Customer Reviews

The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference

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Most reviewers have either put 1 star or 5 stars which indicates, to me, a partisan attitude towards the book. I put 3 stars to indicate that the book is interesting, does raise important points, but must be kept in proportion.
I live in Israel, am a member of the "National Religious" camp and consider myself a follower of former Chief Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak haKohen Kook's philosophy. Thus, for me the unity and internal peace of the Jewish people are paramount. If Berger is correct, the belief of some Habadniks that the Rebbe is the Mashiach and will come back to life in that role is "doctrinally incorrect" in normative (i.e. Orthodox) Judaism. The question that must be asked now is how to deal with those who hold these "incorrect" beliefs. Berger feels that the mainstream Jewish world is indifferent to the problem and thus a great danger is lurking out there and is not being confronted. I strongly believe that Berger is overstating the case. Doctrinal differences in the traditional Jewish community are nothing new. RAMBAM (Maimonides) wrote a classic halacha (Jewish law) book that did not include the sources he used. He also wrote the extremely controversial "Guide to the Perplexed". Many were outraged by these books and some were even burned. However, today, all groups accept the RAMBAM, even if they still disagree with his philosophical views. There is a raging debate in the religious world today over the age of the earth and universe, some claiming it is a matter of faith to believe they are 5765 years old, others, learned a pious, have no problem saying they are billions of years old. Some hold that the cosmology of the RAMBAM (based on Ptolemy) having the sun and planets go around the earth, is an integral part of the Torah given at Sinai, others say it is outdated and there is no problem with the Copernican view of the Solar System where the earth moves around the sun. The attitudes of the Hasidim and their Mitnaged opponents towards prayer, Torah study and other crucial matters differ widely, but today both accept each other as authentic religious Jews. Thus, people learned to live with differences that were once quite heated and sometimes lead to excommunications and even violence. Berger claims that the the essence of difference between Christianity and Judaism is the latter's rejection of someone rising from the dead and being Mashiach. This is a very gross oversimplification. Judaism can stand on its own and I don't see people becoming "confused" and going between Chabad and the other belief. Other false messianic movements like that of Shabtai Zvi and the Frankists led their followers away from mainstream Jewish observance and that is certainly not the case with Habad.
Here in Israel in the late 1980's and early 1990's there was a major controversy over the role of Habad and it led to many unfortunate and ugly incidents. Fortunately, this has more or less disappeared. If we were to follow Berger's advice, we would have to start an inquisition of each and every Habadnik's beliefs in order to decide whether he can remain an member of the Jewish society. NO ONE WANTS WITCHHUNTS OR A CIVIL WAR. Israel is now involved in a terrible war with Arab/Islamist terrorism, Jewry faces an onslaught of world-wide Judeophobia, and anti-relgious forces within Israel and the Jewish world are attacking the religious community in order to weaken it. These are the real challenges facing the Jewish people, and Habad plays an important (if not vital) role in its defense. Berger is right in pointing out that there are negative phenomena that can come out of doctrinal errors, but his warning MUST be kept in proportion and not be the cause of even more damage to the Jewish people in this time of peril. History has proven that groups that really broke with the mainstream traditional Jewish community over basic beliefs like the early Judeo-Christians, the Tzadukim (Sadducees), the Karaim (Karaites), Shabbateans, Frankists, and others have ultimately disappeared, so we can be confident that if a serious doctrinal error is really endangering Jewish belief, it will eventually extinguish itself in any event.

In his new book, which has been received with great acclaim from academics and rabbis from across the spectrum, Rabbi Dr. David Berger tells the story of how he and other Jewish leaders have been trying to get the Orthodox Jewish community to realize that a large, well-organized, and powerful messianic missionary group has been misrepresenting itself as Orthodox Judaism around the world.

Berger tells us how in 1994, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson died, and the radical tendencies in his chasidic teachings started to become even more manifest and obvious among his followers, the Chabad/Lubavitch chasidim. This group, with its headquarters in Crown Heights, had long been controversial. Deans of leading talmudical accademies in America, such as Rabbi Aaron Kotler, Rabbi Isaac Hutner, Rabbi Yaakov Weinberg, and Rabbi Henoch Leibowitz, had been making known their intense displeasure with the group and its leader for many years, and in the late 1980s the elder sage Rabbi Menachem Shach in Israel had pronounced Rabbi Schneerson a "False Messiah", citing, among other things, the statement of Rabbi Schneerson that a rebbe was the "Being and Essence of God in a human body." Despite the deeply felt and almost universal elite rabbinic opposition to the Lubavitch movement, the majority of the the Orthodox Jewish public, especially the Modern Orthodox community and its local rabbis, could not bring itself to think ill of the Lubavitch chasidim, who, as agents of their teacher, Rabbi Schneerson, had been engaging in Jewish outreach and Jewish education in a remarkable and selfless fashion around the world, founding synagogues and centers of Jewish education in far-flung communities no one else seemed to care about.

Berger's book describes how he has been fighting against either profound sympathy for Lubavitch or a general sense of apathy in trying to bring the Orthodox, especially the Modern Orthodox, Jewish community to recognize how far the Lubavitch group has strayed from normative Judaism over the years.

In the months following Rabbi Schneerson's death, a radical theology has emerged, one in which Rabbi Schneerson is viewed as having established himself as the Messiah, has completed his mission on Earth, and needs only to be "greeted" and "taken into our hearts" in order to return to the world. Some claim that he will be resurrected, others claim that he never died, that his body is as physically alive and healthy as ever, in the most literal sense. Hundreds of Lubavitch rabbis around the world, including the chief of the rabbinical court in Montreal, and many rabbis highly placed in the offical Israeli rabbinate, have signed a bizarre legal ruling that maintains that every Jew in the world is bound by Jewish law to accept Rabbi Schneerson as the Messiah. They maintain that Rabbi Schneerson was literally a prophet, and that he proclaimed that he was the Messiah who had arrived, and Jewish law requires Jews to accept the word of a prophet as binding.

Berger presents extensive and incontrovertible evidence that "a significant majority" of the Lubavitch movement accept Rabbi Schneerson as the Messiah, and that they are teaching his messiahship to tens of thousands of children in their schools around the world, including many children in the former Soviet Union (where they are poised to dominate all Jewish institutions) and Russian immigrants in Israel.

Berger also analyzes all of the "proofs" Lubavitchers claim to have brought to support their "Second Coming" ideology, and shows with the devastating critical precision of an accomplished academic scholar and rabbi that the rejection of this belief is not only integral to Judaism, but was a critical defining element for Jews over most of the last two millenia, when they often lived among a dominant Christian population that believed in precisely such a teaching. Already, Christian missionary groups have been taking eager advantage of the Lubavitch debacle. For instance, a recent "Jews for Jesus" billboard shows a picture of Rabbi Schneerson with a caption that reads, "Right Idea, Wrong Guy".

Berger takes great pains to address the problem of Lubavitch messianism as an issue separate and distinct from the problem of the frightening new worship of Rabbi Schneerson as a divine being that has appeared in several mainstream elements of the group. Although the two problems are entangled phenomena, Berger wants to make it clear to his readers that even if no Lubavitchers were worshipping Rabbi Schneerson, the idea of idenitfying a dead man as the Messiah and then waiting for his ressurection is a profoundly dangerous, and un-Jewish idea.

But Berger still outlines the contours of the group that worships Schneerson, and uses much of the second half of his book to present evidence that they are not the fringe element we thought they were, and that they have theologians of their own who are developing a theology of Schneerson that presents him as a "man-God" and that looks remarkably like certain stages of early Christianity. As Berger points out, even non-messianic (indeed even the few anti-messianic) Lubavitchers regularly claim, even after his death, that "der rebbe firt der velt": "The Rebbe runs the world." In Crown Heights, many of the school classrooms have a picture of Schneerson on the Eastern wall (towards which Jews pray), and in the main sanctuary of the movement at 770 Eastern Packway in Brooklyn, Lubavitchers now face the balcony (where Schneerson used to stand) during prayers. The students and children are insructed to "direct their hearts and thoughts" to Rabbi Schneerson, who is "omnipotent" and "omniscient", and will fulfill all of your wishes when you pray to him.

Mainstream Lubavitch institutions employ rabbis who have published lengthy defenses of the idea that the Rebbe is an incarnation of the infinite essence of God, and that this idea is meant in a completely literal sense, that he is not merely an intermediary between us and God.

Those who are as skeptical as I was at first to hear these incredible claims should buy the book (or borrow it from a library) and examine all the evidence for themselves. The reknowned rabbinic scholar Jacob Neusner, author of over 700 hundred books and former head of Jewish Studies at Brown University, declared in a recent issue of the Jerusalem Post that Berger's book was the most important Jewish book published in many years, and that Berger has established himself as a "sage-prophet" in having had the courage to write it.

Very possibly.

Stephen Tolaney of NY writes:

"In Crown Heights, many of the school classrooms have a picture of Schneerson on the Eastern wall (towards which Jews pray), and in the main sanctuary of the movement at 770 Eastern Packway in Brooklyn, Lubavitchers now face the balcony (where Schneerson used to stand) during prayers. The students and children are insructed to "direct their hearts and thoughts" to Rabbi Schneerson, who is "omnipotent" and "omniscient", and will fulfill all of your wishes when you pray to him."

This is a blatant lie. I have lived in Crown Heights for 5 years and daven regularly in '770'. Yes, they do say yechi after davening, that is up for discussion but regarding his other allegations:

1. I have not seen any schools with pictures of the Rebbe on the eastern wall. Not sure where he heard this from. Most schools do not have pictures in rooms where they daven, to avoid just such a problem chas v'shalom.

2. There are 3 or 4 individuals, all in cherem, all lunatics, who say the Rebbe is G-d (ch"v) and supposedly daven to him. They are condemned and ignored by the mainstream as fringe lunatics and do not represent anything remotely approaching a minority.

3. Everybody faces East during prayers in 770. Never saw anyone face any other way. Not sure where he heard this from...

4. There are NO pictures of the Rebbe in 770.

5. Stephen writes that 'The students and children are insructed to "direct their hearts and thoughts" to Rabbi Schneerson, who is "omnipotent" and "omniscient", and will fulfill all of your wishes when you pray to him."' Again not sure where he heard this, it is untrue and a horrible thing to say. Chabad schools place enormous emphasis on prepartaion for davening, getting into the right frame of mind, etc. I am not aware of *anyone* who does these things - and believe me, I've been around long enough...

I can only assume that somebody supplied wrong information. Come take a look at what is really going on before you condemn us.

The Professor, the Messiah and the Scandal of Calumnies
By J. Immanuel Schochet

Prof. David Berger's recent book. "The Rebbe, the Messiah and the Scandal of Orthodox
Indifference," is the subject of heated controversy. It attacks the Chabad-Lubavitch community,
charging it with false messianism, adopting Christian doctrines, heresy and idolatry.

Unfortunately, professional scrupulosity and a modicum of evidence one expects from an academic,
is missing. For example: on the one hand, Dr. Berger admits that "statistical precision [about the
Chabad community] is elusive, dependent partly on the reading of minds." Yet he insists repeatedly
that "large segments," a "substantial majority" and "mainstream Lubavitch" are guilty of his charges.

In turn, the official leadership of Chabad, which he recognizes to be decidely anti-messianist, is
downplayed to "quite minimal influence on the large majority of Lubavitch hasidim." Is Dr. Berger
really able to read minds?

Dr. Berger rejects pronouncements by two universally respected halachic authorities which support
Lubavitch and condemn the attacks against it. Rabbis Pinchas Hirshprung and Aaron Soloveichik
regard Lubavitch messianism as one side of a legitimate dispute. According to Dr. Berger, their
statements were issued under duress, when they were infirm. In effect he accuses them of violating
the Biblical prohibition not to be afraid of anyone to validate what he deems to be outright heresy.
Surely, then, he must dismiss anything else they said.

The book is a chronicle of Dr. Berger's quixotic battle against Lubavitch over many years. He
complains bitterly that his campaign is ignored by the bulk of orthodox Jewry. The only support he
received was from Satmar, Rabbis Chaim Keller of Chicago and Yaakov S. Weinberg of Baltimore,
disciples of Rabbi Eliezer Schach of Israel, and "distinguished individuals" who remain anonymous.
Except for Satmar, he fails to mention that these rabbis displayed a consistent hostility toward
hasidism in general, and Chabad in particular, for decades before messianism became an issue. Their
offensive statements, with charges of heresy and idolatry, go back at least to the 1950's, a part of
their obsession to resuscitate the historical feud between mitnagdim and hasidim of more than two
centuries ago.

Dr. Berger relates that "heads of non-hasidic yeshivas" shrugged off much of his material "on the
grounds that hasidism in general is idolatry," adding that he does not believe that this was meant
literally. If he were to examine the accessible records he will have to change his mind.

A major concern of Dr. Berger is that the messianists' assumption that the resurrected Lubavitcher
Rebbe may yet be the Messiah, "erases one of the defining characteristics of Judaism in a Christian
world." He cites missionaries who already utilize this assumption to justify their belief in a "second
coming." In other words, he defines Judaism by its differences from Christianity. One would think
that Judaism is defined by its own tradition, predating Christianity by more than a millennium.
Moreover, missionaries keep reprinting books citing numerous passages from Talmud, Midrash,
Zohar, Jewish Bible-commentaries and so forth, to support their claims. Are we now to delete these
passages from our tradition?

Dr. Berger spurns the rabbinic proof-texts cited by the messianists as a "rejected minority position"
which in the face of "overwhelming counter-opinions," have no standing in Jewish law. Thus he
violates a fundamental rule in halachic methodology: in disputes that do not affect actual practice
one cannot say who is right or wrong!

His reliance on arguments in polemical debates is curious. The Talmud clearly dismisses these as
"broken reeds" and "straw", polemical tactics to rebuff opponents.

More curious is his juggling-act. Originally he objected to the very possibility of a resurrected
Rebbe-Messiah. Facing solid counter-views, he invents something new. Now he claims that the
messianists affirm that the Rebbe was already the actual Messiah in his lifetime, started the
redemptive process, and will return to finish the job, analogous to Christian theology. Why is it that
no one ever heard of that before reading the book? No Lubavitcher can possibly say that. It stands
in flagrant contradiction to the Rebbe's explicit statements that the final word in these matters is a
ruling by Maimonides: the reality of the Messiah is established exclusively by his fulfilling the
actual prophecies of the redemption when he appears.

To be sure, the messianist faction has a handful of extremists who uttered obscene and heretical
statements. This lunatic fringe has been excommunicated from all camps. For Dr. Berger to build
a case on them, has as much meaning as building on the lunatic fringe of the mitnagdim which he
condones with a cavalier "I do not believe that they meant it literally."

Dr. Berger worries that the numerous Lubavitchers holding influential positions as chief-rabbis,
rabbis, and other religious functionaries throughout the world, threaten the future of Judaism. He
wants them dismissed. Question: were these people appointed because they are Lubavitchers or
because of their qualifications, including requisite scholarship? Is it conceivable that they know as
much about Jewish law, about what is acceptable and what is not, as their antagonists? Yet Dr.
Berger and his bedfellows arrogate to themselves the authority to be both the prosecutors and judges
over them.

The book's repetitiveness is annoying. Its numerous inaccuracies and crude distortions (as of an
article I wrote) are irritating. Its ignorant insults, such as Lubavitch constructing menorahs "of an
atypical sort because every new religion needs a symbol" when that is the form prescribed by
Maimonides, reveal the author's motivation.

The author notes that even some of his friends regard his efforts as "symptoms of a personal
idiosyncrasy" eliciting "musings about unhealthy obsessions." He should consider this more
seriously.
____________________________
Rabbi Schochet is a Professor of Philosophy in Toronto, Canada, and author of numerous books on
Jewish Thought and Mysticism.

Rabbi Berger has written a learned and humane polemic against the apotheosis of Menachem Schneerson. He explains why it is ridiculous and sacrilegious for Jews to acclaim a dead man as the Messiah in an unredeemed world. His arguments are clear and cogent, using the great Rabbinical texts, yet comprehensible to interested laypersons.
Rabbi Berger has limited his criticism to those elements in Lubavitch who revere the dead Rebbe as the Messiah, or even worship him as God himself. The book is in no way a general attack on Lubavitch. The vitriol heaped on the author by some signifies nothing more than reactive hysteria.
Those who are looking for a criticism of Lubavitch or the Ultra-Orthodox generally will not find it here.

An exhilarating book, well-argued, eye-opening, and compelling. Although it reads as a thrilling narrative, it in fact comprises a comprehensive set of arguments, countering both the specific defenses of the Chabad Messianic belief, as well as the various defenses of the myriad silent Orthodox bystanders.
Despite the gravity of the subject matter, the author's extraordinary wit keeps us smiling in amusement right up to the end of the book, where the epilogue is replaced by an epitaph (for the authentic messianic faith of the Jewish people).
For the record, the book does not center around the wild minority belief that the Rebbe maintains properties of a deity. Only towards the end of the book (chapter 8), does the author consider this position, carefully documenting the fascinating Chabad sources which reflect it, but at the same time relegating it to the status of a fringe position.
Rather, the focus of the book's criticism regards the single claim that the "Rebbe", a deceased Rabbinic figure, is in fact the Messiah. The book's mission is to demonstrate:
a] that such a proposition is untenable according to Jewish tradition (the myriad traditional and modern sources examined includes a careful treatment of the sources often quoted by Chabad proponents).
b] that this proposition, that the Rebbe is the Messiah, does in fact dominate the mainstream of the movement (among much other data, the author gathers and identifies a list of several hundred prominent Chabad rabbis who have signed public advertisements attesting to the Rebbe's Messiahship.)
c] that Rabbis from all other Orthodox sectors have, in one context or another, expressed their opposition to the Chabad Messianic position (including Rav Aharon Soloveichik zt"l - for the full story, see pages 70-72).
d] and finally, that, despite the previous item, the overall public outcry has been minimal, and as a result, the belief that the Messiah is a deceased Rabbi who will rise again to save us is de facto a tolerated Jewish belief, as striking as this belief may be.
This is a thrilling book, intensely disturbing in content, exceptionally pleasing in form, and wonderfully effective in its mission.

In my opinion, the chief weakness of this book is that the author doesn't show you how the modern-day disturbing behavior of the Lubavitcher chassidic movement is rooted in the teaching and leadership style of their deceased rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson.

Towards the end of the book, Berger skirts the issue a bit, and hints to the fact that any Lubavitcher chasid who would want to return to authentic Judaism while still maintaining a reverence for Rabbi Schneerson would have to "explain away" many disturbing things Rabbi Schneerson said in his lifetime. For instance: The Rebbe said that the Third Temple would descend from the sky and land next to the Lubavitch headquarters in Brooklyn and then proceed together with it to the land of Israel. The Rebbe also announced that he was a prophet. He said that the work of the Messiah was completed, and that the Messiah had arrived, and that all that we had to do was "greet" him. He also said that his deceased father-in-law (which means himself in the code of the movement, since they supposedly shared the same soul) was going to rise from the dead to redeem the Jewish people.

It's good that Berger makes this point, but we need others, perhaps rabbis who have left the movement, to come forward and write much, much more. People will only become completely convinced that David Berger is right and that Lubavitch is a dangerous deviant movement when they are shown how Rabbi Schneerson himself was the prime cause of the catastrophe. Criticizing the Lubavitcher chasidim while praising their rebbe will get us nowhere.

Although Berger finally seems aware of the fact that the Rebbe himself was the architect of mess the Orthodox community finds itself in today, but he refuses to make that point explicitly, probably because he realizes that he'd have to write another entire book to prove that point. He may also have realized that it will be easier to convince the public that the current behavior of the movement is disturbing than it would be to convince them that a beloved old sage was a modern-day false messiah. Most importantly, Berger wanted to write a book about things he knew he could prove conclusively and authoritatively in a short volume. Venturing into the realm of the Rebbe's leadership and teachings to show how he created the movement in its current state is simply something that someone else, another concerned scholar, will have to do.

So, in conclusion, David Berger's book is valuable, compelling, and excellently crafted, but only the very beginning of what is going to have to be done to repair the world of Orthodox Judaism.

Dr. Berger has done an excellent job of ripping the insouciantly benign mask off the face of Chabad's current predicament, and of presenting a strong case proving Lubavitch to be beyond the pale of normative Judaism. It seems as though with the passing of time this formerly grand movement is boring itself deeper and deeper into the black hole of immediate messianic expectations. It is a sad sight to countenance. Of all the good Chabad folks I know, only one, a rabbi of a relatively small community in Southern California, confided in me a few years back that the Rebbe's passing conclusively proved he was not the messiah (my other, otherwise rational, Chabad acquaintances are always annoyingly opaque on the issue, and would never admit to the foregoing). He went on to say that Lubavitch was in dire need of a new leader, and that such an appointment was the only measure which could possibly stem the messianic tide which threatens to dissipate the movement. Too bad even he couldn't bring himself to speak his mind to his own congregation. Just shows how extensive the messianic reign of "terror" is throughout Chabad these days. Excellent book; a must read for Orthodox Jews.

While I think there is some exaggeration in the diety issue, my experience is that what he claims in the book represents the 'normal' beliefs of Lubavitch. I have yet to have anyone deny to me that they believe the Rebbe is still the messiah (or condemn those who still do)

It is about time that someone wrote a book about the terrible problems facing Lubavitch. It is quite unfortunate that instead of taking the critique or at least considering it, many lubavitchers take it personally in their reviews and blame even great Torah leaders of some kind of bias against them or against chasidism in general. Don't they realize that most Torah Jews and Chasidim do not agree with their ways? Great Torah Leaders who are so well known for their knowledge of Torah and their fear of G-D have denounced their ways. Why do they rely on one individual when most of the carriers of the Mesorah are against his ways. Is such the way of the Torah that those who get close to Hashem would become biased against an entire group of our people? These Gedolim and Tzaddikim cry for them - why don't they wake up and smell the coffee? Even if the Lubavitch Rebbe did perform miracles that is not a reason to follow the ways of his Chasidim as the Torah says "Lo Bashimayim Hu", the Torah is not in shmayim. We do not pick our sages based on the miracles that they perform, we pick them based on logical reasoning - when the sages of the prior generation endorsed them and those who fear G-D the most in this generation respect them. Follow the mesorah from the Chofetz Chaim, the Chazon Ish and from non-chabad Chasidish Rebbes on down to our generation and you will find the truth. They have built up so many thought patterns in order to justify their ways that they have almost lost the ability to understand where they are going wrong. Woe is to us to have lost such a great group of our people... We cry out to them... but they don't want to listen.