By now, you may have heard, either in the news or from Rabbi Goldman’s email, of the murder of Rabbi Zvi Kogan last weekend. Rabbi Kogan was a Chabad shaliach, emissary, serving the Jewish community in Dubai, and was murdered by terrorists. Whenever any Jew is murdered in an act of hateful antisemitism, our hearts break, whether or not we knew them personally, whether or not we find common ground in our theology and ritual practice.
Over social media these last few days, I’ve seen multiple posts uplifting the work that Chabad does in the farthest flung corners of the Jewish world. My own experience of this important work draws from my years in Singapore, where the Progressive synagogue I served shares a cool but neighbourly relationship with the Chabad community. It is because of the Chabad rabbis and their families in Singapore that my community and my family had access to kosher food – including grape juice for Shabbat, matzah at Pesach, a variety of kosher ingredients for cooking Singaporean dishes, and of course, the beloved Israeli snack, Bamba. It is because of Chabad that we had enough lulav and etrog sets each year. It is because of Chabad that there is a vibrant and excellent Jewish day school in Singapore, and I am tremendously appreciative of the education, love, depth of Yiddishkeit, and respect that my children received there. None of this eliminates the real theological and ideological differences that we may have – but as I spoke about over the High Holidays, we share a Jewish tent with many people with whom we disagree, and yet, we are all in that same noisy tent.
I want to share here Rabbi Goldman’s words, shared over email earlier this week, on what an appropriate response to such a hateful act might be:
“By doing precisely the opposite of what these wicked and immoral people would like us to do. They want us to be fearful, anxious and muted. They want us to tone down community gatherings, tone down our practice of Judaism and stop expressing our love for Israel. Instead, we must be calm and fearless. We will gather more often, in greater numbers, and with greater focus and resolve. I am sure they wouldn’t mind if we split ourselves into groups and fought against each other – we must take special care to do the opposite of that as well. We are truly living through historic times, and it is a time for everyone to dig past fear and discover what lies beneath it – courage. By increasing your practice of mitzvot at home, increasing your loving kindness towards your fellow Jew and to all you encounter, and participating in Jewish communal events, you are part of the solution as you dismantle and disprove the terrorists’ entire agenda.”
I invite each of you to join me in being part of the solution, by living proudly as Jews, grounded in our values, including a deep sense of lovingkindness to all of Am Yisrael and all of humanity.
