad for my first position as a rabbi. At the time, there was new Conservative congregation in Sweden looking for a rabbi. I thought about it for all of two seconds before saying it was not for me. Jodi was pregnant at the time, and I could not imagine us being in a strange country when our first child was born. Yet, Rabbi Gavriel & Rivka Holtzberg went to Mumbai, India at the ages of 24 & 23 to teach Torah to the Jews who live there and the Jews who pass through.
Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a big fan of Chabad, but these two individuals were dedicated, selfless teachers of Torah. Their senseless murders are a tragedy.
