A Tribute to Mumbai

How easy it is to get caught up in our own struggles and pain that we forget our brothers pain. The greatest mitzvah of our precious Torah is found in Leviticus 19:18, Y'ahavta L'rey-acha Kamocha,"love your neighbor as yourself".
Rabbi Ben Azzai singled out the text from Genesis 5:1 as the explanation of the word neighbor, whose Divine image commands consideration and respect. He did not say, "And love thy neighbor as thyself, with its emphasis on human equality, but quoted the text testifying to the origin of mankind, as fearing the Divine image. Here he says lay the fundamental principle in all of Judaism:

"This is the book of the generations of Man,
In the day that G*d created mankind,
In the likeness of G*d He made him."

Thirteen is the numerical value of the Hebrew word ahava, meaning love, it is also the numerical value for the word echad meaning one. On this Mother's Day let us hold our children tight and know that we are all one family. Join me in honoring the lives of Rabbi Gavriel and Rivky Holtzberg and the victims of Mumbai, may their righteousness be for a blessed memory, to their families, we feel your pain as if it were our own.
Elisheva Amaris
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/800928/jewish/Peace-on-Earth.htm