The controversies that swirl around contemporary Lubavitch
Chassidism concern the deepest questions of faith and the
defining parameters of the Jewish religion, but they also
address a "simple" factual question: What do the chassidim
actually believe about the Rebbe? This question —
really a set of questions — is of course not simple at
all.
Is the Rebbe the Messiah? Is the Rebbe really dead? How is
one to interpret his remark — said many years ago about
his recently deceased father-in-law — that a supreme
tzaddik is the Essence and Being [of G-d] placed in a
body? May one petition him — or even bow to him —
with a literal understanding of this formulation in mind?
In the absence of scientific polling — which is
virtually impossible in this case — how does one go
about assessing the spectrum of beliefs among contemporary
Lubavitchers regarding these questions?
One area where hard information is at least partially
accessible is institutional. Setting aside for the moment the
organization that coordinates the centralized activities of
the emissaries, we discover that the major institutions in
the three primary population centers of Crown Heights, Kfar
Chabad, and Safed are either dominated by overt believers in
the Rebbe's Messiahship or suffused by that belief.
In Crown Heights, the messianist slogan ("Yechi adonenu
morenu verabbenu Melech haMashiach le'olam va'ed") is
woven into the paroches of the main synagogue in 770
Eastern Parkway and recited at every prayer service. In
Oholei Torah/Oholei Menachem, the largest Lubavitch yeshiva
outside Israel, Yechi is recited during the service,
and an administrative directive declared that any student who
cannot behave respectfully during the recitation should go
elsewhere. Several of its religious mentors
(mashpi'im) have participated in major messianist
publications. The rosh yeshiva of Tomchei Temimim, another
major yeshiva in Crown Heights, signed a messianist
approbation to a messianist book (HaTekufah vehaGe'ullah
beMishnoso shel haRebbe miLubavitch). The women's
organization is dominated by believers. An anniversary dinner
for the venerable school Chanoch Lenaar, which educates
children with learning difficulties, featured a yechi
poster, and the slogan appears on its Website. Machon Chanah,
a major women's seminary, is led by a messianist who has
declared on the radio that the Rebbe is physically alive.
The chief rabbi of Kfar Chabad was one of the first
signatories of a 1998 halachic ruling requiring belief in the
Rebbe's Messiahship. One of the most extreme mashpi'im
is in Yeshiva Tomchei Temimim there. Safed is a center of
believers in the Rebbe's physical survival, and the Lubavitch
school system there is thoroughly messianist from bottom to
top.
In sum, the great majority of the major institutions in the
three largest population centers of the movement are
dominated by overt believers in the Messiahship of the
Rebbe.
Even institutions that project an image of non-messianism can
sometimes be shown to be deeply affected by this belief.
Thus, the rosh yeshiva of the purportedly non-messianist
yeshiva in Morristown, New Jersey also signed that
approbation. The principal of Beth Rivkah, the mainstream
high school for girls in Crown Heights, is cited in a book
highly sympathetic to the movement as an example of a "Chabad
educator . . . concerned about how to pass on the Rebbe's
message to young Lubavitchers while steering clear of
messianism" (Sue Fishkoff, The Rebbe's Army, p. 178),
and yet the student songbook distributed at the school
shabbaton in January 2002 is replete with poignant
affirmations of the messianist faith. Here is one of many
examples:
Redemption has arrived
That's what the Rebbe prophesied
Moshiach has come
It's already begun
Let's rejoice in ecstasy
Because we're sure as can be
That tikef (sic!) umiyad
Our very eyes will see
The Rebbe King Moshiach
Walking into shul
Smiling at his kinderlach
Cheering on their song
The world will gather passionately
To the Rebbe in 770
In the Beis Hamikdosh Hashlishi
We know it can't be long . . .
*
The hallmark of moderation, indeed of "anti-meshichism," in
Lubavitch is not rejection of the belief that the Rebbe is
the Messiah but acceptance of the reality of his physical
death as well as opposition to publicizing the messianist
belief or incorporating it into religious ritual. We find an
explicit formulation of this position in an essay by Rabbi
Yoel Kahan, the "chozer" of the Rebbe and an
influential thinker in the movement, who is falsely reputed
to have abandoned his faith in the Messiahship of the Rebbe
after the latter's death. Thus, R. Kahan writes that although
it is an absolute certainty that the Rebbe will be the
Messiah in actuality, this is an internal conviction that
should not be publicized so as not to deter people from
embracing the message of Chassidism (Kovetz Mashiach
uGe'ullah, ed. by S.D. Levin, issue #2, p. 20).
An important figure in the OU told me several years ago that
R. Kahan had directed him to a discourse of the Rebbe
rejecting the possibility that King David himself could be
the Messiah with the clear intention of implying that loyal
chassidim would have to reject the Messiahship of the Rebbe
for similar reasons.
This willingness to mislead people, at least in private
conversations, was also illustrated when Rabbi Berl Lazar,
the putative Chief Rabbi of the Former Soviet Union, told a
friend of mine who is very sympathetic to Lubavitch that he
abandoned belief in the Rebbe's Messiahship after 3 Tammuz,
5754 (the date of the Rebbe's death). But I have a photocopy
of a 1998 letter in Rabbi Lazar's own hand in which he refers
to the Rebbe as Melech HaMashiach. Similarly, Rabbi
Lazar's secretary wrote a letter to Commentary
(December, 2001) responding to an article in which I
noted the Chief Rabbi's signature on the halachic ruling
requiring belief in the Rebbe's Messiahship. The secretary,
without saying a word about his employer's actual belief,
asserted that it was known that the signature was a forgery.
I cannot know whether or not the signature is genuine, but
there is no record of R. Lazar's objecting to its use even
though it was published in a major Jewish newspaper in his
own city of Moscow as well as in numerous other venues over
the years.
Despite these misleading assertions, few moderates are
prepared to violate their conscience to the point of issuing
unequivocal denials of the Messiahship of the Rebbe. For the
most part, they have succeeded in deceiving a sympathetic
public about their beliefs without having to go so far. At
the same time, the absence of such denials speaks volumes. A
2003 "Kol Korei" issued against the "meshichisten"
that appeared along with a letter from Rabbi Kahan
(Algemeiner Journal, 19 Adar I, 5763) scrupulously
avoided the slightest indication that the Rebbe is not the
Messiah. The same is true of HaNekudah haChabadit (1
— Tishrei, 5764), a booklet affirming the reality of
the Rebbe's death published in Kfar Chabad by the leading
figures of the moderate camp.
Notwithstanding the instincts of some outsiders that
messianism is moderating in Lubavitch, more chassidim appear
to be moving toward extreme positions than away from them.
Thus, the editors of HaNekudah haChabadit tell us that
they had to write their vigorous polemic against the belief
that the Rebbe's death was an illusion because that belief is
expanding. They themselves argue that despite the movement's
belief that there must be a physical prince [nasi] of
the generation in a specific location, we are living in
unusual times, so that the prince can be spiritual. At the
same time, he is indeed present in a specific location, to
wit, the ohel in Old Montefiore Cemetery. In other
words, it is the position of Lubavitch moderates that this
generation is being governed from the Rebbe's gravesite in
Queens, NY.
The main synagogue, in 770 Eastern Parkway, is now controlled
by people who post pictures and videos of the invisible Rebbe
walking to his empty chair, "reciting" Kiddush Levanah,
and distributing wine to his chassidim. (See
www.chabad.info.) An acquaintance of mine recently visited
the family of her formerly non-meshichist cousin in Paris
only to discover that overtly messianist pictures of the
Rebbe hang in the home and yechi is recited in the
synagogue when the Torah is held aloft.
And so we come to the most radical belief of all. Very few
chassidim actually pronounce the sentence, "The Rebbe is the
Creator," though the number is not as negligible as one might
imagine. But for many, this hesitation results only from
instinctive recoil at such blunt language, reinforced by
concerns that the formulation could be misunderstood as an
assertion that the Rebbe is a separate deity or that he is
the totality of the Deity. For such chassidim, who are very
far from marginal, the refusal to pronounce that sentence
does not stand in tension with their belief that the Rebbe
has annulled his being to the point that he is pure divinity
literally understood.
A highly respected Lubavitch rabbi wrote a book entitled
Al haTzaddikim published by Agudat Chassidei Chabad
in Israel arguing that one is permitted to bow worshipfully
to a supreme tzaddik as long as one has in mind that
he is not separate from G-d but is rather nothing but
divinity. A mashpia in Oholei Torah wrote that the
previous six rebbes were pure divinity because each of them
embodied one of the kabbalistic sefirot. The death of
each of these rebbes marked the point where divine revelation
through that sefirah was completed. Unlike his
predecessors, the most recent rebbe manifested the infinite
essence (Ein Sof), unlimited by any specific
sefirah (afro lepumeih - - Ed.).
A mashpia in Kfar Chabad wrote that "the Rebbe is the
ba'al habayit . . . of all that happens in the world.
If it is his will, he can bring about anything." Another
wrote, "We Lubavitch chassidim believe that Lubavitch is
Jerusalem, the House of our Rabbi in Babylonia (i.e., 770
Eastern Parkway) is the Temple, and the Rebbe is the Ark of
the covenant standing on the Even hashesiyyah in which
(referring to the Rebbe/ark) the divine being and essence
rests." (Afro lepumeih — Ed.)
For most of these references and others—and for my own
views on the significance of these developments—see my
book, The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox
Indifference (Littman), which has now appeared in an
updated Hebrew version, HaRebbe Melech haMashiach,
Sha'aruriyyat ha'Adishut, veha'Iyyum al Emunat Yisrael
(Urim). For the last reference, see
www.hageula.com/?Row1D=5&CTopic=3&STopic=4&PHPSESSID=fe17b307
d12b9ad705fb592d099a652f and click on the article "Ekronot
be'Olam haChasidut."
Finally, let us turn to the beliefs of the emissaries. Most
of them refrain from overt declarations of the messianist
faith. Many, however, have provided clear indications of
their belief in the Rebbe's Messiahship. The halachic ruling
to that effect, signed by more than 250 rabbis worldwide
(described as a partial list), is available at
www.psakdin.net.
A detailed, unpublished report by Donato Grosser, a learned
Jew of Italian provenance now residing in New York, has
demonstrated that the Italian emissaries, including those
relied upon by the OU to supervise wines, are believers. He
also shows that the overtly messianist Chabad House in
Venice, widely used by travelers from all sectors of the
Orthodox community, has distributed material alluding to the
Rebbe's divinity. Hillel Pevzner, an important messianist
rabbi in France, is reported to be among the growing (though
still small) number of people who claim to have seen the
Rebbe since his death. (See www.chabad.fm/604/7448.html.)
There is abundant additional evidence for specific
localities, some of which is provided in my book.
In response to direct, public questions from outsiders,
spokespersons for the central organization of emissaries
profess uncertainty as to whether or not the Rebbe will be
the Messiah. Menachem Brod, the spokesperson for the moderate
faction in Israel, consistently refuses to respond when this
question is put to him. One Lubavitch chossid who asserts
that he rejects the messianist belief has vigorously attacked
me for providing support for the moderates' disinformation
campaign by entertaining the possibility that professions of
uncertainty may be sincere and imagining that there may be an
appreciable number of core Lubavitch chassidim who are not
utterly convinced of the Rebbe's Messiahship. (See
www.moshiachlisten.com/history.html.) A messianist rabbi from
Rechovot remarked in an interview that there is no point in
concealing this belief since "everyone knows that all
Lubavitch Chassidim, despite the differing opinions, believe
that the Rebbe is Melech HaMoshiach. This is the most open
secret of the last decade" (Beis Moshiach 424, 25
Tammuz, 5763, p. 10, available at
http://beismoshiach.org/_pdf/424.pdf). I am unfamiliar with a
single public declaration formally affirming that Lubavitch
chassidim should not accept the belief that the Rebbe is the
Messiah.
Since there is little disagreement that almost all Lubavitch
chassidim before the Rebbe's death believed he was the
Messiah, on the basis of their understanding of his
discourses over the years, and since it is clear that very
few of these chassidim currently maintain that his death
rules out his messianic candidacy in principle, it is hard to
see why we should expect to find a large number of skeptics.
There certainly are some, but if they were as numerous as
they would have us believe, the profile of the movement, its
institutions, and its public statements would be profoundly
different.
It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that a substantial
majority of Lubavitch chassidim believe with perfect faith in
the return of the Rebbe as Mashiach ben David, and even if he
tarries, they will wait for him every day, hoping that he
will come.
Rabbi David Berger is Broeklundian Professor of History at
Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, City University of
New York.
