Neighborhood Hears Words of Encouragement From Fallen Rabbi’s Father

BROOKLYN, NY — Jewish communities throughout the world gathered this week to celebrate the 210th anniversary of the release of the first Chabad Rebbe from a Russian prison. Tens of thousands of people took part in the celebrations, which stretched for two days and looked at the life and teachings of the first Rebbe, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi.

In the Brooklyn, N.Y., enclave of Crown Heights, rabbinical leaders and hundreds of residents packed a yeshiva for newly-married men to hear words of spiritual encouragement from Rabbi Nachman Holtzberg, the father of slain Chabad-Lubavitch emissary Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, who perished in the Mumbai terror attacks.

In an emotional speech, Holtzberg relayed a few stories that encapsulated the religious conviction that led his son to eventually move to India on a mission to strengthen Judaism wherever Jews could be found. The conviction, he noted, was rooted in the approach outlined by the first Rebbe in the Tanya, the seminal work of Chabad-Lubavitch Chasidic thought for which its author was falsely accused of subverting the ruling Czarist regime.

“An extremely left-leaning Israeli who associated himself with [a Marxist-affiliated group] traveled to India,” related Holtzberg. “On arrival, he contacted my son and told him, ‘I need a place to eat. Nothing else. I don’t want to hear about religion.’

“My son said to him, ‘Don’t worry. I will not ask you do to anything, not even to put on tefillin.’ This happened each time this Israeli traveled to India. Each time my son said nothing,” continued Holtzberg. “Finally, unable to contain himself, the Israeli man blurted out, ‘I come here and I eat, and you never ask me to do anything in return!’ My son answered him simplistically and beautifully: ‘The fact that you come here and eat and enjoy yourself is the greatest thing that you could do for me.’ ”

Article continued at Chabad.org