Decade after rebbe, Chabad alive and well
Eleven years ago, Prof. Menaham Friedman expressed doubts as to whether the Lubavitch movement would survive the death of the group's then stroke-stricken leader, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. And in the event that Chabad did survive, the most recognized authority on haredi sociology predicted, it would be as an "entirely different sect."
A decade following Schneerson's death, however, the hassidic movement is still growing. In Israel alone, the number of congregations has increased from 150 to 225, along with a concomitant growth in educational institutions. Throughout the world, Chabad sources say, the number of emissary families engaged in Jewish outreach has nearly doubled, from 2,200 to 4,000.
A more troubling doubling, however, is of the number of rallies scheduled to be held this Monday evening to commemorate the tenth anniversary of "Gimmel Tammuz," the Hebrew date of Schneerson's death. Besides the official "mainstream" assembly taking place in Tel Aviv's Yad Eliahu Stadium, a rival rally of "messianists" will be held in the new amphitheater of Bat Yam, the seaside town which, along with Safed, is a messianist stronghold.
The Israeli Chabad Movement has always had a greater messianist presence than the American one. The Jewish Week's appreciative editorial, marking the decade yahrzeit, reports that the influence of messianists in America is declining. Yet rank-and-file Chabadniks in Israel seem for the most part indifferent to demarking messianists from mainstream.
Said one non-messianist Jerusalem housewife from a veteran Chabad family, "I send two of my little girls to a messianist school because it's a good one. What do I care if they sing "Yechi" (the messianist theme song) there or not?"
"We're not looking for a fight" is the response heard time and again when Chabadniks are asked why they don't stop members of their congregation from singing "Yechi" at services.
"But we don't let them dance for 15 minutes, which they do at messianist congregations," added one American-born professional.
A resident of a haredi town outside Jerusalem, he sends one of his own sons to a "messianist" yeshiva in Safed. "I'm familiar with the rabbis there, the caliber of learning is high, the hours are long. Students learn the same Gemara at every Chabad yeshiva, and this particular boy thrives on the extra edge of enthusiasm of a messianist environment."
His family will also display their crossover tendencies this Monday night, as each son follows his musical rather than theological tastes, with the messianist teenager going to the mainstream rally, where hassidic pop star Avraham Fried is scheduled to play, while the non-messianist heads for Bat Yam to hear the more musically sophisticated Avi Piamenta and Aaron Razel.
Mainstream Chabad rabbis describe the messianist position that the late rebbe is the long-awaited Jewish messiah as "weird but not necessarily forbidden." Only the handful of Chabadniks who claim divinity for Schneerson have been excommunicated for heresy.
But some anti-messianists, called "antim," do take a fighting stance. They are usually from more veteran families, and their sense of propriety is more painfully offended by their sect's name being "dragged through the mud" by the antics of the messianists, said one American Chabadnik.
While each section of the Jewish world focused on reconstructing itself after the Holocaust, Chabad was the only one to tackle Jewry in its entirety, noted Prof. Rachel Elior, head of the Department of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
"Chabad was not initially a messianic movement," explained Elior. "But the only plausible response it could find to the horrors was to interpret them as the [traditionally predicted] birth pangs of the messianic age."
Regarding criticism of Chabadniks for messianic beliefs, she pointed out, Jewish tradition has many figures who have transcended the border between life and death.
She also dismissed the possibility that the threat of schism looms over a movement that has weathered everything from excommunication by the Vilna Gaon, the legendary leader of 18th-century Lithuanian Jewry to relentless Communist persecution to rampant secularism.
So, why doesn't Chabad name a successor?
"What can they do if there is no
other person in sight as gifted as the Rebbe?" said Elior.
The Chabadniks' fervent belief/hope that Schneerson himself would turn out to be the Messiah, whose arrival he repeatedly declared was imminent, has long made them an irresistible target of jokes. "The Rebbe is still dead" was one headline that the Ma'ariv humor page carried for week after week following Schneerson's demise.
Mainstream Chabadniks, however, emphasize that the messiah issue is not the whole story. According to Zalman Shmotkin, director of chabad.org, Chabad's intellectual heritage continues to have an impact on Judaism everywhere. Just as iconic Jewish thinkers such as Lithuanian leader Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler and the modern Orthodox Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik studied classic Chabad texts in the last century, today growing numbers of Polish hassidic groups, as well as hesder yeshiva students, tackle the notoriously challenging works.
Last December on the 29th of Kislav, the anniversary of the first Chabad rabbi's release from a Russian prison, respected national religious Rabbi Motti Alon joined almost a thousand of his students in a long hitva'adut, or hassidic gathering of Torah discourses and song, led by Rabbi Yoel Kahan, considered one of today's primary elucidators of hassidic thought.
While Elior does not believe that Chabad has had any impact on the wider Israeli public outside its food distribution to the poor and its program of summer camps, the only show at this year's Israel Festival for which an extra performance had to be added due to excess demand was a concert of Chabad melodies.
Israel Prize composer Andre Hajdu led an ensemble of his mainly non-kippa wearing students, who explained how each tune reflected different Chabad philosophical concepts, such as the conflict of the longing for the infinite with the desire for tikkun olam (social justice). Hajdu suggested that those in search of meditation melodies could skip the trip to India and instead take one to the Israeli heartland town of Kfar Chabad. Russian immigrants, settlers, or scantily bloused secular girls – the audience seemed composed of every sector of Israeli society but black-hatted or bewigged Chabadniks themselves.
Another aspect of Chabad's influence is politics. Since Prime Minister Ariel Sharon pushes forward his plan to unilaterally disengage from the Gaza Strip – relinquishing parts of the Land of Israel was anathema to Schneerson, to whom the prime minister was once close – does that mean that Chabad has lost political clout since their leader's death?
Chabad spokesman Menachem Brod sees no connection. "This is the result of other processes entirely," he said. "Menachem Begin also gave up the Sinai, against the rebbe's expressed wishes."
Chabadniks took an active role in the successful campaign that defeated Sharon's plan in the Likud referendum, Brod said.
On the Internet, at least, Chabad still seems to serve as Judaism's brand name. With 50,000 visits daily – a half-million before the holidays – chabad.org is where a confused gentile asks what he can do so that his Jewish girlfriend, with whom he has had a child, will marry him ("She does not like to talk about it, as her family has a problem with our relationship."). Or, to where a New York-born Jew, "searching for God" but unable to learn about Judaism in the South Carolina town in which he's lived the last 20 years, writes in a modern-day Franz Rosenzweig moment just before his scheduled baptism, "So, I wonder... what do you think?"
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