Will the Rebbe return?

RIEMER, JACK

Will the Rebbe return? JACK RIEMER Some Lubavitdhers say yes. One Orthddox rabbi calls that heresy Fill in the blanks in the following statement: "It does not matter at all if the physical...

...Ginsberg's point needs little clarification: the Rebbe is the Messiah...
...But the persistence of such a claim after his death is beyond the pale of Judaism...
...Why has such messianism grown and persisted without public censure from much of the Orthodox community...
...There have been seven Lubavitcher rebbes since Rabbi Zalman, each designated by his predecessor...
...Still, Berger has so far been unable to move the Council of Torah Sages, the organization of haredi rabbis, the Chief Rabbinate in Israel, or other leaders of the yeshiva world to condemn this messianic movement clearly and unequivocally...
...The God of the Hebrew Bible sends the messianic king to accomplish his end, not to follow a two-part script in which the hero tragically dies and the words 'to be continued' suddenly appear on the screen...
...Shmotkin told us that the issue was too complex and important to allow an interview to serve as a response...
...If its/accuse is ignored and its author dismissed, it will mean that the leadership of Orthodoxy is too timid to confront a major challenge to Jewish faith, and that would be tragic indeed...
...The belief in a dead Messiah cannot be allowed a shred of legitimacy within Judaism...
...W h y was it so urgent to denounce the spreading messianic fervor...
...Schneerson became the seventh rebbe 51 years ago, and he transformed the movement from a closed Eastern European-oriented community into a highly public movement with a worldwide following...
...MOMENT contacted Zalman Shmotkin, director of the Lubavitch News Service, to get a response for this article...
...Best known is Maimonides' 12th principle of Judaism, "I believe with complete faith in the coming of the Messiah, and even though he may tarry I await h im each day, hoping that he will come...
...But there was nothing...
...T h e text of the ad concluded: "With broken hearts we reaffirm our faith that we will at once witness Techiyas Hameisim [the resurrection of the dead] and we will have the Rebbe lead us out of Golus [exile] immediately, and together we will proclaim, Yechi adonenu morenu verabbenu Melech hamoshiach leolam voed [May our Master, Teacher, and Rabbi, the King Messiah, live forever...
...Berger explains the significance of this point in an appendix titled "On a Messiah W h o Dies With his Mission Unfulfilled...
...It follows that if he wills it, he can at any moment cause his physical sense to act in a manner familiar to us, and his failure to do so is solely the result of the fact that it is not his will to do so...
...A group affirming the Messiahship of the Rebbe would be a cult maintaining a belief possible in Christianity but not in Judaism and repugnant to everything Judaism represents...
...It should be noted, however, that the late Rabbi Eliezer Schach, the longtime leader of traditionalist Orthodox Jews in Israel, did wage a concerted campaign against Lubavitch Messianism...
...T h e commandment to believe in one God and one God alone and the law forbidding idolatry is, after all, not only in the Ten Commandments, but also in the Shulchan Aruch, the code of Jewish law...
...The source of the quote, according to the citation, was Ginsberg's book Mashiah Akhshav, volume IV, published before the Rebbe's death...
...Is it because Orthodox leaders believe Chabad is doing good—by bringing thousands of Jews deeply into the Jewish fold—and therefore should not be criticized...
...Guess again...
...If we do not seize this opportunity, a nearly irrevocable transformation will have been effected, and by the time the truth sinks in, it may well be too late to act...
...But if that were true, Orthodoxy would be reduced to Orthopraxy— observance would be all that counted and beliefs would be completely optional—and that would surely be a perversion of Judaism...
...As Berger notes, thousands of Jewish children in Lubavitch schools are being taught to chant "May our Master, Teacher, and Rabbi, the King Messiah, live forever...
...Perhaps many Orthodox leaders have kept quiet because of a laudable desire not to increase divisiveness within the Jewish community...
...When the Rebbe...
...Messianist rabbis have synagogue pulpits and serve in posts that are under Israeli rabbinate supervision...
...I write...
...Shortly thereafter, Berger argues, a "persistent messianism" began to take hold among the Rebbe's followers...
...Each day, I expected to hear that major rabbinical figures and organizations had declared this belief unacceptable in Judaism, disqualified its adherents from holding positions of religious authority, and prohibited Orthodox support for institutions espousing it," Berger writes...
...Lubavitch is the Belorussian town where the movement began...
...What is not known is whether an anti-messianist faction exists within Chabad, and, if so, whether it is quietly fighting from the inside or whether it has been co-opted and has lost the fight...
...In the years after the Rebbe's death, billboards, pamphlets, and full-page ads in newspapers appeared across the country hailing the Rebbe as the "King Messiah...
...This quotation, and many more like it, can be found in a new book, The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference, (London and Portland: Littman Library, 2001...
...The quote is from Rabbi Levi Yitzchack Ginsberg, a mashpia (religious mentor) at a yeshiva in Kfar Chabad, the major Lubavitch center in Israel...
...Author David Berger, an Orthodox rabbi and a professor of Medieval Jewish History at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, has carried on a lonely battle to expose and denounce what he says is a mainstream belief among Chabad Hasidim that Schneerson is the Messiah—and that he will ultimately be resurrected to usher in the messianic era...
...was alive, Messianic claims made for him were ill-advised but well within the boundaries of normative Judaism...
...To Berger, what is at stake here is nothing less than the fundamental soundness of Judaism...
...It gave no official reason for the decision, sparking an expectation among some that the Rebbe might be the Messiah...
...Instead, Chabad as a group seems to be crossing the line into what is permissible within Christianity but forbidden wifl?n Judaism...
...Berger immediately wrote a letter to the newspaper, which was published in the Jewish Press July 1, calling on Chabad leadership to denounce the position and to block funding to anyone espousing it...
...It is also a call to arms...
...with the hope that this account will awaken believing Jews from their torpor, alert them to the catastrophe that has befallen their faith, and inspire them to take the simple yet difficult steps needed to transform this moment from a turning point into an episode," he writes...
...JACK RIEMER Some Lubavitdhers say yes...
...The answer, surely, is clear: the missing word in the above statement must be "Jesus...
...It was a first, Berger writes, in 2,000 years "of Jewish confrontation with Christianity...
...Yet, instead of denouncing the message that the Rebbe is the Messiah, Berger argues that Chabad- Lubavitch allowed it to continue unchecked...
...Today, more than 3,000 Chabad schhchim, emissaries, occupy posts in far-flung locales worldwide, spreading Lubavitch teachings (see "Black Hat Blitz," MOMENT, August 2000...
...We are in the process of betraying this fundamental trust" BERGER, AN ADHERENT OF MODERN Orthodoxy, did finally manage to get the Rabbinical Council of America, the umbrella organization of Modern Orthodox rabbis, to pass a resolution condemning the deification of the Rebbe, and here and there he has gotten some backing, usually in secret from people who are afraid to take a stand with him in public...
...Either way, Berger calls upon the Orthodox J e w ish community to demand an accounting from those within Chabad...
...Chabad's success in raising funds from across the spectrum of the Jewish community is phenomenal...
...It was published in a 1996 catechism in Safed, Israel, designed to provide answers about the Messiah and Redemption...
...Chabad" is an acronym, deriving from the Hebrew words for wisdom (chochma), intelligence (bina), and faith (da'at...
...Chabad charity boxes proliferate, and literature circulates openly—even in non-Lubavitch shuls...
...But as Berger wrote in his letter to the Press: "There is no more fundamental Messianic belief in Judaism than the conviction that the Davidic Messiah who appears at the end of days will not die before completing his mission...
...Those who do its good work should be respected, but those who believe and who teach a doctrine that is antithetical to Judaism need to be denounced and stripped of their claim to authenticity, either from within, by the leadership of Chabad, or from the outside, by the rest of the Orthodox commumty...
...Many branches of Hasidism developed over the next century, each growing around a particular rebbe and his teachings...
...the editors of this magazine plan to provide space for a more formal response in a future issue, should Chabad wish to avail itself of that option...
...Berger concludes: "It became painfully evident that the messianist element in Chabad was extremely numerous and powerful...
...That's where the Ba'al Shem ???, the founder of Hasidism, preached Judaism based on the omnipresence of God in all things: Even simple Jews could serve God through inner joy...
...After all, there's a long Jewish tradition of yearning for the messianic era...
...If it is allowed to survive within Chabad even as a minority view, the movement will destroy its legitimacy as a form of Orthodox Judaism...
...is the 'master of the house' with respect to all that happens to him and all that happens in the world...
...T h e correct answer is "Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson," the Rebbe, who died in ' 1994...
...If so, why do they continue issuing condemnations of the policies of those on the left—on issues like the Reform movement's acceptance of patrilineal descent—that are far less fundamental to Judaism...
...It remains to be seen what kind of a response this carefully documented and yet passionate outcry will receive from the Orthodox community...
...Complete, deafening silence...
...As Maimonides (Rambam) wrote: "If a king arises from the House of David who studies the Torah and pursues the commandments like his ancestor David in accordance with the Written and Oral Law, and he compels all Israel to follow and strengthen it and fights the wars of the Lord—the man enjoys the presumption of being the Messiah" (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Kings ?:4, uncensored version...
...There is no greater responsibility for any generation of Jews—and all the more so for its rabbinic leadership— than to serve as faithful guardians of the basic contours of the faith, so that we transmit the essentials of Judaism to our children the way we received them from our parents," he writes...
...More than this...
...Conservative and Reform Jews give millions of dollars to Chabad, in some cases because they want to provide support for what they see as "authentic" Judaism...
...Until now, no one has made the case as forcefully as Berger that Chabad is more than just a committed group determined to awaken all J e w s to Judaism...
...As Berger writes, "A group affirming the messiahship of the Rebbe would be a cult maintaining a belief possible in Christianity but not in Judaism and repugnant to everything Judaism represents...
...By January 1994, with the Rebbe's health failing, Chabad leadership declared that Schneerson would be the final rebbe...
...Without his agreement, no event can take place, and if it is his will, he can bring about anything, and who can tell him what to do...
...This is why Jews for Jesus is anathema...
...Berger describes his book as a memoir, history, religious tract, and indictment...
...Perhaps it is a Christian statement, or possibly a Jews for Jesus tract...
...By that logic, wouldn't Jews for Jesus also be acceptable...
...indeed, no serious Messianic claims have ever been set forth for a more qualified candidate...
...Since the very definition of the concept 'Messiah' is rooted in biblical descriptions of visible, global redemption," he writes, "Judaism properly recoiled from scenarios without a shred of biblical justification in which the Messiah's mission is interrupted by death in an unredeemed world...
...Perhaps Orthodoxy has kept quiet on this issue in the hope that this "second coming" Judaism will disappear in time...
...This is why Jesus could not be the Messiah...
...Or perhaps Orthodox leaders believe that those with extreme views can believe whatever they wish—as long as they are religiously observant...
...The Chabad-Lubavitch sprang from the writings of 18th-century Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, who published the Tanya, which is revered by adherents today as containing the key to spiritual awareness...
...But Berger argues that the opposite is happening...
...On June 17, 1994, days after the Rebbe's death, a full-page ad appeared in the Jewish Press, the Orthodox weekly published in New York City...
...CHABAD-LUBAVITCH IS A CROWN HEIGHTS, Brooklynbased Hasidic movement with roots in 18th century Poland...
...One Orthddox rabbi calls that heresy Fill in the blanks in the following statement: "It does not matter at all if the physical pulse is active or not, and if various phenomena associated with physical life as we recognize them exist, the physical life of never operated in the manner familiar to us, and that true physical life continues with precisely the same force as before...

Vol. 27 • February 2002 • No. 1


 
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