The real deal on Chabad’s apocalyptic calculations, and why Jews have always predicted elusive ends.
The suspicion with which Jewish messianism is often regarded may well stem from the apparent contradiction it embodies. To await the Messiah is to live a life marked by optimistic anticipation for an unimaginably brighter future. But to live as a Jew requires full immersion in the demands of the present moment. The false-messiahs that litter the history of Jewish exile are nothing other than the failure of real events to live up to idealistic hopes. And yet a Judaism stripped of messianic inspiration is inconceivable. It is precisely such inspiration that has continued to sustain us despite all the trying upheavals of the ages.
For messianism to be authentically Jewish, and for it to inspire an authentically Jewish future, it must somehow bridge the gap between idealism and realism. As the writer, philosopher and critic Leon Wieseltier has put it, “Messianism is commonly interpreted as a variety of idealism. But if idealism is only a part of Judaism’s attitude towards the world, messianism must stand in a relationship also to realism.”
Last night I sat with a few friends in a small shul in an anonymous corner of Crown Heights. We had gathered there on the evening before Yud Tes Kislev[1] to Farbreng, and we didn't leave till the wee hours of the morning.
It is very difficult to describe or capture the intimate atmosphere, the other-worldly spirit of truth and open honesty, the strangely unremarkable mix of self criticism and celebration that makes a Farbrengen. But I can highlight some of the themes that I came away with last night.
This year is the 110th year since Rabbi Sholom DovBer Schneersohn, the Rebbe Rashab, termed Yud Tes Kislev the Chasidic "Rosh Hashanah". In a letter penned from Moscow to his son, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak (later known as the Rebbe Rayatz) in Lubavitch on the 16th of Kislev 5662, he described it as "the day upon which the light and life of our souls [ohr v'chayut nafshenu] was given to us, and one might say that it is the Rosh Hashanah for the Word of the Living G-d [i.e. the teachings of Chasidism] bequeathed to us by our holy forebearers..."[2]
Light. Transcendent windows onto the super-rational, which may yet be assimilated intellectually via the thousands of Chasidic discourses recited by the Rebbeim and studied by their Chasidim for centuries.
Life. The immanent actualization of those lofty ideals, in the mind, heart and actions of the individual - in the all encompassing service of G-d.
In the words of the Rebbe Rashab, we must "draw the depth and innerness of G-d's Torah and G-d's Commandments from the innerness and essence of the Infinite blessed-be-He, that it should shine in the innerness of our souls, that our entire essence (that is, the entirety of our being - both the essence and also its manifestation) should be dedicated to Him alone... all our activity and purpose (whether in matters of service... or in worldly matters...) shall be with true intent for the sake of heaven, that this is G-d's desire."
Chabad Chasidism requires that the most abstract of Divine realities be made manifest within the most concrete of human endeavors. In Lekuttai Sichot Vol. V (172-9), the Rebbe explained that herein lies the boundless celebration and joy that is made manifest on Yud Tes Kislev, for it is only with the power of the Truly Infinite that the transcendent secrets of the innermost part of the Torah - embodied in the teachings of Chasidism - can be rendered immanently accessible and applicable in the concrete realm. Can an elephant fit through the eye of a needle?! The continued manifestation of the inexpressible essence warrants a truly boundless celebration.
In a similar vein I have often thought that in the famous Kuntras Inyanah Shel Toras Hachasidus, delivered by the Rebbe on Yud Tes Kislev 1965, in which he articulated "the essence of Chassidus", he manages to articulate that which really cannot be articulated or clearly defined - to me there isn't a single line or sentence in that masterly thesis where I can put my finger on the central point, but somehow by the time you have assimilated all the components the essential light shines through...
Here is some footage from that historic farbrengen:
[1] The day upon which Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi was released from Tsarist imprisonment in the winter of 1798-9. Here is an article on the subject by Prof David Assaf drawing attention to the documentation of these events by Chabad Scholar Yehoshua Mondshine (available here). Click on images to enlarge.
[2] Here is a facsimile of the relevant section of that historic letter as published in Kuntras U'mayon (see there, pages 14-16, for a description of the circumstances under which the letter was written and received). Click on image to enlarge.
Dr. Naftali Loewenthal talks about how the post-modern aspects of Chasidism espoused by Chabad can return Chasidism to its roots and heal the schisms in Jewish society today:
As an aside, the Chasam Sofer's attitude to modernity is also discussed (and juxtaposed with his tendency to issue lenient rulings on an individual basis), which relates back to some of the conclusions drawn in an earlier post regarding how he influenced the way Orthodoxy came to regard Mendelssohn.
Rabbi Chaim Rapoport has recently published a revised and expanded edition of The Afterlife of Scholarship, his critique of The Rebbe by Heilman and Freeman. R. Rapoport has gathered much interesting information and analysis, expanding and reorganising his detailed arguments, and also summarising specific elements of the debate that was played out between him and the authors of The Rebbe on the Seforim Blog (see here, here and here). R. Rapoport has also included an appendix entitled The Ten Lost Years (1941-1951) detailing the role the Rebbe played in the Lubavitch movement following his arrival in America, and the more controversial issue of his rise to the leadership of Lubavitch following his father-in-law's passing. Large parts of the newly published work can be viewed via Amazon's "Look Inside!" feature.
Since my own opinion could hardly be objective (R. Rapoport thanks me for my contribution in A Note To The Reader), here is what Professor Elliot
R. Wolfson of New York University, author of Open Secret, has to say:
In Afterlife of Scholarship, Chaim Rapoport offers a meticulous critique of Samuel Heilman and Menachem Friedman, The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson, published by Princeton University Press, 2010. Rapoport challenges many of the assumptions made by Heilman and Friedman, and argues, through close textual reading, that these assumptions are based on interpretive flaws and/or lack of knowledge of Hasidism in general and of Habad in particular. Despite the overtly polemical tone, Rapoport's criticisms are never offered ad hominem. On the contrary, he painstakingly documents every point of contention, and has thereby provided ample evidence to allow other readers to assess his arguments against the portrait of the Rebbe presented by Heilman and Friedman. Whatever one might decide on the merits of his analyses, Rapoport's volume provides an invaluable treasure-trove of sources for future generations of scholarship on the seventh Rebbe of Habad-Lubavitch.
While on the subject of the Rebbe's biography and persona, two recently published letters (available here pages 18-26) are worthy of attention:
ASSORTED NOTES ON CHASIDIC AND NON-CHASIDIC ATTITUDES TO MENDELSSOHN
The source cited in Part One, associating Mendelssohn, Wesseley and Satanow with various levels of Klipah, is an example of antagonism directed towards Mendelssohn from the Chasidic camp specifically, and it seems quite clear that the Non-Chasidic Traditionalist contemporaries of Mendelssohn did not necessarily see him in such a negative light.
Amongst the Chasidic leadership, perhaps the most prominent in his attacks on Mendelssohn and his associates was Rabbi Pinchus Horowitz, Chief Rabbi of Frankfurt, author of the Hafloah (by which name he is often referred to) and a disciple of Rabbi DovBer, the Maggid of Mezritch. In an impassioned sermon delivered in 1782, he justified his opposition to Mendelssohn and the other Biurists, with a withering attack centering on the Biur’s rendering of the following verse:
לא תשנא את אחיך בלבבך הוכח תוכיח את עמיתך ולא תשא עליו חטא (ויקרא יט, יז)
Mendelssohn explains this to mean, “You may rebuke your friend if he has insulted you earlier”. Here is the offending passage (click to enlarge):
One of the principal theological innovations of Rabbi Yisroel of Mezibush – the founder of Hasidism, known universally as the Baal Shem Tov – is the principle that Divine Providence extends even to the most apparently insignificant of events. In the words of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn:
The Baal Shem Tov says that G-d moves many diversified causes in order to carry out a specified providence for even the smallest of created beings. In order that a fallen leaf, which has already blown around in a backyard somewhere since autumn a year ago… should be moved from one place to another… To this end, a strong wind breaks out in the middle of a warm summer day, moving heaven and earth, and thereby is the ordained providence fulfilled for that fallen leaf…
In a lengthy discourse (Lekkutei Dibburim Vol. 1, page 164), Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak dispels the sense of helpless and arbitrary insignificance normally conveyed by the ‘leaf in the wind’ metaphor, and in its place builds a model of elaborate providence. The image is now used to exemplify an irreplaceable component in a carefully ordained plan; a grand design in which each and every created being is endowed with its own unique significance relative to its station. The millions of small events, apparently swept together at random by the great gusts of world shaking events, are in fact precisely ordained, designed to fit together like the pieces of some great puzzle. There is nothing which is not a priority.
When applied to the story of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak’s life, this model fits like a glove. Some of the most earth-shattering milestones of modern history; the social and political upheavals that began to plague Tsarist Russia at the end of the nineteenth century, the First World War, the Rise of Communism, and the Second World War, swept Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak from the provincial village in white Russia where he was born, to the tottering grandeur of Tsarist St. Petersburg, to the darkly secretive silences of communist Leningrad, to Riga, the Holy Land, Warsaw and ultimately to New York.
Another may have seen himself as a helpless leaf, powerless in the grip of such powerful winds. But Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak saw each new situation into which he was thrust as a provident opportunity, orchestrated with a demanding – if sometime unfathomable – deliberation. For him there was no such thing as default. Each new circumstance carried with it the weighty import of a Divinely ordained mission – it was his responsibility to set his own concerns aside and meet the need of the hour, however difficult.
There is a difference between a Chassidic upbringing and a regular upbringing… even a religious upbringing.
When I was a very small child, as soon as I began to talk, my father the Rebbe said to me, “Whatever you may wish to ask, you should ask me”. Although there were others who paid attention to all my needs, my father said, “Anything that you may wish to ask, you should ask me”.
When I was taught to say Modeh Ani, I was told to lay one hand next to the other, bow the head, and so say Modeh Ani. When I grew a little older, though still a child, I asked my father the Rebbe, “Why is it that when saying Modeh Ani, one must put one hand next to the other, and bow the head?”
The popular COL (Chabad On Line) Hebrew language site recently posted four clips from a documentary that portrays the life led by the Chassidim of Kfar Chabad in the mid 1960’s. The film is titled in German “CHASSIDISMUS – ODER DER FROHLICHER WEG ZU GOTT” (“CHASSIDISM – OR THE JOYFUL PATH TO G-D”), however the narration is in English.
The producer is identified as Kobi Jaeger, I don’t know he was but he seems to have a very good grasp of his subject, and in my opinion has generally succeeded in capturing the essence of the Chassidic ideal authentically and with an elegant simplicity, which reflects the purity of Chassidic life as it should be.
These are beautiful camera shots of real Chassisdim, Davening, learning, Farbrainging and working, epitomizing the ideal of “be’chol derochecho de’aihu” (“in all you ways you shall know Him”) – joyously serving Hashem with every breath. Here you can really see the Chassidus of the Bal Shem Tov as persevered through Chassidus Chabad, so that it may be manifest in every aspect of the human experience.
This Monday, the 26th of Shvat, is the twenty fifth Yhortzeit of Rabbi Yakov Landau, who served for fifty years as the Chief Rabbi of Bnei Brak. He was born in the year 5653 (1893) in the Chassidic town of Kurnitz, where his father, grandfather and great grandfather had served as Rov. He too took up that post upon his father’s death, which occurred before is twentieth birthday. He did so at the express directive of the Rebbe Rashab of Lubavitch, with whom he enjoyed a very special relationship.
This week Hebrew language weeklies such as Ba'kehila and Hamodia published special articles or sections in his honor, and while I have not yet seen the Hamodia, the main focus seems to be on his activities as Rov of Bnei Brak. This post will focus on his years in Russia.
Marking the passage of two hundred years since the journey of the Alter Rebbe, Rabbi Schneur Zalman, author of the Tanya and the Shulchan Aruch, to Barditchev in the year 5570 [1800], and marking two hundred and fifty years since the passing of the Baal Shem Tov - one of the aims of the said journey being to pray at his gravesite in Mezubush - a Hebrew language book has been published describing that journey.
The Chabad-Lubavitch publishing house, Kehot Publication Society, has announced the publication of an important new book on the history of Chabad.
The Hebrew volume: "History of Chabad in Czarist Russia – Selected Chapters – 1770-1920," was compiled by Chabad historian Rabbi Shalom Dovber Levine, director of the Central Chabad-Lubavitch Library and Archive Center.
The following is a free translation of a letter by Reb Elyeh Chaim Althoiz to the Friedike Rebbe [Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Shneersohn] describing the tremendous impression made by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson [son-in-law and later successor of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak] on all the Chassidim who gathered at the Rebbe's court in Riga for the festivities of Simchas Torah, while the Rebbe was absent on a visit to the united states.
Though I have not yet returned to my full strength after the strain of the last two days of Yom Tov [Shmini Atzeres and Simachas Torah], and from all the dancing I am still shattered, there is not a whole limb in my body… I am unable to withhold the good, the gratification and true pleasure from the Rebbe [Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn], who is beloved and dear, for even one moment. I must give satisfaction at the earliest opportunity, while I still stand in a state of great feeling of joy and pleasure; that I merited to see the rising glory of the Rebbe’s household with my own eyes, exalted in spirituality and holiness, may we only merit that it should not cease till the coming of the redeemer.
BOOK REVIEW: LETTERS OF RABBI YOSEF YITZCHAK SCHNEERSOHN VOL. XV, kehot publication society: brooklyn, 2010
As the subtitle of the book informs us, this volume contains the letters of the sixth Rebbe of the Chabad chasidic dynasty, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, to his son-in-law and eventual successor, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and to his daughter Rebbitzen Chaya Mushkah Schneerson. Significantly, the volume also includes relevant extracts from Rabbi Menachem Mendel’s letters to his father-in-law.
While it has been published as the fifteenth volume in a series it should in truth be viewed as an independent book, worthy of singular attention and an identity of its own. Other volumes in the series have collected a wide variety of letters, addressed to many different personalities and representing a very colorful tapestry of the R. Yosef Yitzchak’s activities and interests as well as a virtual treasure trove of historical narrative and anecdotal insight into the idealistic past of the Chassidic movement. This, however, is the first in the series to focus entirely on a single theme. These letters tell the story of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak’s private relationship with the individual upon whose shoulders his hopes and dreams for Jews and Judaism would be carried into the future. Perhaps herein lays a crucial key with which to decipher the journey of the Chabad dynasty, and the broader path of the Chabad movement, through the uncertainties of the twentieth century and into modernity.
From a letter by Reb Elyeh Chaim Althoiz to the Friediker Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn (Rayatz), who was visiting the United Sates of America at the time. As is described in the present letter, the Rebbe's family and the chassidim who he left behind were distraught at the prospect of Tishrei without the Rebbe. They were, however, consoled by the presence of the Rebbe's son-in-law and successor, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Free Translation.
The Yom Kippur service finished later this year in the Rebbe's minyan than ever before, for the Rebbe's son-in-law [Ramash, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson] became totally absorbed in his prayers and oblivious to anything else during Neilah. A nice while passed before he managed to climb out of his reverie. All of us were filled with pleasure from this very pleasing wait. And as is well known, after Neilah the enthusiasm and ability of every Jewish soul to serve G-d is renewed like the strength of a young eagle.
In honor of the 15th of Elul, the day on which Yeshivas Toimchei Temimim Lubavitch was founded in 5657 [1897] we continue with the memoirs of Reb Nochum Shmaryahu Sussonkin, in which he describes his arrival in Lubavitch to study in ישיבת תומכי תמימים. This is the third installment. The first two, in which he describes his youth in Prepoisk and his studies in the Yeshiva of Reb Elchonon Bunim Vasserman הי"ד, can be found here and here, respectively.
From Left To Right: Reb Avrohom Elyeh Plotkin, Reb Nochum Shmaryahu Sussonkin and Reb Nissen Neminov
I finished learning in the Yeshivas for younger students at the end of the winter of 5665 [1905]. At that time the most famous Yeshivas for older students in the world were Telz, Volozhin, Slobodka, Mir, Radin and Lubavitch. I stood on a cross roads and did not know where to turn. Though I had studied in Krementchug, a city of Chassidim, I had not had much contact with them and knew nothing of Chassidus, especialy not Chabad Chassidus. I had met with students who had come from Telz, Volozhin etc and though I knew that not all the students in those Yeshivas were alike, I decided that I would not go to those Yeshivas for I knew too that the spirit of the [secular movement of] enlightenment had already permeated their study halls and was afraid for my soul lest I too be smitten.
A so-called 'biography' of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn has stirred much controversy and debate as to how committed he actually was to Chabad and the Chassidic (or even Orthodox) way of life. Much ink has already been spilled (most extensively at The Seforim Blog) in which the 'scholarship' of the author's is unmasked as being at the very best extremely lacking, and more probably, deliberately misleading. I do not intend to reiterate or add to the numerous examples of blatant falsification, nor do I intend to attack their central thesis directly. My intention here is simply to provide some context, lending perspective and better allowing the reader to appreciate the story of the Rebbe's life, who he was and what he did.
The Rebbe's conduct, prior to becoming Rebbe in general, and specifically during his sojourn in Berlin and then Paris, reminds of the following episode (as recorded in Shmues Vesipurim Vol 1, page 69):
This letter was written in Tammuz 5688 [1928] less than a year following the Rebbe's release from soviet imprisonment and exile. At the time the Rebbe was living in Riga, Latvia. Click on images to enlarge:
Note: The 12th of Tammuz is the anniversary of the liberation of the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn from his exile in Soviet Russia in 1927. The Rebbe was arrested in June of that year by agents of the Yevsektzia (the "Jewish Section" of the Communist party) and the GPU (forerunner of the KGB) because of his work to preserve Judaism throughout the Soviet Empire. The Rebbe was sentenced to death, for his "counter-revolutionary" activities, but a miraculous confluence of events forced the Soviets to commute it, and then to release him altogether.
The full account of the Rebbe's arrest and liberation can be found here.
The following is a translation of an excerpt from the Rebbe's diary (written several months before his arrest and printed as an appendix to "The Heroic Struggle"), in which he describes how (on an earlier occasion) he was saved by Divine Providence from the hands of four GPU thugs. While traveling by train to Moscow, in order to meet with various Rabbis and philanthropists to plan and budget further efforts for the upkeep of Yidishkeit in the face of soviet oppression, the Rebbe happened to meet a high ranking member of the Soviet Secret Police through whom his salvation would be effected mere days later.
The following is a letter written by the Lubavitcher Rebbe on the 3rd of Tammuz 5710 [1950] within a few months of the Friediker Rebbe's passing. Explanatory editions to the literal translation of the original text are enclosed in square brackets.
In the summer of (5543) 1783 the city of Minsk was the stage for a momentous meeting of minds. Orchestrated by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi – the Alter Rebbe and encouraged by the most influential Rabbinic authority of the time, Rabbi Eliyahu, the Vilna Gaon, “the great debate” attracted the greatest and most venerable Talmudic scholars of Lithuania, and was intended to resolve the ongoing conflict between the Chassidim and their opponents (“Misnagdim”).
After much deliberation the Goan Rabbi Eliyahu had decided that “if “the cult” [as the Chassidim where referred to] are to demand a debate then we are obligated to answer them”, and so Rabbi Schneur Zalman let it be known that he would be present in the city of Minsk on the Shabbos following the 9th of Av and would remain there for two or three weeks thereafter, so that he may answer “anyone with a query or a complaint against the Chassidim or their conduct”.
