Lockshin responds to critics

I read with interest the reactions (CJN, Jan. 31) to my article "The Messiah Controversy" (CJN, Jan. 17). The authors said my article was not newsworthy, either because the Second Coming messianists constitute a small fringe movement, because there is nothing wrong with such messianism or because there are more crucial issues than this one.
Rabbi David Berger's recent book (The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference) has convinced me that Second Coming messianism has no place in Orthodox Judaism. The Rabbinical Council of America - the largest and most influential Orthodox rabbinical body in North America - has endorsed his position. The book has also convinced me that belief in Second Coming messianism is not limited to some tiny fringe group within the Lubavitch movement. Readers of The CJN can peruse the book, weigh that evidence against the arguments and reach their own conclusions.
In my neighbourhood in Toronto, there is a Lubavitch synagogue where the Yechi adonenu prayer ("May our Master, Teacher and Rabbi, the King Messiah, live forever") has become part of the liturgy. If this synagogue were simply a small group of fringe Jews doing something anomalous, perhaps it would not be newsworthy. But it reaches out to attract Jews of all stripes to a new form of Judaism that includes references to a dead person whom they consider the messiah. Canadian Jews should be aware that outreach of this nature is occurring.
I am sad that a wonderful group like Lubavitch - which has done so much to advance the cause of Torah Judaism - is either unwilling or unable to rid itself of this faction. At best, non-messianists proudly proclaim that Rabbi Berger's book "will have no impact on Chabad's work." At worst, they indulge in a mind-boggling, vilification campaign. (An article in the Allgemeiner Journal of Jan. 18 argued that Rabbi Berger was the ultimate spiritual cause of the events of Sept. 11!)
Is Second Coming messianism the biggest problem facing Judaism today? Hardly. But it is newsworthy, as the number and urgency of the responses to my article prove.
No matter how you look at it, The CJN has provided a very important service to the community. If Rabbi Berger and I are right, then CJN readers deserve to know about the messianist problem. If Rabbi Berger and I are wrong, then it is important that CJN readers have a chance to read Rabbi J. Immanuel Schochet's spirited, articulate and nuanced defence of Lubavitch against the charges in Rabbi Berger's book.
Martin Lockshin
Director, Centre for Jewish Studies
York University

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