Return of the Rebbe
The Messianist Controversy
Raphael Cohn
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The seventh leader of the Lubavitch Hasidim, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe, was a dominant Jewish figure in the twentieth century. During his reign, Lubavitch (or Chabad) sent emissaries to countries around the globe, helped Soviet Jews retain their heritage and became the exemplar of Judaism in places that had never before seen a stable Jewish community. However, his leadership was not without controversy. One of the Rebbe’s major emphases was on the imminent coming of the Messiah and the need for Jews around the world to welcome him. Towards the end of the Rebbe’s life, many Chabad Hasidim began to believe and pronounce that the Rebbe himself was the Messiah. Since his death in 1994, this belief has only become stronger. The ideas of these so-called ‘Messianists’ range from the belief that the Rebbe will be brought back to life at the end of days and proclaimed as the Messiah, to the more extreme beliefs that the Rebbe never died and is in fact still ‘alive’ today in some form.
While many find these beliefs ludicrous, some have gone further, saying that they set Messianists outside the pale of Judaism altogether. In his controversial 2001 book, The Rebbe, The Messiah and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference, Rabbi Dr. David Berger outlines many of the reasons why he believes Messianists should not be given positions as Orthodox Rabbis and religious authorities. He sees Messianism and the complacent response by some members of the Chabad and Orthodox movements as threatening some of the most central Jewish beliefs. Rabbi Dr. Immanuel Schochet, a non-Messianist Chabad Hasid, has had a number of heated exchanges with David Berger, in The Jewish Press and elsewhere, discrediting Berger’s methodology and claiming that certain Messianist beliefs are indeed compatible with traditional Judaism. Kedma had the chance to speak with each of these figures individually, and what emerges is a subtle, but significant, difference in ideology.
Kedma: Do you believe that the Lubavicher Rebbe did enough to prevent the belief that he was the Messiah, or did he leave open opportunities for this belief to develop?
Berger: In my book, I explain that no Jewish text has ever allowed that God will send Moshiach (Messiah) to announce redemption in his generation and then fail to bring the redemption in his lifetime. On some occasions, the Rebbe did tell people not to continue to announce that he is the Moshiach but he said and did many things that led people to believe that he was. For example, he announced in absolutely categorical fashion that our generation is the generation of the redemption, even asserting that the Moshiach has already been revealed and we just have to welcome him. In one discourse, he taught that the third temple will first descend from heaven to a point adjoining 770 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights and then move to Jerusalem. In certain instances, he even reacted positively to followers who celebrated and welcomed him as the Moshiach.
There is certainly a mixed picture that we get from the things the Rebbe did and said, but the fact remains that he asserted that the Lubavitcher Rebbe of the generation is the prince (nasi) of the generation, that the prince of the generation is the Moshiach of the generation and that this is the generation of the redemption. Put these assertions together and you can certainly see where the Messianists find a basis for their belief in the Rebbe’s own actions and statements.
However, I would like to add that I do not believe that the Rebbe would have wanted people to believe that he is the Moshiach after his death in an unredeemed world.
Schochet: The Rebbe revived the fundamental principle of Judaism— to believe in the imminent coming of Moshiach—which had come into complete neglect. People basically ignored it. At best they would recite the 13 Principles of Maimonides after davening (praying) and then put it on the shelf, as opposed to Maimonides’ ruling that if somebody does not believe in the Moshiach and does not actually anticipate his imminent coming, then he is forsaking the whole Torah. That is what the Rebbe revitalized. Before the Rebbe, who discussed the principle of Moshiach as a vital reality? At first, when the Rebbe spoke about it, people laughed. Then later, people gradually started writing books about this principle. More recently, it became a controversial issue of identifying Moshiach. Even today in many Orthodox circles, how much is taught or spoken beyond merely mouthing lip service to the idea, as opposed to a real belief, notwithstanding that in our daily prayer we do assert, “We hope for Your salvation every day and all day long!”
So, yes, the Rebbe gave the idea of Moshiach the priority that it needed to be revived. Actually, his pursuit was not novel. It may be said that the Rebbe merely regenerated something that was already done thirty or forty years earlier by the universally recognized authority, the Chafetz Chaim. He did exactly the same thing that the Rebbe did, speaking, writing and proclaiming in no less urgent terms, but unfortunately his words fell mostly on deaf ears. The present problem is that a number of the Rebbe’s followers derailed his efforts by moving from the principle of Moshiach into emphasizing an identity for the Moshiach. That was definitely counter to the Rebbe’s will. This is on record, in published writings and tapes how the Rebbe publicly spoke out strongly against the people who openly proclaim him as the Moshiach, saying that they alienated people from Judaism and certainly from Hasidism by doing so.
Kedma to Schochet: What was your response to David Berger’s book and to him personally?
Schochet: My initial response to the book was that it is—how should I put it—academically or intellectually deceptive. He generalizes. He uses a lot of anonymous anecdotes and then he hides behind them by saying, “Well I didn’t say that, I’m only quoting soand- so.” Plus, in the book and in later articles, he quotes just about every hearsay anecdote which came to him, without investigating whether it was true or false. In fact, in one article in The Jewish Press he quoted a particular incident to prove his point which came to his attention just a few days before he wrote the article. The same incident came to my attention about the same time, and I investigated it and I found it to be completely false. Yet he published that incident as if it were true and was drawing practical conclusions from it with regards to alleged corruption et cetera, et cetera in Lubavitch.
He is a scholar in his own right in his field, but in this particular aspect I think we should look at him as a man obsessed by a certain idea on a personal crusade to push his point at all costs, without proper regard to truth and reality.
Kedma: Why would he take this crusade upon himself?
Schochet: That I don’t know. Maybe there is something in his personal life, some confrontation with himself or his family, as has been rumored by some, or something else, but I don’t know.
Kedma: But in his book he says that initially he was not anti-Chabad and it was only after certain incidents about Messianist activity came to his attention that he began this effort.
Schochet: Well you know that sounds like “some of my best friends are Jewish.” It is a blatant attempt to disguise a personal agenda.
Kedma: You spoke about doubting the truth of his claims. Which of his claims do you find the most problematic?
Schochet: First, his theological premises, which are unwarranted and tendentious. Secondly, the truth of incidents he cites. I already mentioned one particular incident and I would take that as symptomatic of other incidents that he cites. He talks about a certain event that allegedly happened in Toronto, in a Lubavitch school in which he alleged that the children were instructed by the teacher to concentrate on the Rebbe during their prayers in the morning. In the original version which he published in The Jewish Press this announcement was said to have been made for the actual prayer of the Amidah, thus implying “praying to the Rebbe.” He has since changed the story, saying that it was for listening to the repetition, which has nothing to do with “praying to the Rebbe.” Even this version of his story is a total falsehood, and I know what happened because I investigated it. Either Dr. Berger’s source lied to him or he maliciously distorted it. What happened was that the teacher told them that they should concentrate during that prayer as if the Rebbe was there and watching over them. In other words, to be conscious that they were being watched by a person that they respect and look up to and who would be disappointed if they didn’t pray properly. No one ever suggested praying to the Rebbe.
Kedma: So if Berger’s claim was true, and children were actually being told to think about the Rebbe while praying, what would be your opinion on that?
Schochet: That would be horrendous. I agree with that. That would be totally unacceptable. But I could not imagine that this had happened, and therefore I investigated it. The story was told to Berger most likely from the same source that told it to me—a professor at a Toronto University who heard it from a person who claims to have been there, but who later admitted that that is not actually what was said—he just took it in that sense. I got the names and the places and the addresses of all the people that were involved. I checked it very carefully. If a person can go and repeat something like that in print without checking it, just taking it at face-value, then that person becomes totally suspect in my eyes with regards to any other incidents that he refers to.
Kedma to Berger: Rabbi Schochet has claimed that your book and arguments are intellectually and academically deceptive and are based on anecdotes instead of facts. How would you respond to this accusation?
Berger: The book certainly contains some reports that can be labeled as anecdotes, but they can equally be labeled as facts. No account of a contemporary movement can or should dismiss oral testimony as to what is occurring in that movement. Here is one example relating to prayer to the Rebbe that I understand Rabbi Schochet has criticized. In a synagogue in Toronto with no open Messianism, there is a prayer service every Sunday morning which includes a group of young children along with other members of the community. Before the repetition of the Amidah, it was announced that the congregants should concentrate on the Rebbe. When a congregant objected to this after the service had ended, he was told that the intention was not that the congregants should direct their prayers to the Rebbe but that they should imagine that he was looking at them during prayer. But the instruction was not explained during the service itself—the explanation came only after the objection—and we must keep in mind that there were little children in this group. Since I was told this story by the person who complained about the announcement, there is more than adequate justification to record it.
But the contentions in my book are not based primarily on oral evidence; they are based on voluminous written material. Thus, to cite the most controversial assertions I make, chapters 8, 9, and 10 of my book as well as the second appendix address the issue of divinity, not just the Messiahship of the Rebbe, largely on the basis of written evidence. I show, for example, that Al Hatzadikim, a book written by a very respected Lubavitch Rabbi in Israel, permits bowing to a supremely righteous man ( a supreme tzaddik) with the understanding that he is pure divinity. Similar assertions have been made by other people with central positions in the educational institutions of the movement. To cite one example, I quote a passage by a mashpia (spiritual adviser) in the largest Chabad Yeshivah (school) outside of Israel, Oholei Torah (also known as Oholei Menachem) saying that the previous six Rebbes were pure divinity because one of the Kabbalistic emanations was manifested in their bodies. The death of each of these Rebbes marked the point where God’s revelation through each of these emanations was completed. Unlike his predecessors, the most recent Rebbe manifested the infinite essence of God, unlimited by any specific emanation. Because of that he could answer any question instantly; there is no difference to him between heaven and earth, body and soul. Nor could he die even in a physical sense since interruptions are possible only where there are limits, a concept that does not apply to the unlimited essence of God.
Kedma to Berger: How would you assess the prominence and pervasiveness of Messianism within Chabad?
Berger: In assessing the number of believers, let us first examine what our expectations should be before looking at concrete realities. I have never encountered any knowledgeable observer who does not agree that in the last years of the Rebbe’s life, an overwhelming majority of Hasidim believed he was the Moshiach. I have never encountered a knowledgeable observer who does not agree that only a tiny minority of Hasidim today will say that the Rebbe is ruled out as the Moshiach in principle. At the very least, these two considerations taken together establish the plausibility that a typical Hasid might well be a believer. My own view is that they establish the likelihood, though of course not the certainty, that he or she actually is.
What, then, are the concrete realities? Believers dominate the large majority of the major educational and communal institutions in the major population centers of the movement. People who wield such authority cannot be described as a fringe group even if they constitute a minority. This is self-evident, and it is superfluous to argue the point.
The next step is to ask what the institutional dominance of Messianists is likely to tell us about the percentage of believers in the population as a whole. Is it likely that the main synagogue, the largest educational institutions, and other community institutions would all be controlled by believers or suffused by this belief if the believers were a minority of the community, let alone a fringe group? In the case of Crown Heights, the overt believers actually win communal elections. Is it likely that an overtly Messianist chief rabbi presides over K’far Chabad and that extremist Messianists serve as mashpi’im (spiritual advisors) there if believers are a minority, let alone a fringe group? Is it likely that the entire Chabad school system in Safed is vehemently Messianist if the population is primarily, let alone overwhelmingly, one of non-believers? To assume any of this, let alone all of it, is contrary to elementary common sense. The Chabad population of these three centers alone is at the very least a very substantial percentage of the world population of full-fledged Chabad Hasidim. The main institutional exception to the dominance of overt believers is the important organization of emissaries, which is opposed to explicit declarations of messianism, but very many of the emissaries themselves are demonstrably believers.
Kedma to Schochet: What is your opinion of David Berger’s sources regarding the number of Mesianists within Chabad. Do you think his assessments are accurate?
Schochet: Most definitely not. I do not have numbers and neither does he. So he’s merely making an assumption which he has absolutely no proof for. Just because he quotes these and those individuals and this and that group, this is hardly a statistical proof as to how many there are.
Kedma: So would you say the Messianists are a fringe element of Chabad?
Schochet: Yes I would. For example in the Yeshiva Oholei Torah in Crown Heights, at least 60 to 70 percent of the student body are not Messianists, they are simply there to get a good education. In Crown Heights I have checked it out, and a great number of the staff are not Messianists. I don’t know how many, I just know that many of the teachers not only are not Messianist, but are anti-Messianist, they speak out against it even in the school itself. In Safed, on the other hand, I know that the opposite may be the truth, that there it is very much Messianist oriented, but that particular Yeshivah is notorious for that.
Kedma: Do you see Messianism as a dangerous force in Chabad and do you speak out against it?
Schochet: I definitely always did, and continue to speak out against it.
Kedma: So then doesn’t it scare you that even 50 percent of the teachers teaching young children are Messianist?
Schochet: Not really, because many so-called Messianists have left that fold. As they grow older, they grow wiser. So number one—they drop it. Secondly, even those who remain Messianists, you have many different groups among them. You have those who simply believe—yes, the Rebbe will be Moshiach, which I would call a stupid belief. It is stupidity but essentially harmless. Then you have the real extreme fringe elements who, for example, would deny that the Rebbe died or would insert certain claims that I would call heretical ideas—and with regards to them I am in agreement with Berger. These, however, are a very very very very minute, fringe element of the fringes of the fringes. It is a terrible situation, it certainly gives a bad name to Chabad, to Lubavitch and most of all to the Rebbe, but I don’t see that as a real danger for Judasim any more than I see danger in any other heretical ideas that you can find in the various so-called ‘denominations’ of the Jewish community, including the so-called Modern Orthodox.
Kedma to Schochet: Would it be correct to say that you do defend Messianists?
Schochet: No, I do not. I merely say that the possibility that a deceased person could be resurrected and indeed thereafter become Moshiach is a theoretical possibility. A possibility according to Halachah (Jewish law). That is a legitimate view. Whether that is likely to happen is open to question, but I cannot deny the possibility because the Talmud itself speaks of that possibility. So that particular claim I defend to be within the realm of the legitimate. You cannot reject that as heretical or going counter to Jewish tradition. It’s certainly counter to the normative historical view that we’ve always had, but it is not in principle something that is wrong a priori. That is the only thing I defend, which is not the same as saying that the Rebbe was or is Moshiach. That is an absurd claim. You cannot claim that any person is Moshiach if it is not proven that he is the Moshiach according to the Halachic criteria, thus making this definitely an absurd claim on the part of the Messianists.
Kedma: So would you say that there is definitely no possibility that the Rebbe was or is the Moshiach?
Schochet: Was or is? Definitely not. There’s no Moshiach now, nor has there been one so far. But according to Jewish tradition, many righteous people will be resurrected immediately before the era of the Messianic coming, and any one of them may be chosen to be Moshiach. That is a possibility; but then of course the Rebbe will have a lot of competition. Why should it be him instead of somebody else?
Kedma: So then you believe that he could be resurrected as Moshiach?
Schochet: No, not as Moshiach. He would first have to be resurrected and attain a position of prestige. Then God may decide to make him Moshiach. That is a possibility. It may be a bit farfetched, but it is not something which violates any principle in Judaism. It is definitely a hypothetical possibility. Is it likely? That’s a different question, but the legitimate possibility exists.
Kedma to Berger: Since both you and Rabbi Schochet appear to be opposed to the Messianist factions within Chabad, why not join forces with someone like him instead of attacking the movement as a whole from the outside?
Berger: Two reasons: For one, Rabbi Schochet has openly said that the Rebbe could be Moshiach even after announcing that this was the generation of the Moshiach and then dying in an unredeemed world. Even asserting that this is possible undermines the Jewish Messianic faith. I’m trying to protect the historic Jewish insistence that there is no second coming. Even Rabbi Schochet’s position undermines the Jewish denial of such a possibility, rejecting the position of the Jewish people in Jewish-Christian debates for centuries. He is part of the problem, and so there’s no reason I would join him.
Secondly, I am concerned with the legitimacy granted to Messianist believers as Orthodox authorities by people who are not Lubavitch Hasidim. This is the essence of my concern. What really matters is that these people are treated as Rabbis, which in turn grants their belief Orthodox legitimacy. Rabbi Schochet does not hold that someone who believes that the Rebbe is Moshiach should be denied recognition as a Rabbi or other authority because he maintains that in principle, while the belief is wrong, it is not fundamentally objectionable. The issue is not to attack Hasidim who believe the Rebbe is Moshiach—the intention is to get non-Lubavitch Jews to deny Rabbinic legitimacy to these people.
Kedma to Schochet: If you do not believe the Rebbe to be the Moshiach why not embrace Berger’s book as a call to arms for Chabad opposition to Messianists?
Schochet: It’s because of his approach. I was asked the same question by Rabbi Keller from the Telse Yeshivah in Chicago. I met him once at a wedding and he said, “I don’t understand you. Since you agree with his rejection of the Messianists, why don’t you applaud Berger? You should work with him,” and I said, “No! Berger, I regard as amoral—not immoral, amoral. His approach is based on falsehood.” So even though we may have the same battle with the Messianists our approaches are different. His approach is totally ad hominem, it has become completely personalized. It is based on distortions, while I stand for truth, so, therefore, I see no value in his way. The sensational epitaph in his book entitled A Memorial for the Jewish Faith et cetera, is pure theatrics. He literally distorts, uses falsehoods—if not outright falsehood, then intentionally ambiguous statements. As for example, the parts I mentioned in the book where he hides behind anonymous religious authorities saying this and that about Lubavitch, and then hiding and saying, “Oh, I didn’t say it, I’m merely quoting it.” Well, if it does not represent his views, then why quote it? He certainly shouldn’t quote it without any criticism, without any response to it. That I find totally obscene and offensive. That is why there is no way that I can see myself on the same platform as him.
Kedma: Where do you see this situation twenty years down the road? Will there be some sort of split in Chabad? Are there tensions that will be played out?
Schochet: There are tensions within Chabad, but frankly, between you and me, I don’t believe that these tensions have much to do with Messianist beliefs or non-beliefs, but just as in other political situations, with power grabs, and other personal confrontations. People may not like certain people in the leadership so they look for respectable excuses to oppose them; as we say, “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” “I’m arguing with them,” they would say, “because of their theological position,” when in fact it’s a purely personal disagreement. And since bringing personal attacks is not nice, is not politically correct, they have to disguise it like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, as an ideological disagreement.
As for twenty years down the road, I believe Moshiach will be here before then. If God-forbid not, I see the Messianist element petering out more and more. I see it already. There are many who have left it altogether, or at least have left some of their more extremist positions and are moving definitely more in the direction of the mainstream.
Berger: I’m not optimistic. There has not been a major push to delegitimize Messianists as Orthodox Jews. There are some mainstream Orthodox Jews who have taken this position up. The Rabbinical Council of America declared in 1996 that there is no place for this belief in Judaism. Rabbi Aharon Feldman, Rosh Yeshivah of Ner Yisroel, has written a letter in support of my book and a number of others have expressed agreement, but very few have been willing to take a public stand. Maybe the opposition of the organization of the Chabad emissaries to public statements might accomplish something over time since it is difficult to maintain a Marranolike position of saying things internally but not externally.
I can’t really predict exactly what will happen in twenty years, but I reiterate that I am not optimistic.
Rabbi Dr. David Berger is Broeklundian Professor of History at BrooklynCollege and the GraduateSchool of the CityUniversity of New York. He is the author of The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference (Littman), which has now been published in an updated Hebrew version translated by the author and entitled Ha-Rebbe Melekh ha-Mashiach, Sha’aruriyyat ha-Adishut, ve-ha-Iyyum al Emunat Yisrael (Urim).
Rabbi Dr. Immanuel Schochet is the rabbi of Congregation Beth Joseph in Toronto, Professor of Philosophy (presently retired) at HumberCollege, and was also adjunct professor of Medical Ethics at the School of Medicine, University of Toronto, and has lectured at universities and for Jewish communities throughout the world. He is the author of over thirty books. His critical editions of the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov and the Maggid of Mezhirech, the founders of Hassidism, are the authoritative texts in both academia and religious circles.
Raphael Cohn is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering and Applied Science. He is majoring in Cognitive Science and Computer Science Engineering and minoring in Fine Arts