Talk:Chabad Lubavitch/Sources 1

Here are sources for Jewish views of messianism within Chabad Lubavitch. Most of the sources are Orthodox.

Rabbinical Council of America Resolution

1000 Orthodox rabbis reject claim rebbe was Messiah June 21, 1996, DEBRA NUSSBAUM COHEN, Jewish Telegraphic Agency

NEW YORK -- An organization representing more than 1,000 mainstream Orthodox rabbis has passed a resolution condemning the belief of many Lubavitch Chassidim that the late Menachem Schneerson is the Messiah. Members of the Rabbinical Council of America passed the resolution at its annual convention in Spring Glen, N.Y., on June 12, a week before the second anniversary of the Lubavitcher rebbe's death.

Many Lubavitchers -- no one knows exactly how many -- continue to believe that the rebbe is the Messiah, though he died June 12, 1994, at the age of 92.

Few Lubavitchers are able to describe that event as their leader's death.

Instead, the strongest language many use to describe the third day of the month of Tammuz on the Jewish calendar is as "the day the rebbe ascended on high."

Before the rebbe's death, nearly every Lubavitcher Chassid believed that he was the Messiah and had not yet revealed himself to be the redeemer because the Jewish people did not merit it.

At issue now is the fact that a significant segment of the Lubavitch movement continues to believe -- and is publicly promoting that belief -- that the rebbe will be resurrected as the Messiah.

There are also a few members of the Messianic camp who believe the rebbe never died at all, but is simply not yet ready to reappear.

At the same time, many other Lubavitchers acknowledge their beloved leader's death and have dedicated themselves to carrying on his work, reaching out to Jews wherever they may be.

The author of the RCA resolution, Rabbi David Berger, has publicly urged the mainstream Orthodox community to distance itself from the large Messianic faction in Lubavitch by not raising money for the Chassidic group.

The alternative, he says, risks altering "the basic contours of the faith."

The single-sentence resolution, which was passed by consensus, reads:

"In light of disturbing developments which have recently arisen in the Jewish community, the Rabbinical Council of America in convention assembled declares that there is not and has never been a place in Judaism for the belief that Mashiach ben David [Messiah son of David] will begin his Messianic Mission only to experience death, burial and resurrection before completing it."

The resolution does not finger Lubavitch by name because the RCA's leadership wanted to be careful "not to deprecate or castigate" the entire Chassidic group, said the RCA president, Rabbi Rafael Grossman.

The original version of the resolution had named Lubavitch. The reference was deleted, Grossman said, because "there is a substantial part of Lubavitch leaders who do not hold this view, and among those who do hold the view there are some wonderful dedicated Jews, so it is not our intention to deprecate these people, but to make it clear that this view is not in the Torah tradition."

It is rare for one Orthodox group to publicly criticize another, even if not by name.

Still the response among both factions of the Lubavitch was strong.

Rabbi Shmuel Butman, chairman of the International Campaign to Bring Moshiach, responded to the RCA by saying: "Questions of belief in Judaism are a matter of halachah [Jewish law] and should be referred to recognized Torah giants of the generation for a decision."

"They have never been decided by popular vote, even of a rabbinic organization," he said, adding that he hoped the RCA would refer the issue to its halachic committee.

Butman also said the Lubavitch rebbe himself wrote in 1951 that the "Moshiach can arise with those select few who will be resurrected before the redemption."

Thus, he said, a vote such as that taken by the RCA "is like voting against the rebbe."

Those Lubavitchers who do not endorse the Messianic camp were clearly pained by the RCA resolution.

"It is unfortunate that the rabbinic convention chose to focus yet more attention on these activities, only further obscuring the real work and philosophy of Lubavitch," which is "to spread the light of Torah to every corner of the world," said Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, a leading member of the movement's umbrella organization.

"We have no record of the promoter and driving force behind this resolution ever having attempted to contact the figures of authority within the Lubavitch movement," Krinsky added, "all of whom are well-known to oppose the irresponsible pronouncements and activities of a few."

Berger, who is an RCA member and works as a professor of history at Brooklyn College and at the Graduate School of the City University of New York, wrote a lengthy article criticizing Lubavitch messianism in the magazine of the Orthodox Union last fall.

The Orthodox Union is a sister organization of the RCA.

Heated debate and correspondence in the magazine followed the controversial piece.

In an interview, Berger said if the Orthodox community allows these Messianic views to become regarded as legitimate in the Jewish world, "it's a fundamental change in the Jewish religion."

In addition, "Jews have then taken away from themselves one of the central arguments we've been using against the Christian missionaries for the last thousand years," he said, referring to the belief that the Messiah died and was resurrected.

Indeed, the so-called Messianic Jewish community, which cloaks Christian theology in Jewish customs and language, has seized on Lubavitch messianism, often using it to bolster its own theological arguments in its promotional literature.

One Jew who converted to Christianity and became a Southern Baptist minister later evangelizing for Jews for Jesus and other Hebrew Christian groups, described Lubavitch messianism as "the birth of a second Christianity."

"Does this sound like something that happened 2,000 years ago?" said Joseph Daniels, who lives in Baltimore and asked that his real name not be used.

Butman, however, took issue with this view.

The belief that the Messiah can die and be resurrected before redemption "is an integral part of Judaism," he said.

"Because someone else misuses it does not take away anything from Jewish belief."

Source: The Jewish Telegraphic Agency. This article was printed in multiple places, including the Jewish Bulletin of Northern California

• 1,000 Orthodox rabbis reject claim rebbe was Messiah

Rabbi Aharon Feldman

Rabbi Aharon Feldman is the rosh yeshiva (dean) of Ner Israel Rabbincial College - probably North America’s second largest yeshiva.

• Hebrew letter by Rabbi Aharon Feldman

Rabbi Aharon Feldman is the rosh yeshiva (dean) of Ner Israel Rabbincial College - probably North America’s second largest yeshiva. This letter was accompanied by a hand-written note stating “I am not opposed to the publicizing of these words” This is an unauthorized translation from the Hebrew. A copy of the original is available online. http://moshiachtalk.tripod.com/feldman.pdf

Sivan 23, 5763 (June 24, 2003) Baltimore

To…Gil Student…,

This is in answer to the letter you sent me in which you sought to know how one should relate to those Chassidim of Chabad (called “meshichistim”) who believe that their deceased rebbe will rise to live again as our righteous moshiach and to those of them (called “elokistim”) who even believe that the essence of the Divine is enclothed in their rebbe; who even pray to him and of whom some call him “borainu” (“our creator”).

It would be better if, in these matters affecting the entire Jewish nation, the Torah leaders of our generation (of whom I could not be counted even among their students) should express their opinions, however, since you seek guidance in the matter and your need has not yet been met, I will express my opinion.

In my humble opinion, the belief of the elokistim runs counter to one of the thirteen principles of faith and indeed the Rambam (Hilchos Teshuva) rules that (such people) are in the category of heretics (“minim”). Therefore, their shechita and testimony (including that relating to kashrus) are invalid and one may not include them in a minyan. Even though their belief is inadvertent (“shogeg”), it is already well known (from Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik of Brisk z”l) that one who holds an opinion of non-belief (“apikorsus”) inadvertently is considered a non-believer nonetheless. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein in his work “Igros Moshe” (Orech Chaim, Vol 4, section 91 para. 6) draws the same conclusion.

Regarding your question on how to relate to the halachic doubt caused by the existence of many elokistim who conceal their true beliefs: it would seem that the majority do not believe thus and we may assume that a given Lubavitcher is from the majority who do not belong to this group.

However, the meshichistim are not to be considered non-believers (“apikorsim”) and they remain within the category of “your nation,” their testimony and shechita are valid and it is permitted to include them in a minyan. However, great danger surrounds their belief, for it digs beneath the very foundation of the Jewish belief in moshiach!

First of all, their belief runs counter to that which, for all generations, has been accepted among Jews. They (the meshichistim) have no source in either the Torah’s written or oral components nor within Jewish tradition. The sources they present are without substance (“hevel”). That which they quote masechta Sanhedrin 98b according to one opinion of Rashi, that the moshiach will come from among the dead and that he will be like Daniel, is a proof to the opposite: for are we talking here about a candidate on the level of Daniel of whom our sages said that his understanding (of Divine matters ) was greater even than that of the prophets Chagai, Zecharia and Melachi?

Furthermore, the Rambam concludes (Hilchos Melachim ch. 11) that if someone who could, in theory, be considered a candidate for Moshiach is killed, that is clear proof that he isn’t Moshiach (and the Rambam’s source for this lies in the words of our sages as is clear from the commentators).

Now even if it is true that the meshichistim are not considered non-believers, it is still forbidden to support them or publicize their opinions for it is forbidden to support falsehood. All the more so in this case where there exists the danger that their belief might spread to the general Jewish community and thus the Torah itself could be erased from Israel, chas v’sholom.

Therefore, one who finds himself among Lubavitchers who observe customs aimed at strengthening their faith (for instance, those who chant “yechi adonainu hamelech hamoshiach” at the end of davening), is required to leave, or, if possible, to offer rebuke.

Furthermore, in my opinion it is clear that even though the meshichistim are not considered “non-believers,” nevertheless, they are presumably (“b’chezkas”) people who lack Torah understanding and it is impossible to rely on their conclusions in Torah matters - even issues that do not relate to Moshiach.

Someone who believes that - from all those who have died throughout all the generations (including nevi’im, tana’im, amora’im, rishonim and the giants of every generation until ours), the deceased Lubavitcher rebbe is the most fit to be our righteous redeemer - surely lacks proper understanding of Torah values. Without this understanding it is impossible to properly judge what is more and less important in a Torah issue.

It is impossible to rely on the Torah opinions of such a man, and certainly we may not rely on him as a rav or leader in Israel. Further, one may not attend his lectures for his words must be assumed to be in error. Even the act of going to hear him affords him honor in the eyes of others, causing those others to respect his words even as they relate to moshiach.

I will conclude with the prayer that the Holy One, Blessed be He, should remove from us all false opinions and all strife. He should send us, quickly in our day, our righteous moshiach to bring light to the darkness, so we may see the fulfillment of the verse (Isaiah 11; 9) “…the world will be filled with knowledge as water covers the sea.”

With great honor,

(signed)

Aharon Feldman

Rabbi Norman Lamm

Lamm quote in The Jewish Week

Here are quotes from Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm in The Jewish Week, from 11/11/2005. The article is entitled Lubavitcher Rebbe Meets The Academy: Three-day conference at NYU explores philosophy, mysticism and messianism. by Debra Nussbaum Cohen

Rabbi Norman Lamm, retired president of Yeshiva University, who spoke on “The Rebbe, Mysticism and Philosophy” on Tuesday, was the first to address Lubavitch messianism head-on. In speaking for the first time in public about the rebbe, there was much he lauded, asserting that “his genius lay in his exquisite combination of high intellect and his ongoing concern about each and every individual Jew, not only his own group.”

But he also sharply criticized the messianic thrust that the public face of the movement seems to be increasingly taking. “I do not believe that the rebbe thought himself to be moshiach. But I do think he considered himself a possible candidate,” said Rabbi Lamm. He decried the movement’s “over-emphasis on messianism” and castigated those who now say that the rebbe is the messiah but simply concealed from view.

"To continue this myth of his being moshiach is utter ridiculousness,” he said. It is easy for the messianically-oriented “to distort” the rebbe’s teachings and say “that the rebbe is part of the God-head. That is completely heretical and quite dangerous,” he asserted. “I wonder if this distortion could and should have been avoided by responsible leadership of a movement that has not lost its vitality."

• Lubavitcher Rebbe Meets The Academy

Lamm quote in The Forward newspaper

Here is a quote from Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm in The Forward

Lubavitch messianism itself was criticized strongly by Rabbi Norman Lamm, chancellor and former president of Yeshiva University, in response to a presentation on Schneerson's esoteric thought. Lamm asserted that Schneerson's statements could be misinterpreted to create a "distortion" leading to "moral nihilism." In an interview with the Forward, Lamm asserted that such open efforts to declare Schneerson the messiah would not have been tolerated before his death. "When he was alive, no one would have dared to discuss this," Lamm said.

Conference Weighs Rebbe's Legacy By Steven I. Weiss, November 11, 2005, The Forward

Conference Weigns Rebbe's Legacy (Forward article)

Transcript of Lamm's remarks

The following is a partial transcript of Rabbi Norman Lamm's recent remarks at a conference about Chabad Judaism held in New York City in Fall 2005. This is not from some blog. This quote is from the actual Forward newspaper reporter, whose articles appear in the Forward, and whose work is cited above.

• Partial transcript of Rabbi Norman Lamm's remarks

First, a quote from the reporter:

"Everyone in attendance thought that the session on messianism would start some fireworks, but no one predicted that the fireworks would start a couple of hours early. R' Dr. Norman Lamm was the respondent to the papers of proffesors Moshe Hallamish, Alan Brill and Elliott Wolfson. There's what to say, separately, about his response to Brill, but it was his response to Wolfson that got the messianism question rolling — and in quite aggressive fashion. Wolfson's paper, Secret of the Secret: Esotericism in Menachem Mendel Schneerson's Kabbalah, discussed certain key secrets in Schneerson's work. Rabbi Lamm read in part from notes, and some of it was off the cuff. Some key quotes:"

My main concern in reaction to this admirable presentation of the arcane thought of R' Menachem Mendel Schneerson, is how easy it is to twist it into a radical messianism that is now taking place in meshichistic circles in Brooklyn and especially in Kfar Chabad. Let me recap two of the salient points in the paper and ask whether it might have been better for the Rebbe's "secret of secrets" to be kept secret if only for the spiritual welfare of his flock....

Early in his paper, Professor Wolfson avers that "the secret of the secret"…is that "in its most inwardness, the soul is conjoined to divinity…the soul is consubstantial with God," and refers to this as "an insight that significantly closes the gap separating the human and the divine, a gap that is typically assumed to be a basic tenet of Biblical and rabbinical Judaism."

While this is not alien to Kabbalistic thinking, the idea of yichud refers to unification with the sephirot, never — to my knowledge — with the ohr ain sof itself. The adept must therefore steer a careful course between depicting the highest stages of religious consciousness and the erasure of the ultimate gap between God and man....

Is this not easy to distort into justification that the Rebbe as Messiah is part of the Godhead?....

In R' Menachem Mendel Schneerson's thought, the higher form of worship entails "the transmutation of evil into good." According to Professor Wolfson, the Rebbe contends that the Messianic redemption's highest achievement — the esoteric meaning of Torah — is brought about by the act of self-negation that is above the intellect and beyond the nomian framework of the halacha. With the mystical attainment of undifferentiatied oneness, one thing can be transformed into its opposite, light to darkness and the reverse, and likewise good and evil. This ultimate coincidence, according to the Rebbe is reserved for the Messianic era.

Now, the ability to transform evil to good has its origins in the writings of the Great Maggid, teacher of Rabbi Schneur Zalman, for whom teshuva becomes possible because it reachest the sephirat chochma…and thus sin is turned into mitzvah. But this is not by any means as radical as the Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson thesis of the consequences of the messianic redemption. For Rabbi Schneerson, according to Professor Wolfson, "Messianic redemption is, in hypernomian terms, the overcoming of all binaries…a mystical vision that allows one to see that darkness and light are no longer distinguishable."....

Granted that this ethically anarchic state is reserved for the messianic era, and presumably not for us in the here-and-now, is it not easy to find in this concept a "source" for a kind of Sabbatian antinomianism and moral nihilism — especially if one believes moshiach has arrived, in the form of Rabbi Schneerson?

I wonder if this distortion could and should have been avoided by responsible leadership of a movement that has not lost its vitality. And that too is a serious question: is the continued vitality somehow connected to the underlying esoteric theology of the movement in its most radical form?

(The newspaper reporter from The Forward, Mr. Weiss, continues with more quotes from Rabbi Lamm, and follow up notes from a second interview with Lamm.)

In response to a question about referring to messianists ("meshichists") as "meshuggists" (i.e. crazies), Lamm said "You don't have to be meshuga, you could also be irrational." He was further asked about the reading of sources that has allowed for the messianism, and replied, essentially, that he doesn't care if there's a way to read that into the sources, it's morally problematic [I'm going to see if I can get an actual quote for that].

For Lamm, then, the messianic idea that has become an allowed interpretation delivers a profound moral and halachic problem. I interviewed Lamm after his speech. Obviously, the first question is whether he agrees that Wolfson's interpretation is accurate, or whether the Wolfson interpretation he's answering does not truly represent Schneerson's thought. "I think he's on target," he replied.

"There's an implied criticism" of Schneerson within that, for not having closed off the possibility of an interpretation that becomes problematic "in the hands of someone who's irresponsible," which are "consequences that the author himself would never have predicted permitted."* Such an interpretation, he said "is not a legitimate conclusion."

Lamm asserted that Schneerson's views expressed in the texts Wolfson cited "belongs purely in the realm of speculation" and that "when he was alive, no one could would have dared to discuss this,"* that Schneerson would have cut off any implementation of such speculation. The immediate reaction by all whom I spoke to* was that Lamm's presentation was not academic. I discussed this with Wolfson, whose first comment was that Lamm was "correct, but…not academic," that Lamm's judgment comes "as an Orthodox Jew." But I proposed that it is academic, at least as far as moral philosophy is an academic subject, and Wolfson replied "you're right."

• UPDATE: Lamm called me this morning and suggested some minor, but relevant changes to the above, all of which I thought were fair.

1) Change of "predicted" to "permitted". 2) Change of "could have" to "would have dared to" 3) Change of "all present" to "all whom I spoke to" (indeed, this was a lapse in judgment I shouldn't have made in the first place).

View of Professor Rabbi Allan Nadler

Professor Rabbi Allan Nadler is a non-Orthodox Jewish scholar. In the newspaper The Forward, on October 19, 2001, he wrote "A Historian's Polemic Against 'The Madness of False Messianism'"

The recitation of what has become known in shorthand as "the Yehi" ("Long live our master, teacher and rebbe, King Moshiakh for ever and ever") is now a standard part of the Lubavitcher liturgy. It is recited in Lubavitch synagogues and yeshivas before donning tefillin, during the grace after meals and even at the conclusion of the Neila service on Yom Kippur. Lubavitch spokesmen and publications regularly refer to their late rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson (who, at least according to the office of the King's County coroner in Brooklyn, died in 1994), not only as the living "Melekh Ha-Moshiakh" (King-Messiah); they extol him as "the Honored Rabbi, the Holy One Blessed Be He" whose yahrzeit is the day of the rebbe's "apotheosis" and who is the "Essence and Being of God enclothed in a body."

Lubavitcher chasidim appear to pray to the image of the rebbe, whose portrait can be seen adorning the mizrach (eastern) walls of their synagogues (in blatant violation of Jewish law), and write of him as if he were God incarnate. To cite just one Lubavitch source from Rabbi Berger's book, an article in the chabad journal Beis Moshiakh concludes with the following line that transposes the popular Sabbath hymn "Eyn K'Eloheinu" from God to Schneerson: "So, who is Eloheinu [our God]?... The Rebbe, Melekh Ha-Moshiakh, that's who."

Yet, despite the obviously heretical nature of this messianic faith in Schneerson (through a painstaking scholarly analysis, Rabbi Berger accurately defines it as idolatry), few, even among the most pious Orthodox, seem to care. "Jews shrug," he writes with astonishment, "go about their private and communal business, and assume that all is well, while their traditional messianic belief collapses around them." ...

...One of the most dangerous consequences of the messianic carnival that has overtaken Lubavitch society during the past two decades has been its exploitation by fundamentalist Christian missionaries. Reporting on a California highway billboard with the phone number of a Christian mission to the Jews, a picture of Schneerson and the words "Right Idea: Wrong Person," Rabbi Berger concludes with sadness that "the profound theological differences between Judaism and Christianity have been reduced to a matter of mistaken identity."

This perverse development has also led Dennis Prager — the national radio show host whom this reviewer has long considered a dangerous Jewish version of Jerry Falwell — to propose in earnest that the Jewish community embrace Jews for Jesus so long as they repudiate the idea of Jesus's divinity and stop proselytizing to the mainstream Jewish community. This proposal is, as Rabbi Berger accurately reports, based on Mr. Prager's analogy between Jews for Jesus and "some wonderful chabad Jews who believe the last Lubavitcher Rebbe was the messiah."

...To be sure, Rabbi Berger's tale does not only recount his many failures; it also records some victories, most notably his success in having the Rabbinical Council of America, the world's largest body of Orthodox rabbis, issue a statement at its annual convention in 1996 that condemns Lubavitch false messianism. But such victories have been both limited and short-lived. And it is doubtful that the Orthodox establishment will adopt his stringent practical proposals about how to deal with the problem,...

• A Historian's Polemic Against 'The Madness of False Messianism'"

Professor Aviezer Ravitzky

Source: The Forward, NY, January, 18 2002, Attack on Chabad Is Called Unredeemable, By Yori Yanover

In his own remarks, Mr. Ravitzky explained that those inside Lubavitch who wait for their rebbe to return from the dead and redeem the world may be foolish, but by no means is this expectation heretical or antithetical to Judaism.

Mr. Ravitzky did not mince words about the potential danger in some of the ideas of these "non-heretic" messianists, which on occasion come alarmingly close to Christian dogma. However, he urged Mr. Berger to hearken the words of those like the late Israeli philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz, who once said of a Jewish faction he considered misguided: "Torah does not prohibit a person from being stupid." Mr. Ravitsky also quoted Rabbi Aaron Soloveichik, the late Yeshiva University sage, who once said about Jewish messianism (as opposed to messianic Judaism, or "Jews for Jesus"): "It's silliness, but it isn't heresy."