Response to the Tragic Murder of R' Tzvi Kogan

let me first tell you what I'm not going to try to do I'm not going to try to explain why the bad things happen to good people I'm not here to explain a tragedy an unthinkable tragedy and Unthinkable loss yes we know that Hashem is perfect in all of his ways but I don't have to be hashem's defense attorney to explain that overly we are hurting we are in Shock we are grieving and um somehow we know that Hashem knows what he's doing but we know that with our faith not with our minds right now our minds are broken and our hearts are broken and as Rabbi wall mentioned earlier the idea that a shak's family would be sitting shiva during the week of kin the International Conference of theb emissaries is is literally Unthinkable this is the week once a year when all of theb from all over the world come back to Crown Heights to renew their dedication to their mission it's a time of incredible joy and the should be murdered this very week and that his family should be sitting shiva and that by extension the entire family of schl of thousands of schl all over the world and really the entire Claus all over the world to be sitting shiva is Unthinkable of course it's impossible not to think about the fact that there are echo of 16 years ago right now Kim of pin Sam test 2008 the kinis had just finished I remember very clearly I was giving a tanir I was actually was uh I was giving a tanir in Bayside Wisconsin which that's where I was uh teaching at that time I just come back from the from the kinnis and we got news that we should say extra to Hill him because something happened with the SCH in in Mumbai and then obviously the events unfolded and the tragic outcome was revealed that the schlim and their guests at the kabad house in Mumbai had been targeted had been massacred we had just come back from the high from the elation of the kin of the the global Conference of theb emissaries and then we came crashing down to to to receive this tragic news and now it's 16 years later and the kinos the conference is starting in just a couple of days and we're in mourning again again for [Applause] as and the connection between reab Hogan's Family and the holtzberg family is also obviously impossible to ignore rebic Hogan's wife rify her uncle was Gabby holtzberg and uh yes as Rabbi wck mentioned I also had heard that under his K Rabbi kogan wore the kot of rabbi holtzberg and now to think that they're both victims of being murdered for no other reason than that they represent the Jewish people is again just too much for the brain too much for the heart and so yeah I'm not I'm not here to make it make sense it doesn't make sense I was watching the funeral today so they brought a big Hogan's body to ER and specifically to the Village of kar kabad and um it was raining just started raining out of nowhere and they were standing in front of the replica of 770 obviously 770 is the iconic building in Brooklyn the world headquarters laich World Headquarters but there are 770s all over the world and one of them is in kabad so they were standing in front of the 770 replica in kabad and I couldn't help but think about the link to events that took place in kabad many years ago where the Deb direct guidance and that guidance from the Reb holds true today just as much as then and so I want to look to the Deb's words of comfort and guidance that took place then and use it as a directive for now again not to try to explain the tragedy but to give us Direction where to put the intensity of our of our feelings that we're that we're having right now so the village of kabad was founded in uh and just a few years after the founding of the village basically these were um immigrants from the Soviet Union kabad who had been victims of communist oppression under Stalin's regime and there were all from the Inception of the village there were always raids from terrorists that was a constant problem but um in toin TV 5715 that'll be equivalent to 1955 there was a murder of a young man he was a very talented young man he was a teacher his name was yal Arya dein and I think he was 20 years old he was a teacher at the the trade school which that EBA founded the BET mostly it was Moroccan immigrant students who would learn part of the day and they would be trained in a in a trade part of the day and this Bak this yiva Bak was uh was their teacher and apparently he took a a bus or a train to lud and then he walked the rest of the way and he took a shortcut I think and terrorists kidnapped him and very similar to the story that just happened now he was missing for many days there was a search party and they feared the worst but they couldn't find a body right away and then eventually they found him in an orchard he'd been murdered in an orchard actually the one who found the body was the future do of M and obviously this was was devastating but I want to explain something to you um and we forget this terrorism is a word and it has a meaning we use the word so much we forget what it means terrorism isn't just violence there's a lot of different types of violence terrorism is specifically the use of violence to instill Terror so it was not only that this young man was murdered which was an unfathomable loss for his family and for his community but what proceeded to happen which was entirely the intent and the design and the purpose of terrorism was that Panic set in in the entire Village of kabad and there was a a movement to abandon thear they said it's just not safe it's just not a safe place now this event happened the fourth night of Kaneka sadly enough tragically enough on the on a night when we're supposed to be adding in light a light was snuffed out the responded to the Village of kabad in a letter that's printed in thees volume 10 of Reb's letters and yat now yudat as many may know is the yard site of the Reb's father-in-law the Reb's Reb and it was a very busy day for the Reb the Reb spent the entire day praying and at theel at the resting place of his father-in-law and then came back and there was a faan and it was an incredibly busy day but somehow during that day a letter was sent to the Village of kabad and in the letter that debba addresses the fear that they have that they want to abandon thear I just want to point out what the debba said and what the debba did not say the debba did not attempt to explain the tragedy that addressed the emotional impact that the tragedy was having on the people okay so that's why I'm taking the approach that I'm taking I'm not here to offer for any type of of deep explanation I don't think it's even appropriate at this point when we are in such deep pain but I do think it's important to realize that acts such as were committed against Rabbi kogan and which unfortunately have been committed against Jews throughout history are committed for a purpose it's to make make us feel discouraged to make us feel unsafe to make us feel insecure to make us full of self-doubt it's to make us lose hope that's the purpose of attacks like this so in the letter that the wrote to kabad he didn't try to explain hashem's ways but what he did do is he addressed the impact that the fear would have on the people and how to address that so the re writes as I said this is in the which you you can you can learn the original text that EBA writes about three incidents that took place in three respective Generations the AL the MIT and theed and words the first second and third rebas of kabad and in this letter the rebba quotes from letters that each of these rebes each of his predecessors wrote on different occasions where there was fear and there was there was talk about leaving a place because of trauma that had happened there so that the alter's letter the alter is writing to a to a who had a fire and the AL says that there's a saying that that after a fire one becomes becomes rich so what is that now people today all laugh at that and the see cuz you have fire insurance but this is long before fire Insurance the AL proceeds to explain that ala cabalistic you have you have DIN and you have is the right Vector which is kindness din is the left Vector which is severe judgment Rim is compassion that's the center and the Order of Things is right left Center so when something happens that is an expression of D of harsh judgment the next thing that's going to happen is the is the compassion so the AL explains you've already experienced the din don't leave stay there and wait for the compassion similar then theb quotes a letter from the m and similar circumstances the m is riding to a town that experienced a fire and he says the same thing that and he explains it actually even a little bit more that it's not just that it goes right left Center kindness severe judgment compassion MLB explains it a little bit more and he says really there was compassion hidden in the severe judgment all along but it wasn't able to express itself but one outwardly the severe judgment has been expressed then the inner core of compassion is able to come out and you're going to experience Divine compassion and he says so therefore do not leave the same place because that's where your compassion is coming so as much as it's counterintuitive at least maybe from a psychological point of view that you feel that this place is triggering you because you experienced a trauma there nevertheless you have to let things work themselves out cabalistic speaking and don't leave this place because this is where the the comfort and the healing is actually going to be sent and then there's a letter from The Tam which the the Reb quotes saying essentially the same thing and so the debba tells the the residents of of kabad the place where you experience this pain is the place where you're going to experience Divine compassion don't leave this place remain there I was thinking about this in 2024 almost 2025 we live in a global world today we don't just relate to events that happen in our hometown we have technology that informs us within seconds about events that happen at any spot on the globe and the reality is when a Jew is targeted for for terrorism in the United Arab Emirates is the statement only to the local Jewish Community or is it a global statement well I think the fact that we're all sitting here right now is a testimony of the fact that it is a global statement in other words the terrorists are trying to send a message to Jews all over the world so in that sense all of us have experienced the din we've experienced the harsh judgment we've all been terrorized which is the intention of the act now obviously when something happens all over the whole world you can't really leave the world you can leave a a place you can move out of town you can say this place is no good there's too many scary things happening let's let's go somewhere else but when the world feels unsafe you obviously you can't relocate I mean I think Elon Musk wants us to go to Mars but so far you can't leave earth right but that's precisely the point that's precisely the point the terrorism is trying to make the entire world feel unsafe so there was din there was harsh judgment that really affected the entire world it stands to reason that the the ensuing Rim The Compassion the Divine Mercy is also equally going to be Universal it's going to be Global in other words our human reaction to this event is to cower and to look for a safe place to hide and that's a human reaction but we have to be more spiritual we have to be more connected to our faith we have to have the view of infinity we have to have a Godly View and that is that if we experience din then we are about to experience ra it doesn't justify the harsh judgments again like I said I'm not here to justify but what it does is it tells us not to check out of reality not to go hide ourselves not to go numb ourselves distract ourselves because the world feels like it's not a hospitable place but rather the opposite keep your eyes open and be present because good things are unfolding when I watched the funeral today inar kabad so RAB dman RAB Ley dman who's the in the UA he spoke about the fact that when a tragedy happens that our first response is silence this we learned from that Misha's brother Ain Moses's brother Aaron when a tragedy befell him he did not speak he didn't try to explain it he was silent that the faithful response is silence so rabi dman said that our response is silence but then our response is action so very interesting again we're not here to explain it what explanation would you like I I I I don't want an explanation even if you have one for me so initially silence but then action and asman mentioned that they're already beginning to build a new building called bet which is the name of the kades and it also means also means Splendor so bet doesn't just mean the house named after it also means the splendorous house in other words the intention of the terrorists is to stifle our hopes and our positivity and our response is to double down and to create more positivity in the world we don't fight Darkness we turn on the light and the Darkness disappears that's always our approach think about this codes whose life was taken what was his purpose in this world how did he live 28 years old young married guy living in the UAE for what for what what's he doing over there people ask that by the way what's he doing why was he even there so first of all let me explain to you I've been there I was there I can tell you that when I spoke there when I spoke in Dubai on a on a Wednesday night we had a bigger crowd in Dubai than we have here in Cedarhurst just to to let you know and it wasn't even the whole Community it was just young parents I spoke at the nursery school I just want you to understand what's happening there it's a young thriving Jewish Community people don't realize that people think it's just business there's a young thriving Jewish Community there's a nursery school there I spoke there at the nursery school on a Wednesday night and we had the room packed almost 100 young Jewish parents who are raising their children jewishly in the middle of Dubai and then of course then there then there's the capital of Abu Dhabi which also has kabad programs so first we'll just understand what's going on there there are Jewish people who are hungry and thirsty for a Jewish connection many of them didn't necessarily have so much uh Jewish practice or Jewish Education in in the places where they come from everybody comes from somewhere else in the UAE and something happens sometimes when you come to a new environment you become more receptive or sometimes when you come to a place where um you don't have your old support system so you have to create a new support system but whatever the reason is there's a lot of receptivity to Judaism over there and also I should mention that the government is incredibly supportive of it the emirati government and the amirati people and the amirati royal family are incredibly supportive of Jewish life so it's a thriving community so he goes there and what is he going there to do so you could say he's running a kosher store he's running a kosher store okay I want to tell you something the first kabad house in history ofu Our Father Abraham ran a groc store that's what he did what did he do he had this message he wanted to spread to the world called belief in God and so he set up a nice tent and he filled it with nice food and when people would come by he would give them nice hospitality and he would talk to them and he would teach them about God in the middle of a desert I mean literally this is what this is what was doing in the middle of a desert Kosher grocery using that as his opportunity to connect to people Jews and non-jews and to speak to them about belief and about making the world a better place so his entire life was about this audacious idea that if we go out into the world and we actually meet people and we engage people that we can spread Faith throughout the entire world and we can create a revolution a re a revolution of Consciousness where the entire world believes in God and is able to come together to live in harmony that's what we call Messiah that's what we call the Messianic era and that's the entire underlying purpose of every schah who goes out and this is what s was doing so he continued the tradition that started from our father of rinu and like of rinu he was ready to give his life and in the end he did give his life but the message to all of us the message to all of us is not why did it happen happen the message is are we ready to respond with the same Dedication that this KES had are we ready to live our lives meaningfully and to say that we're also schim we're also emissaries and we also believe in in the possibility of of perfection of making the world a perfect place and that instead of allowing the terrorism to make us lose hope in this project our answer has to be we're going to double down and we're going to invest ourselves with even greater Vigor into this project and so as difficult as it is to do when we're mourning and we're grieving but the kin is an incredible opportunity for this because the deis emissaries from all over the world are about to converge in New York and although I am sure there will be weeping because we are human and we have a heart and it's impossible not to feel human emotion and there will be grieving but at the same time I can tell you that the clarity of purpose that there will be at the kinis will be laser focused and it'll be because of this KES it'll be because of because of his dedication and his example and so when all the schim go back from the kinn to their place imagine how many Mitzvah are going to happen how many more Mitzvah are going to happen than would have already happened think about how much more fillan how many more people bringing mikah into their marriage how many more people improving their their adherence to to kosis or how many more people giving their Jewish children a Jewish Education or how many more people putting up the explosion of Mitzvah that's going to come from this kinus is all a direct translation of looking at the example of this KES of and in some ways I I wonder if this is not the rim that follows the DIN and that if the from all over the world returned from this kinos with renewed Focus focus and dedication and the lay leaders who come as their guests return to their communities also with this renewed focus and dedication and that becomes that becomes contagious in each community and each Community where there's a kabad becomes renewed and refreshed and rejuvenated with this this focus on this end goal of perfecting the world that is the greatest blessing that is the greatest blessing that can occur so again I'm not here to explain hashem's ways I'm not here to retroactively agree on a on an exchange but what I am saying is I can make an agreement that I am going to live my life dedicated to the idea that we're here to perfect the world see the terrorists want to make us cower they want to make us give up hope and then we counter that and often the rhetoric that you hear is but we're going to survive well actually that's a zero sum game so they try to make you not survive and your answer is that you're going to survive so then it would have been better if they the terrorists never existed in the first place because then if no one's trying to take away your survival then you got your survival the response is not yeah but we're still here yeah but we're going to survive no no no no the response has to be we are going to transform the world so no it's not just we're still here you couldn't get rid of us we will survive what's the point of that the response has to be you tried to threaten our survival we will respond by perfecting the entire world by bringing peace to all of humanity by bringing God Consciousness to every man woman and child in the world and that's our goal and that's what our prophets foretold contrary to the to the rhetoric that you hear from people who either misunderstand Judaism or maliciously and willfully distort Judaism our vision is a vision of a world that is safe and prosperous for all human beings Jewish and non-jewish we call that Messiah the Messianic era and we believe believe that we can bring about that era by dedicating ourselves and inspiring others to do acts of goodness and kindness that is how T lived he lived that way until his dying breath that is how we have to be encouraged to live I mentioned a a earlier the Our Father Abraham that EBA speaks about the mfish of a the sacrifice of Abraham how Abraham was ready to give his life in the Reb's inaugural discourse bosani so the Reb speaks about first the OFA the AKA was um he lived during the the persecution of the Romans from the Romans and he was warned not to teach Torah and he continued to do so and he was asked why is he uh tempting fate doesn't he know eventually he'll be caught so he answered with an allegory he said once there was a fish swimming in the water and the fish were trying to catch the fish in their Nets and a fox came by and said to the fish it's not safe for you and the water come up on dry land with me obviously the fox is trying to catch the fish so the fish says to the fox no thank you if I'm not safe in the water which is the place where I live how much more unsafe will I be if I come up on dry land with you SOA meant to say that yes it's true that I may be at risk if I continue to teach Torah but if I leave it that's like a fish leaving water a Jew cannot leave Torah so whatever the risk may be this is this is my home and so he continued teaching and they caught him and they executed him and and when he was being executed as he was dying he said and his students were there and they asked him I mean when you hear the story of it you take for granted I think some of these details that it's sort of uh has this legendary status in our mind so you don't think about it in human terms but somebody's being brutally tortured to have the presence of mind to be able to say to be able to pray it's it's it's beyond normal and they asked him the students asked him about this and he answered he had the presence of mind to be able to hear their question to be able to answer them and he said to them my whole life I'm saying and it says you should love with all of your your neish with all of your soul which means even if he takes your soul so I've been saying these words my whole life and I was waiting for when it would actually happen so now I'm actually getting to do it I'm the thing that I said so many times and now I'm finally fulfilling it so Raba basically said that his whole life he was waiting for this opportunity now when they came looking for him he hid wasn't like he was trying to get himself killed but at the same time he understood that if it does happen that this is a very Noble thing to do the I contrast this with aino as high and lofty as the level reab AA was of ravino's levels even loftier because a ravino never even thought about the fact that what he was doing was a sacrifice he didn't consider that he might lose his life doing what he was doing he was just focused on his goal and if in the course of doing his schis he would lose his life I guess that would happen but that wasn't even a consideration which was an even loftier level we are all children of aino we have the spiritual DNA of aino so we have this this trait in us at least in potential this ability to say I'm so focused on the mission the mission of bringing God to the world I'm not looking to lose my life doing it but whatever happened I'm going to stay focused on the goal and nothing will deter me now if you think about that that sounds so abstract like how do you even wrap your head around a concept like that talking about aino you're talking about someone who lived 4,000 years ago but you're also talking about V Hogan 28-year-old kid in our day and age who did the exact same thing he didn't say I'm going to go on schas to get killed nobody says that no Jew says that he said I'm going to devote my entire life to bring goodness to the world Jews and non-jews that is my purpose whatever sacrifice I have to make is incidental it's not my not even really my what I'm considering over here and in the end it was his fate he was called upon to give his very life in the course of hisus of carrying out his his mission but what I'm trying to bring across here is this idea that it's not his death that we're learning anything from we don't glorify his martyr's death what we're learning from is the singularity of purpose and the focus on the ultimate goal with which he lived his life and which is our response so again I'll say for the fifth time I'm not here to explain God's ways and I don't understand the tragedy and it doesn't make sense to me and even retroactively I wouldn't take it as a barter no matter what the payoff is the whole thing is Unthinkable but what I can learn from here what I can learn from here is that when forces converge to make us give up hope of our mission our audacious mission to bring peace and prosperity to the entire world our response has to be that we are even more focused on that goal than ever before I want to encourage everybody that when you go about your day that you think of yourself as aah as an emissary every Jew is an emissary of Hashem to bring the word of Hashem the message of Hashem to the entire world that means in all of your dealings with Jews and non-jews to imbue that interaction with some type of Holiness with performing a Mitzvah whether it's shabas candles or it's Fillin or giving Sedaka giving Charities just simply putting a dollar in in a in a in a teda box but this has to be our Focus this is our only response and we've experienced the den the harsh judgment we're ready to experience an explosion of rim of divine compassion and mercy an explosion of Acts of goodness and kindness so be ready it's going to happen it's going to happen now there's too much converging all together for this not to happen we have the life example of we have the K the International Conference of the dearies coming together all of this comes together to create the perfect storm of positivity where we can go from here to literally bring goodness to every single human being on the planet which was the job that signed up for and that really the entire Jewish people signed up for we didn't sign up to be a minority that hides that creates its own ghetto to insulate itself to Outlast the forces of negativity again I said before our our response is not oh but we we'll Outlast you we'll we'll we'll survive after you that's not our response our mission is to be a light unto the Nations to teach goodness and morality and love for our fellow no matter how the negative forces in the world attempt to characterize us either by misunderstanding or by malicious misrepresentation we stay focused on our goal and our goal is nothing less than the Perfection of the world there's going to be a massive ground swell of good deeds in the world right now it's already starting our choice right now is to be part of it we can be traumatized by this terrorism and miss out on the wonderful stuff that's about to happen or we can be galvanized by it and be leaders in this movement okay all right should hear good news very soon