WE MADE CHABAD.ORG

Moshe Kravitsky performs during a musical tribute hosted by the Meaningful Life Center one year after the Mumbai terror attacks. (Photo: Chaim Perl)

By Yonit Tanenbaum
Dec 1, 2009 4:10 PM


Putting an East Village touch on the first anniversary of the terror attacks in Mumbai, India, approximately 100 Jewish New Yorkers packed a room at the city’s Meaningful Life Center to memorialize the lives of slain Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg through music and contemplative lyrics.
The evening gathering last week drew a cross section of the community, from Jewish hipsters and young professionals to middle-aged spiritual seekers. Many, like designer Freida Stock, knew of the Holtzbergs – who perished alongside four of their guests when gunmen stormed their Chabad House – only from news reports and countless stories circulated online and around Shabbat tables. But one year after the attacks, they still felt connected to events that transpired half a world away.
“Although I never knew Gabi and Rivky personally,” said Stock, “I personally felt the tragedy, and want to remember them.”

Featuring Queens native Moshe Hecht, the musical tribute included emerging artists from across the metropolitan area. Sporting a white shirt and Russian-style cap, Hecht performed “Lamplighters,” a song he composed in the wake of the Mumbai attacks.

From his perch atop a stool on stage, Hecht explained that the lyrics were inspired by an answer that the Fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Sholom DovBer, offered one of his disciples in 1907 when asked for the definition of a Chasid.

“A Chasid is a lamplighter,” said the Rebbe. “He takes the torch and travels around the world, through dark streets illuminating the way so that people will have direction.”

“That is precisely what Gabi and Rivky were doing in Mumbai,” emphasized Hecht, the 12th of 14 children, who are all involved in some way or another in Chabad activities around the world.

Language of the Soul
Sitting on low couches, cushioned barstools and folding chairs, the audience laughed at times, sighed at others, and appeared enveloped in the dim glow and stirring chords from the musicians on stage.

Mark Bolinsky, 50, a student for the past eight years of Meaningful Life Center founder Rabbi Simon Jacobson, said that the musical tribute was a fitting way to answer last year’s carnage.

“A little bit of light dispels much darkness and evil,” said the real estate controller.

Jacobson, author of the best-selling Toward a Meaningful Life, said that the center has focused on music as a way to “bring spirituality to people.”

“We are constantly looking for emerging artists,” he explained, “because music is the language of the soul.”

Included among the performers was Moshe Kravitsky, singing his own tribute, “Fallen Angles.”

“How do we say goodbye to the angels that have flown away and died?” the 27-year-old native Israeli sang. “3,500 siblings asking, ‘Why?’ ”

Kayla Pinson, an assistant teacher at an elementary school, said that she was especially moved by a parable that Hecht relayed during his set.

“I loved [his] story about all of the jungle animals – bears, zebras, alligators, lions – who gathered to compete for the loudest sound in the jungle,” she relayed. “The animal with the loudest sound was the little canary, because when she sang, all of the birds joined in one tune, just like us. When something happens to one of us, our entire nation is affected.”

“All Jews are connected,” echoed Stock. “When one is taken from us, we all feel it.”

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