Customer Reviews

Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menahem Mendel Schneerson

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The fatal flaw in this dense, virtually impenetrable, book is that there's very little to connect Wolfson's ideas, however interesting, to the ideas of the person he purports to analyze, namely, R. MM Schneerson. In order to achieve this, he must first adopt a radical postmodern POV that rejects the validity of facts and sees them as mere subjective fabrications. Once that notion is established, he can sail easily into fantasy land, and claim anything he desires about Schneerson's "secret", which only he, a non-Hassid, was able to crack.

One only wonders why none of Schneerson's numerous disciples, including those who spend their entire life studying every scintilla of his work, have heard him live since he became Rebbe and even prior to that, and have a deep understanding of his and his predecessors' work - why none of them seem to grasp this "secret", and only an outsider, an academic, was able to. That alone should give you pause, that something is off in this book.

Here's the rub. The author's main thesis is that Schneerson did not really intend to preach the notion of the Messiah as an actual figure who will redeem the world. Schneerson's Redemption is not World Redemption but Personal Redemption, a state of mind that is achieved through the liberation of consciousness that allows one to see The Unity of Everything and does not fall prey to illusionary distinctions of good and evil. That's the big "open" secret his disciples didn't get.

Alas, virtually nothing in Schneerson's writings suggests that. Countless times throughout his speeches and letters, he refers to the Messiah as an actual, physical human being, he alluded numerous times that he in fact is that person, and that Redemption is World Redemption, not only Personal Redemption. This is clearly spelled out in his work, and is easily inferred by his behavior. Only highly elaborate academic somersaults can twist this around, and argue that he meant pretty much the exact opposite of what he clearly said and did.

I've taught in the Religion Department of a highly-regarded liberal arts college for 23 years, and over that period have fought a constant uphill battle in my own teaching to avoid watering down material for students. This past semester, in a course on Jewish messianism, I decided to assign "Open Secret," a brilliant book that I myself was struggling through, in an attempt to puzzle out its thesis together with my advanced students.

I am rarely surprised by the intelligence and perspicacity of my students, indeed, I take it for granted. But I was truly amazed at how many in class really got into the book. We proceeded slowly and deeply and unpacked small enough chunks of Wolfson's thesis that they really got it. Earlier in the semester, we had discussed the idea of apophatic language--language that erases itself, like a person walking on a beach trailing a palm frond and obviating her footsteps--in relation to the Zohar, where the rose is and yet is not a rose, or a particular color is or is not that color (On apophasis generally, see "Mystical Languages of Unsaying" by Michael Anthony Sells). When Wolfson's language got tough (poetry can be difficult, as any English major knows) they pointed out to me the way in which the study itself was often couched in apophatic language that was performative or mimetic of the apophasis in the concepts themselves. As the title of this short review indicates, nothing truly good is easy, particularly when one speaks of concepts that are esoteric to begin with. This is a book worth going back to again and again in order to plumb its depths, which truly exist and which help counterbalance the heavily sociological approach generally taken with regard to Habad Hassidus with a true investigation of the "inside of the inside" of actual doctrine and theology. Kudos!

Professor Wolfson's Open Secret is thoroughly researched. Habad texts are typically lengthy, voluminous (thousands upon thousands of pages). Prof. Wolfson's successfully distilled these texts, setting forth a fascinating and clear exposition of Habad's approach to messianism. I enjoyed reading this book, and learned a couple of things along the way.

This academician connects the teachings of Menahem Mendel Schneerson with the Jewish mystical tradition that transcends the body as well as time, redefining the past and projecting into the future.