I was first welcomed by Rivky, who had a big smile on her face and her baby Moishie in her arms. She ushered me and my fellow travelers into the Chabad house and immediately offered us something to eat and a sofa to rest on. We quickly became good friends. We bonded with the Holtzberg family and the staff at Chabad, including Sandra, the heroine who saved baby Moishie's life.

Like his parents, Moishe is a sweet, loving, happy baby. He was so attached to Rivky and Gabi. He got so excited to sing Shabbat Z'mirot (songs) every Friday night with his father, and I could tell by the light on Gabi's face when they were singing together, that he looked forward to it too. It breaks my heart that I can still hear Moishie's voice calling, "Ima, Ima, Ima", and she will no longer be able to hold him or rock him in her arms.

On my second Shabbat at Chabad, Rivky told me there were two Israeli men staying at the house who were just released from an Indian prison. When I saw these men sitting at the dinner table, I was startled. One man had only a front tooth and a raggedy pony tail, and the other looked like an Israeli version of Rambo. I observed the way that Gabi interacted with them and how they were welcomed at the Shabbat table the same way everyone else was, and my fears melted away. Over the course of the night, I learned that these men were not the only prisoners or ex-convicts the Holtzberg's helped. Gabi frequently brought Kosher meals to Israelis in prison, spent time with them, listened to their life stories, and took them in after their release.

I realized that Gabi and Rivky's job was not only to run a Chabad house and provide warm meals and beds for weary Jewish travelers, it was much greater. The Holtzberg's were running a remarkable operation. They took their jobs as shlichim (emissaries) very seriously. Their lives never stopped. There was no such thing as "personal space" or "downtime". The phones rang constantly, people came in and out like a subway station, and all the while Rivky and Gabi were calm, smiling, warm, and welcomed everyone like family.

Rivky spent each day cooking dinner with the chefs for 20-40 people, while Gabi made sure to provide meat for everyone by going to the local markets and schechting (koshering) chickens himself. They also provided travelers with computers for internet access, so that they wouldn't have to pay for internet cafes. They even took care of our laundry. Having spent much time abroad, it was clear to me that Rivky and Gabi were unusual tzadikim (righteous people).

On my last Shabbat in India, I slept in Rivky and Gabi's home, the 5th floor of the Chabad house. I noticed that their apartment was dilapidated and bare. They had only a sofa, a bookshelf, a bedroom for Moishie, and a bedroom to sleep in. The paint peeled from the walls, and there were hardly any decorations. Yet, the guest quarters on the two floors below were decorated exquisitely, with American-style beds, expansive bathrooms, air conditioning (a luxury in India) and marble floors. We called these rooms our "healing rooms" because life was so difficult in Mumbai during the week. We knew that when we came to Chabad, Rivky and Gabi would take care of us just like our parents, and their openness and kindness would rejuvenate us for the week to come.

The juxtaposition of their home to the guest rooms was just another example of what selfless, humble people Rivky and Gabi were. They were more concerned about the comfort of their guests than their own.

The Holtzberg's Shabbat table was a new experience each week. Backpackers, businessmen, diplomats and diamond dealers gathered together to connect with their heritage in an otherwise unfamiliar city. We always knew we were in for a surprise where an amazing story would be told, either by Gabi or a guest at the table. For each meal, Gabi prepared about seven different divrei torah (words of torah) to share. Though most of them were delivered in Hebrew (and I caught about 25%), his wisdom, knowledge and ability to inspire amazed me. Rivky and Gabi were accepting of everyone who walked through their doors, and they had no hidden agendas. Rivky once told me that there was one holiday where they had no guests. It was just herself, Gabi and Moishie. I expected her to say how relieved she was not to have guests, but she told me it was, in fact, the only lonely holiday they ever spent in India.
I remember asking Gabi if he was afraid of potential terror threats. Although his demeanor was so sweet and gentle, Gabi was also very strong-minded and determined. He told me simply and sharply that if the terrorists were to come, "be my guest, because I'm not leaving this place." Both he and Rivky believed that their mission in Mumbai was far greater than any potential terror threats.

Everything Rivky and Gabi did came from their dedication, love and commitment to the Jewish people and to G-d. I cannot portray in words how remarkable this couple was. If there is anything practical that I can suggest in order to elevate their souls, please try to light candles this Friday night for Shabbat, improve relationships with family members and friends, try to connect to others the way that Rivky and Gabi did- with love, acceptance and open arms. There is so much to learn from them. May their names and influence live on, and inspire us in acts of kindness and love.

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Photos can be found on this Facebook page. The Hebrew phrase in times like this is "zichrono l'bracha" - may their names [continue to] be remembered as a blessing....

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But this book is not another bewailing of how Christian Germany came to commit the Holocaust. In fact, the Shoah gets about two sentences in her book, about the same as the Spanish Inquisition. Rather, the book is an introduction into the Jewishness of Jesus himself and of his place and time. Just as importantly, A-J explains simply and thoroughly the errors of both the Church and the Academy in drawing conclusions about presumed monolithic Judaism by supposing that whatever Jesus seemed to oppose must have been normative in Judaism of his day. That is, clergy and scholars alike haven't studied Judaica to speak of, but nonetheless think that the New Testament describes Judaism both accurately and exhaustively. It just is not so.

As well, A-J exposes how modern theological fads (liberationism, feminism and many others), have so idealized Jesus away from his personal Jewishness that he becomes a heroic figure exemplifying whatever the faddists a priori wish him to be. Jesus' own people then become the paradigm for whomever the faddists wish to oppose in the present day, and the dysfunctions and injustices of today - whether patriarchy, colonialism, or various exploitations - are retrojected as the norm of first-century Judaism. Jews are then portrayed, often quite explicitly, as domineering oppressors of class, gender, the outcast and the marginalized. Hence, in seeking to identify Jesus with the Palestinian cause today, one writer makes explicit a connection across two millennia between the Israeli "occupiers" of the West Bank and the Jews who killed Jesus.

Finally, the book appeals to Jews not dismiss the Christian testament as wholly antithetical to Judaism's history and current practice. A-J explains, for example, how the Lord's Prayer (called, the "Our Father" prayer in Catholicism) is a Jewish prayer through and through. (I remember this explanation from my first New Testament class with her, too.) Noting that after two thousand years of history it is too much to expect that Jews today will feel comfortable in praying it, she uses it to point out how Christian faith and practice is still pervaded by Jewish traditions and that there are many positive points of contact that adherents of either faith would be better off to appreciate.

I recommend the book without reservation. It's the best religious-topic book I have read in several years.

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Here's what Tarek wrote:

"Once again, my warmest Passover greetings (it is heartily meant while I would have preferred if Egypt would have been able to accommodate happily this wonderful expatriate community and motivate them not to flee to Sinai some 34 centuries ago and deprive us from their wonderful skills and peerless talents!!)."

It would have been nice if it all could have been settled pleasantly... but absolutist despotisms of any stripe are rarely good at that sort of thing. Which brings us to the central points of Passover.

The Point

In one sense, Passover is really about preparation for the giving of the 10 Commandments on Mt. Sinai. Abraham is the first major break: belief in the existence of one G-d, without shape or form. His acceptance of G-d's existence creates ethical monotheism, the belief in a single G-d who is goodness and who demands goodness - but its real impact is not felt until the second major break. For the corrollary of ethical monotheism is the idea that good and evil are real, and can't be set or altered by human authorities at their whim. They are things to discover and understand, rather than things to invent.

This idea will change the world - and the Passover story is both its grand entrance and its clarion call.

Which is great, but how does that relate to the Egyptians?

The Egyptians

Some Jewish sages believe that G-d wished to make a serious example of an absolutist earthly ruler, to convey with utmost clarity that now and forever, no human was equal to or above G-d, and that moral law was not something dictated by societal conventions or the pronouncements of human "authorities."

In other words, Egypt's Pharaoh was simply being used to make a divine point. A very very important divine point with enormous future implications, but one that could also have been made anywhere else in the world at that time. Slavery? Almost universal. Belief in idols? Ditto. Cruelty? Then, as now, the rule not the exception. Absolutist rulers claiming divine descent or status? Pharaoh isn't the first, and won't be the last by any means.

We focus on the Egyptians during Passover (and both Islam and Christianity made it part of their stories too), but really, there was nothing especially blameworthy about Egypt as a society that didn't apply equally to most of its neighbours.

Which brings us to the spilling of the 10 drops of wine.

Drops of Freedom

I've always seen the spilling of the 10 drops of wine while the names of the plagues are recited as being about basic human compassion for anyone's suffering. That still applies, I'm sure, but the more I talked to Tarek, the more I wondered if I was missing something. Something big.

As noted above, the 10 Plagues could have happened to so many other societies. Most of humanity was like that at the time... and many people even today live under systems that are just as absolute. Yet all Egyptians suffered in the Plagues, because of decisions that many had no part in. Granted, many Egyptians would have been involved in enslaving the Israelites. The thing is, without a moral framework that separates morality from a God-King's dictates, it isn't even possible to talk about complicity or blame. How can one say that enslaving the Hebrews is morally wrong, when a divine Pharaoh says that it's right?

Unless and until there is a touchstone for good and evil that is beyond earthly authority but within earthly grasp, we cannot have anything approaching real morality - or a standard for responsibility and blame that means anything.

That's why it was not Israel alone who was redeemed at Passover.

Indeed, it's only after Exodus and Sinai that the world can even begin to talk about the prospect of a different future - for the Israelites, for the Egyptians themselves, and for all mankind.

And so we spill the drops of wine in sorrow every year. Not only for the Egyptians' suffering, but also for the lack of freedom that led to it - and which remained after the Israelites has left. Because after the 10th Plague, Israel went free. But the Egyptians, too, were slaves, subject to Pharaoh's absolute authority. Their lives remained his even after Israel's Exodus, to be snuffed out at a whim or a word.

Who cries for them? We do. Every year.

We drink the Passover wine to commemorate our freedom, and - and yes, we spill it in compassion. But maybe we also spill it to remind ourselves of those we left behind, unable to share in the wine of freedom because they were still unfree.

And as long as that remains the case, our cup of freedom is never really full.

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