Local rabbis seeking right words on Mumbai
Though the events were unfolding thousands of miles away, Rabbi Mendy Uminer could not take his eyes off the television coverage of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India.
As gunmen seized locations across the city, including the Chabad House, an outreach center operated by the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic sect, Uminer struggled to think of what to tell his congregation in Brookline at Shabbat services Saturday.
"It's been tough," he said. "You want to just be a person, but you have to be a community leader."
Eight people were killed at the Chabad House, including an American rabbi, Gavriel Holtzberg, and his wife, Rivka. They will be buried in Israel today.
Their toddler son, Moshe, was whisked to safety by a kitchen worker who also worked as his nanny. At least 188 people were killed in the attacks.
Memorial services are scheduled for tomorrow at two local Chabad centers: at 7:30 p.m. at the Chabad Center at Chestnut Hill and at 6 p.m. at the Yeshiva Chabad of Central Massachusetts.
Several other local rabbis said they would hold services this week, but had not finalized plans.
Uminer said he had grown up near Holtzberg, and his mother and father are friends of the rabbi's parents.
"The emotions were very raw, and they still are," Uminer said. "It's hard to describe the feeling when it's a brother, even if they're halfway around the world."
On Saturday, more than 100 people attended Shabbat services at Chabad Center at Chestnut Hill, which Uminer said was unusually high for a vacation weekend.
"They all expected me to talk, and I wanted to shut down," he said. "I couldn't talk about the details, because I would cry. But the Shabbat isn't a time to cry, it is a time to celebrate."
Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi runs the Chabad House at Harvard. On Saturday evening, he said he had not had the opportunity to discuss the attacks with his students, since most had gone home for Thanksgiving. Many Harvard students and faculty knew Holtzberg, Zarchi said, and a memorial service is being planned for this week.
"On the one hand, there is really little that one can say to express the feelings of this senseless act of hate and murder," Zarchi said. "On the other hand, there are so many people in the Harvard community who have benefited from knowing the rabbi in Mumbai."
In Sharon on Saturday, Rabbi Chaim Wolosow felt he had to discuss the terrorist attacks before his congregation.
"Everybody was looking up to the rabbi and to the leadership to find words of encouragement and words of reason to try to make sense of these things," Wolosow said.
"Some events take place and even the rabbis are baffled."
He said he modeled his words on the ways of Rebbe Lubavitcher, the spiritual leader of the Chabad movement, who died in 1994.
"People are very much sharing the feelings of grief, but they were determined that we cannot let things like this deter us," Wolosow said. "We will continue the work mapped out for us by the Rebbe, and we will march forward."
Rabbi Shayke Lerner, executive director of the Chabad Center of Brookline, said that growing up in Israel he lived in the same neighborhood as Holtzberg.
"I remember him as a child, always with a smile on his face," he said.
They both studied at Yeshiva University in New York, and Lerner said Holtzberg had a reputation of being a gifted student.
Rabbi Mendel Fogelman said his father, Rabbi Hershel Fogelman, who in 1946 was the first Chabad emissary sent to Massachusetts from Israel, will preside over tomorrow's service at Yeshiva Chabad of Central Massachusetts.
"It's very personal to us; we're all very close," Fogelman said. "One person getting hurt affects all of us, we all have one mission . . . which is to help Jewish people everywhere. When there is hurt, we must help heal that pain."
He said that in Saturday's Shabbat services, he encouraged the congregation to model its actions on the Holtzbergs.
"It is important first of all to remember what this young couple did for so many people around the world, and to continue the work they've done, around the world and in India," Fogelman said.
Matt Collette can be reached at mpcollette@globe.com.
Correction: Because of a reporting error, the late spiritual leader of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement was incorrectly identified in a story in yesterday's Metro section. He was known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe. 