Jewish Sect Finds Their Messiah
By Daniel C. Peterson and William J. Hamblin
Born into an aristocratic Jewish family in the Ukraine in Russia in 1902, Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson was a youthful prodigy who developed into a brilliant scholar and linguist. After studying religion, mathematics, and science in Berlin and Paris, Schneerson was forced to flee Europe in the wake of the Nazi conquests, arriving in New York in 1941. In the meantime, he had married the daughter of Yosef Yitzchock Schneerson, the leader of the Lubavitcher branch of Chasidic Judaism, also known as Chabad. (Chabad is an acronym for chokhmah [wisdom], binah [understanding], and da’at [knowledge], three of the emanations of God in Kabbalistic thought. “Lubavitcher” derives from the city Lubavitch in Russia, the original headquarters of the movement.)
Upon the death of his father-in-law in 1950, Schneerson became the Rebbe (teacher-leader), leading the movement until his death in 1994. Noted as a charismatic speaker and humanitarian, Schneerson also wrote voluminously. His books, letters, and discourses total more than 200 volumes.
Seeing the near-destruction of Judaism during the Holocaust, Schneerson focused much of his attention on founding Jewish educational, social, and philanthropic centers throughout the world. Fearing that secularism was also a serious threat to Jewish identity, he organized his followers as emissaries (shluchim), with a mandate to preach to secularized Jews, encouraging them to rededicate their lives to orthodox Judaism. His efforts were remarkably successful; once a small and relatively isolated group of refugees, the Chabad movement today can boast of more than 200,000 followers who are affiliated with more than 2600 Chabad institutions in 35 countries.
Schneerson was also a master Kabbalist, steeped in Jewish mysticism and esoteric thought. And, for many Jews, here is where the problem began. In his later life, Schneerson became an ardent messianist, viewing developments such as the founding of the state of Israel, the fall of Communism, and the miraculous defeat of Saddam Hussein in the First Gulf War as clear signs of the imminent coming of the Messiah.
Although Schneerson apparently never made any explicit statements on the matter, many of his followers came to believe that he himself was the promised Messiah and they widely publicized such claims. Reaction in the broader Jewish community was mixed. Some enthusiastically embraced the newfound Messiah. Many of the more secularized Jews viewed such claims as utter nonsense. Others attempted to downplay the schismatic potential of these messianic claims, convinced that they would disappear in a few years. For many orthodox Jews, however, such claims were tantamount to heresy.
A scathing critique of Chabad messianism has recently been published by Rabbi David Berger, as The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2001). Berger critiques Chabad messianism on a number of issues. Traditional rabbinic Judaism believes that the Messiah must temporally redeem the Jewish people, rebuild the temple, and bring universal peace and recognition of the God of Israel. As Berger notes, “a substantial majority of a highly significant Orthodox movement called Lubavitch or Chabad Hassidism affirms that the Lubavitcher Rebbe .Schneerson, who was laid to rest in 1994 without leaving a successor, did everything [mentioned above] . and will soon return to complete the redemption in his capacity as the Messiah.”
In this the Chabad Messianists closely parallel Christians, believing a second coming of Schneerson will fulfill messianic expectations.
According to Berger, some Chabad Messianists also believe that Schneerson is an incarnation of God: “The supremely righteous, of whom the Rebbe [Schneerson] and Moses are the chief exemplars, annul their own essence to the point where their entire Essence is that of God. It is permissible to bow to them with this understanding. For this reason, the Rebbe is omniscient, omnipotent, and entirely without limits. He is ‘indistinguishable’ from God. Because he is a transparent window for pure divinity, a ‘man-God,’ ‘when you speak to him, you speak to God.’ (Interview given to the Jerusalem Post, 2001/10/19)
Ironically, in Israel, an atheist who obeys none of the Jewish law is considered a Jew if his mother was a Jew, but a Jewish Christian who believes in God and obeys all Jewish law is not a Jew if he happens also to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. Berger maintains that Chabad Messianists should not be considered authentic Jews any more than Jewish Christians. For Berger, both are equally heretical followers of false messiahs. Whatever the long-term impact of Chabad messianism, it represents a fascinating contemporary example of the ongoing impact of messianic thought on Judaism.
The Chabad movement’s official web page can be found at: https://www.chabad.org/. Additional devotional links about Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson can be found at https://www.utexas.edu/students/cjso/Rebbe.html. A skeptical general history of Jewish messianism through the ages, written by a professor at the University of Utah, is Harris Lenowitz, The Jewish Messiahs: From the Galilee to Crown Heights, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 2001).
