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The Chabad exchange, part 3: ‘Alas, the old Moshiach question’

[additional-authors]
December 2, 2015

Rabbi David Eliezrie is the Director of North County Chabad –Congregation Beit Meir Ha'Cohen, Yorba Linda, CA. He serves as President of the Rabbinical Council of Orange County and Long Beach; Board Member of the Jewish Federation and Family Services of Orange County; Member of the Allocation Committee of the Federation, Chairman of the Chabad International Crisis Committee; Chair of the Chabad Partners Conference; and Member of the Advisory Committee of the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute.

This exchange focuses on Rabbi Eliezrie’s new book, The Secret of Chabad (The Toby Press, 2015). Parts one and two can be found here and here.

***

Dear Rabbi Eliezrie,

Your book ends with a description of the great mourning and the grave doubts you and your fellow Chabad followers had following the death of your leader, the Lubavitcher Rebbe. I would like to ask you about the dominance of his figure in your movement and about how it is perceived outside of Chabad:

Most of the world's Jews, and even most orthodox Jews, do not know anything close to the level of adoration your movement openly shows your now deceased leader. His photos seem to be everywhere, and the much of the general Jewish public often (mistakenly) assume that the entire movement believes he was the Messiah.

I have two questions:

1) What is the current state of the debate about the Rebbe's Messiah status in your movement? How much of the movement is behind that idea, and how serious is the internal divide between the factions within Chabad on this issue?  

2) Have you ever had concerns about how overemphasizing the Rebbe's image could be off-putting to many secular and more progressive Jews? Does Chabad generally consider these things from a non-Chabad (or public relations) perspective? How unified is the movement in that regard?

Yours,

Shmuel. 

***

Dear Shmuel,

Alas, the old Moshiach question. With all due respect, Shmuel, I think your questions and their accompanying/preceding/underlying assertions miss the point.

The Rebbe was never simply a leader of a particular group, nor was the majority of his time and energy spent on building it. You’re from Israel, you might be aware of how deeply connected he was to its leadership from across the political and societal spectrum there and how they’d regularly seek his guidance and counsel. Not too long after the Rebbe’s passing, one of my South African colleagues hosted a couple of important representatives from the far left in Israel who bemoaned the loss of the Rebbe’s guiding voice for Israel. Knowing that the Rebbe advocated a significantly different path than them to assure Israel’s security, Rabbi Lipskar looked at them quizzically. Their reply? Indeed, we travelled in a different direction. But the Rebbe set the parameters of the discussion for all of us, he framed the issues, he rooted them to the Torah.

As much as the Rebbe’s  voice is painfully missing today, it is also very much alive and vibrant. I am amazed at the people whom I come into contact with, both in organized Jewish life and beyond, who are thirsty to learn the Rebbe’s teachings. For the Rebbe never made it about him at all; it was all about loving and truly feeling for the other, and all about G-d and Torah. He demonstrated how the Torah is a vibrant and extraordinarily relevant and current blueprint for our lives, even and especially in modern times. And he taught how its Mitzvot elevate each of us and the world. And he comforted and cultivated and empowered and educated an entire generation of Jews to think and act boldly for others.  

Today, more than 20 years after his passing, his teachings shape modern Jewry more than any of us will ever be able to discern, and he is – ironically — truly “dominant” and “adored,” to use your words, throughout the Jewish world.  That the Rebbe stood out from the rest of his generation, and many prior generations, is well known. That some Chasidim took this overboard and made claims about the Rebbe that he himself did not make – that is well known as well. That some painfully persist even now is unfortunately well known, too. In fact, Joseph Telushkin has an excellent treatment of the topic in his book Rebbe.

But along with that, the past two decades have allowed people to more ably discern between improper messages and the real thing, as demonstrated in the multitudes who regularly learn from the 200-plus volumes of his output, or from its many translations and distillations available from sources like Chabad.org.

The Rebbe represents a human being who lived a life in dedication to others. When I see his image, it inspires me to rise to those lofty goals the Rebbe exemplified. What troubles me much more is what most young Jews adorn their walls with – sports players, rock stars and Hollywood celebrities. The tabloid press should not define the role models we should seek to replicate. A picture of a righteous individual is a message to ourselves: we must aspire to live up to the values he exemplified.

This week we celebrate the Chasidic holiday of the 19th of Kislev – when  Chabad’s founder was freed  from a Czarist prison and his teachings were vindicated. One of the places this date will be celebrated this year is in your backyard, in Binyanei ha’Umah (as you know, the Middle East’s largest convention center), where upwards of 50,000 Jews of all walks of life, from Lithuanian yeshiva rabbis to Hebrew University students, are participating in a cornucopia of events geared to study the Rebbe’s teachings – ideas that continue to live and inspire others.

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