Misplaced Pages

Menachem Mendel Schneerson

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by IZAK (talk | contribs) at 03:54, 6 January 2003 (Facts about France. Mastery of French.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 03:54, 6 January 2003 by IZAK (talk | contribs) (Facts about France. Mastery of French.)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (April 18, 1902 - June 12, 1994) was the 7th Rebbe of the Lubavitch hasidim. He is regarded as one of the most controversial rabbis in 20th century Judaism, and is regarded by some as being the creator of a new form of messianic Judaism.He is probably the best known rabbi of modern times by dint of on-going advertising and due to the high profile activities of his movement and their ability to capture the popular imagination of all strata of Jews.

In 1950, upon the death of his father-in-law and cousin Rabbi Joseph Isaac (Yosef Yitzchok) Schneersohn, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (known as "The Rebbe") became the 7th and last Lubavitcher rebbe, or paramount spiritual leader, of the Chabad (from the Hebrew acronym for "Knowledge, Understanding, and Wisdom"), sect of Hasidic Judaism.

Born in Nikolaiev, Ukraine, he received mostly private tuition. He was enrolled in the secular Yekaterinoslav University for part-time study of mathematics at the age of 16. He also studied intensive Talmudic and rabbinic Judaism, including the hasidic view of mysticism and Kabbalah. He married Chaya Mushka in 1928 and went to live in Berlin, Germany, and study philosophy at university. During this time he forged key life-long friendships, albeit theoligically different, with two other young rabbis studying in Berlin : Joseph Soloveitchik and Yitzchok Hutner. They were all to play a major role in training thousands of new Orthodox rabbis, and to re-inforce Orthodox Judaism in America where they settled. They were to become key rabbinic leaders of the Baal teshuva (returnees to Orthodox Judaism) movement.

In 1933 Rabbi Schneerson moved to France. According to histories authorized by Lubavitch, he studied at the Sorbonne in Paris where he received degrees in "higher engineering", though other records show that he attended a technical school. He mastered French which he put to great use in establishing his movement there after the war, attracting many of the new arrivals from the hundreds of thousands of Jews who came fromAlgeria, Morocco, and Tunisia.

In later life, scientists who came to talk with him, such as Herman Baranover, professor of physics at the Ben-Gurion University in Beer-Sheva, Israel, noted that for a rabbi (i.e. a non-scientist) he had an unusually good grasph of scientific issues. Branover himself, a Russian-Israeli authority on solar energy, is an active member of the Lubavitch sect.

In 1941 Schneerson escaped from France, and joined his father-in-law in New York City. They began building a Jewish educational and hasidic outreach empire. There was some question who would inherit the title from the previous Rebbe, who had no sons, and the movement almost split over those who were loyal to Schneerson and those who were loyal to his brother-in-law, Shmaryahu Gouraray. According to what is now a folk legend, the previous Rebbe settled the dispute from his death-bed by confering his streimel (the fur hat worn by many hasidic Jews) on Gourary and the title of Rebbe on Schneerson. Metaphorically, Gourary received the crown and Schneerson received the title. What is known is that followers of Lubavitch abandoned wearing a streimel with the ascension of this Rebbe.

Schneerson was a dynamic leader, who introduced an innovative outreach program to the movement, bringing in new followers from all walks of life. Other Orthodox Jews were bothered by the fact that Lubavitch outreach efforts extended to them as well as to non-affiliated Jews, and as early as the 1970s, began behind closed doors to call Lubavitch a cult. Nevertheless, by the time of Shcneerson's death in 1994, he had overseen the training of thousands of young Chabad hasidic rabbis and their wives, and sent them all over the world as emissaries to spread his vision of Judaism. Wherever there were Jews to be found, emissaries, known as shlichim, were sent to reach out to those who had few contacts with formal Judaism. They worked through a system of "mitzva campaigns"; these encouraged Jews to be keep kosher, observe Shabbat, learn more Torah, help in writing a Torah scroll, and accept a belief in Moshiach, the coming of the Jewish messiah. These movements strongly stressed the role of Rabbi Schneerson himself; he was accused by outsiders of virtually creating a cult of personality. Rabbi Schneerson's followers had an extremely high level of devotion to Rabbi Schneerson. They believed implicitly in his vision, and believed that he had supernatural powers of insight, prophecy, and possibly other powers as well.

He hardly ever left his home in a building in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn at 770 Eastern Parkway which became known as "770". It was from this location that he directed his emissaries' work. They built schools, community centers, youth camps, college campus centers (known as Chabad houses,) and reached out to the most powerful Jewish lay leaders and non-Jewish government leaders wherever they found themselves. They were succesful fundraisers for their causes. His followers have lobbied the United States Congress and President to issue annual proclamations declaring that the Rebbe's personal birthday, usually a day in March or April that co-incides with his Hebrew birth date of 11 Nisan (a Hebrew month), be observed as Education Day in the United States.

Because of the prominence of the Lubavitch sect in New York and their vocal conservative politics, many politicians came to Brooklyn to court Schneerson.

Towards the end of his life, thousands of people would line up to receive a dollar bill, which was to be donated to charity, and a quick blessing from him. His fame had spread far; Jews of all persuasions were sympathetic to him and were quite often won over to becoming Orthodox Lubavitch hasidim or sending their children to Lubavitch run schools.

In an odd twist of events, many of his followers actually celebrated Schneerson's death in 1994 with a fabrengen, or hasidic festival. Accustomed to believing that he was the Messiah, they believed that another vital step in teh drama of Messianic redemption had been played out, and that he would soon return to redeem the world. Many of them openly declared Rabbi Schneerson had not, in fact, died at all; some going so far as to say that he had shed his mortal body or that he was in hiding, waiting for an appropriate time to reveal himself. While some Lubavitch leaders condemned this, an analysis of their statements may indicate that while they believe this themselves, they do not believe the time is ripe to declare these things openly. On the other hand, many important leaders within official Lubavitch organizations now explicitly teach that Schneerson must be venerated as the messiah, and some Habad Hasidic quietly worship Schneerson as literally being God incarnate.

This has caused the rest of the Jewish community to denouce Chabad as being outside the pale of Judaism altogether. Many Orthodox rabbis quietly teach that Chabad Judaism is effectively becoming a new religion, similar in its development to Christianity.

Three streams of Chabad belief today

Chabad Judaism has in effect separated into three main theological factions (with some overlap). What one factions believes, the others do not, so one must take care to differentiate between them.

"Traditional" non-messianic Chabad

Traditional Chabad Jews still considering their recently deceased leader as the greatest leader of the generation; however they do not believe that he is or was the Messiah, nor do they believe that he is God. This group is considered by experts to be in the minority of Chabad. The group consists primarily of old-time Lubavitch families, who have been involved in the movement for generations, and whose devotion to Lubavitch date from before this Rebbe.

While they do not consider themselves to be messianic Jews, these Chabad Jews not only pray to god, but also turn to the spirit of their late rebbe for guidance Some examples from the official Chabad website include:

"Tens of thousands of Jews from all walks of life will visit the Rebbe's grave-site in Old Montefiore Cemetery in Queens to pray to G-d and reach out to the Rebbe's spirit. Jewish tradition teaches that the soul, particularly that of a holy person, stays close to the place where one is buried."
http://www.chabad.org/lns/articles/rebbe_yahrtzeit7-4-97.html
"What is perhaps unique about this year's birthday celebrations is that followers, admirers, even people who have had only casual interaction with the Rebbe, are still "living with the Rebbe," following his directives, turning to him for advice, asking for his blessings....Just two months after the Previous Rebbe's passing the Rebbe wrote the following to someone: "You worry that now one cannot ask the Rebbe when he is in doubt how he should conduct himself. If you stand strong in your connection to him... and send your questions to the Rebbe's Ohel , the Rebbe will find a way to answer. Some people fax letters to the Ohel or send in requests via e-mail, some come from near or far to go personally. Others ask one of the Rebbe's secretaries to read the letter at the Ohel. Another way people "live with the Rebbe" is by placing a letter TO THE REBBE in any of the nearly 100 volumes of the Rebbe's Torah teachings or correspondence. This is, in fact, what Chasidim of previous generations did when they were unable to correspond with their Rebbe in the conventional way."
http://www.chabad.org/gopher/weekly/Archives/lchaim.w1/5755/3/363.htm

One website offers stories of prayers to the Rebbe by Chabad Jews, and their claimed results.

http://www.universalperfection.com/html/morethanlifetime.htm

Messianic Chabad Judaism (majority view)

Most Chabad (Lubavitch) Jews believe that the late Rabbi Schneerson is the messiah. They often pray to him in the way described above. They believe that he will soon rise from the dead amongst a general resurrection of all the dead, and bring the messianic era

This faction draws a line between thinking of him as being a messiah, and being God; this faction believes that as messiah, Rabbi Schneerson will have the closest possible relationship to God that a human can have, similar to or the same as that of Moses. However, he definitely is not God (i.e. not part of the Godhead). These claims have been rejected by the rest of Orthodox Judaism, and people who hold these beliefs are said to be outside Judaism.

A list of Chabad books (with much material already online) which teach that the late Lubavitcher Rebbe is indeed the messiah:

http://moshiach.net/blind/books.htm
Orthodox rabbis reject claim rebbe was Messiah
http://www.jewishsf.com/bk960621/usreject.htm

Worshippers of their Rebbe as God incarnate

A small faction within Lubavitch teaches that their late Rebbe in fact is God incarnate. They say that their Rebbe doesn't know the will of God - rather, their Rebbe effectively is God. Thus, one no longer prays to God; one prays only to the Rebbe. They refer to the rebbe as Boreinu, Our Creator. Rabbis in Modern Orthodox Judaism, specifically the Rabbinical Council of America have denounced these views as being outside Judaism, and as being essentially identical to Christianity. Within many factions of Ultra-Orthodox Judaism in Israel, such critiques had been aimed at Chabad for many years.

While he was still alive, Rabbi Schneerson had messianic pretentions, and indirectly compared himself to God. Quoting his late father-in-law, Rabbi Schneerson taught that a Rebbe is literally Atzmus unget'n in a guf; the essence clothed/incarnated in a human body. (Source: Likutei Sichos II: p. 510-511)

Rabbi David Berger, an Orthodox Rabbi and professor of history, who specialized in earlier messsianic movements in Judaism, has written essays and a book showing that many followers of the late Lubavitch Rebbe revere him not just a Messiah, but literally as God Himself.

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hall/8701/religion/schneer.txt
http://rickross.com/reference/ultra-orthodox/ultra6.html


Rabbi Schneerson died childless and in his will he did not specify any successor whatsoever. This has puzzled many people. One other hasidic group, Breslov has functioned for almost 200 years without a live rebbe, deliberately not choosing one after the death of Rav Nachman (1772-1810). Since no-one was named to succeed Rabbi Schneerson, his followers have adopted a system of delving into his voluminous published correspondence and writings that are examined for there guidance in all situations. This is combined with de rigueur regular visits to his grave in Queens, New York, which has become a shrine to the Lubavitch hasidim.

External links:

Menachem Mendel Schneerson Add topic