Terrorist attacks won't end spiritual quests

Among those killed in the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, were several who were openly seeking God in their lives and encouraging others to do so.

The Washington Post reported that Alan Scherr, a former art professor, was on a pilgrimage to India with his 13-year-old daughter, Naomi, when they were shot and killed while eating dinner at a hotel in Mumbai.

Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, died in the attack on the Nariman House, a Jewish outreach center in Mumbai, according to a report in the New York Times.

Scherr had spent 25 years studying Transcendental Meditation. He and his family were living at the Synchronicity Foundation, a complex in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia founded by a New Age follower of an Indian spiritual guru.

The Holtzbergs were part of the ultra-orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish movement in Brooklyn. They left New York in 2003 to run the center in Mumbai.

Their quests for meaning were along different paths, but the Scherrs and the Holtzbergs are now known for where their journeys ended. The terrorists clearly sought them out as targets. Instead their deaths join countless others whose sacrifices are well chronicled in the history of spiritual exploration.

Update

Obituary for Rabbi Gavriel Holzberg and his wife Rivkah Hotlzberg

Memorial for Alan and Naomi Scherr