For Emissaries-To-Be, a Defiant Mood

MORRISTOWN, NJ — If, as its followers sometimes insist, Chabad-Lubavitch is an “army of Hashem,” or God, then the Rabbinical College of America is its West Point.

The Morristown seminary is a main training ground for the Chabad shluchim, or emissaries, who are dispatched around the world to open outreach centers in places ranging from comfortable suburbs to developing cities like Mumbai.

And while Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, who along with his wife, Rivkah, was slain in the terrorist attack on the Mumbai Chabad House, was not trained at the RCA, their murders triggered both sadness and resolve among its faculty and students.

RCA dean Rabbi Moshe Herson views the tragedy in Mumbai in part as an opportunity to learn, and teach, about security.

“No doubt we will have to add something to our curriculum, very carefully,” he said in an interview Monday. “The reality is that until now, everybody went without any fear, with an attitude of ‘This is what is expected of me regardless of how safe the place is.’

“There is no question that there is some apprehension, so while we don’t want to create panic, our students do have to know what the realities are about where they are going.”

In a third-floor classroom at the RCA, students of Rabbi Aaron Gantz said the attacks have strengthened their determination to serve as shluchim at Chabad Houses around the world.

Yehoshua Bedrick, a resident of Windham, NH, said, “It could happen anywhere — a building in New York, a bus in London, a train in Spain. But I do not think you’ll find a single yeshiva student here who will say, ‘I’ve changed my mind; I am not going out to a distant corner of the world just because I am afraid of what might happen.’ This is just going to strengthen my resolve.”

Others joined in his show of confidence.

“Obviously there is going to be a rise in security,” said Levi Kaye, a student from Sydney, Australia. “If we lessen our enthusiasm because we are scared, the terrorists would have succeeded. We have to increase our activities and our enthusiasm.”

Michael Horowitz from Manchester, England, called the slayings “a terrible thing, not just for the Jewish community but for all the people involved. We have to not be afraid and not surrender to this. We have to continue.”

“People might think after this that we might be more scared. In fact, we see otherwise,” said Shimon Dubinsky of Morristown. “Whenever these things happen, we see more people are ready to go out to corners of the world like India and add a little light.”