Abstract
In 1862 Moses Hess, a German Young Hegelian, commended the Hasidic movements as practical socialism. The Hasidic geist echoed not Hegel but the Lurianic kabbalah, summoning Jews to struggle against the ego, so that the soul might ascend to the light of the Creator.
Samuel Heilman and Menachem Friedman, co-authors of The Rebbe, have fulsome experience of sociological research on orthodox Jewish institutions. The Rebbe is a biography of the Seventh ruler of the Habad Hasidic sect, one of a family of Pietist sects that emerged within Judaism in the eighteenth century. In Anthony F.C. Wallace’s terms these are revitalization movements. Here is a bit of historical background. They distinguish themselves from more general Jewish orthodoxy by their emotional, even ecstatic, worship practices and by intensifying hope of messianic materialization. Their leaders have been wonder-working rabbis infused with the Divine spirit. Their prayers are healing and their amulets bring good fortune. Hasidic leaders radiate what Weber called the charisma of office, in turn, derived from gentil charisma of dynastic succession.
Two mystically-oriented kabbalistic movements served as test runs for Hasidism. One was Sabbateanism, led by Shabbatai Zevi, crowned as Messiah, in the mid-seventeenth century Ottoman Empire. Arrested by the Sultan for his excesses, he converted to Islam and earned a pardon (Maciejko, p. 7). Jacob Frank (1726–1791), also drawing on the Lurianic kabbalah, opened a way to Christianity (Maciejko, p. 34). A number of Frank’s followers converted to Roman Catholicism while seeking to preserve their Jewish cultural identity (Maciejko, pp. 107, 127). The non-Jewish community at the time was pursuing witches in Germany and blood libels in Eastern Europe. Demonological literature was popular among Jews and Christians.
Israel ben Eliezer (1698–1760) was born in Podolia into this environment. In his twenties he led a group of rabbis from town to town attempting to educate Jews in Judaism and planting the seeds of what would become Hasidism. He encouraged them to work the land and to study Torah. Purported magic forces could heal the sick and increase the fortunes of those he blessed. His followers cast him as the Ba’al Shem Tov, possessor of the good name, known by its acronym as the Besht. His knowledge of the Divine Names, especially the secret names of God, permitted him to call upon God for miracles. He, too, drew on the kabbalah, especially the Zohar, to channel the powers of an immanent God. Dov Ber, successor to the Ba’al Shem Tov, preached the kabbalistc annihilation of the self, the ani became the ayin (the I became nothing). Talmudically authorized rabbis were quick to condemn Hasidic rabbis for consorting with pagan gods.
Similar sectarian phenomena were occurring in Christian Europe. Jansenists called upon Christians to sense God’s Grace and condemned Pelagians who would achieve Grace through their own acts. Jewish tradition is Pelagian through and through in its call to observe the commandments. Wesleyan Methodists, first in Europe and then in the American colonies, established a holiness church. They held that to be fulfilled is to be filled with the fullness of God. Hasidim certainly shared this characteristic.
Hasidic sects were structurally differentiated forms of traditional Judaism. Their leaders denounced the Sabbateans and Frankists who, in practice, crossed religious boundaries. The Hasidim shaped a separate identity within Judaism by adopting the Lurianic prayer book, Siddur HaAri and by declaring that the knives used in traditional animal slaughter do not meet the standard of sharpness, among other practices. For Hasidim, animal slaughter for food also had a mystic side. Believing in reincarnation, they held that the returning souls could pass through animals which, if eaten by a Zaddiq, a righteous one, could cleanse the soul of the sins of its previous life (Shmeruk, p. 175).
Hasidic communities have emerged around individual rabbinic scholars facilitated by the agreement that a properly ordained rabbi could be a decider of law. Shneur Zalman of Liadi (1745–1812), a Russian town, was so designated. Beyond his rabbinic education he also studied mathematics and science and kabbalah. His Tanya was an effort to apply kabbalistic concepts to everyday life. He was the founder of Habad. Other Hasidic dynastic founders included Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav (1772–1810), a town in the Ukraine, for whom faith trumped intellect. He preached relying on instinct and intuition rather than the subtle dialectics of study. Isaac Meir Rothenburg (1799–1866) was the first leader of the Gerer Hasidim, named for a town near Warsaw. He eschewed miracles and preached that Jews should become self supporting through work and called for them to settle the land in Palestine (Rabinowicz, pp. 227ff). The Satmar Hasidim, named for a town in Hungary, trace their beginnings to Rabbi Moses Teitelbaum (1759–1841). In principle they avoid as much contact as possible with the secular world.
Now let us open the book. The full title of the work reviewed here is The Rebbe: The Life and After Life of Menachem Mendel Schneerson. It is a biography in the traditional sense. “After Life,” refers to the theophanous hope that Menachem Mendel, the dead Messiah, is destined to return to repair the world. Previous biographies, the authors tell us, have been hagiographies but Heilman and Friedman promise an objective and dispassionate treatment. This promise is kept until the final pages where the authors betray their displeasure with the messianists among the followers. Otherwise the work qualifies as non-judgmental.
The book opens with a dramatic depiction of an assembly in Brooklyn of Habad emissaries from around the world. In course, they visit the grave of the Rebbe’s predecessor, sing, dance, and pray. From time to time the Rebbe shares a meditation. This opening is a flashback, a literary technique in which an opening scene anticipates the closing section of the drama. The book ends with an image of the dead Zaddiq, righteous Rabbi, who, unlike earlier leaders of Habad, was not simply the herald of the Messiah but has, by some followers, been declared the Messiah who is in hiding, awaiting a time to reappear. This is a good opener for a tale. An academic reader, though, might miss the expected statement of data gathering and data analysis methods. The authors are experienced ethnographers who observe widely and, as Clifford Geertz might say, deeply. By a close examination of the notes to the volume the reader can rescue a sense of method. Both authors have interviewed a range of leaders of the movement. They must have had some framework questions when they entered the interviews and, assumedly, would probe further. They probably recorded the interviews for later analysis. None of this is shared with us.
Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902–1994), yeshiva educated, tested the world outside of the yeshiva while studying in Berlin and Paris. He married Mourissa, the daughter of Yosef Yitshaq Schneerson, the sixth leader of the Habad dynasty. When offered the role of the seventh leader of Habad, he delayed a year before responding. One longs for personality analysis here. Obviously, he was not mulling over other offers but was demonstrating seriousness about his fitness for the role.
Two devastating blows struck Habad and other Hasidic groups in Europe. The first was the indictment by the Soviet authorities for religious propaganda and the periodic jailing of the leadership. Then, the Holocaust all but eradicated the Hasidic rabbis and their followers. With outside help both Rabbis Yosef Yitshaq and Menachem Mendel were spirited out of Europe to the United States, leaving their flocks behind. Yosef Yitshaq was guilt ridden. While the Nazi invasion precipitated their flight, we do miss the day-to-day struggle for survival, the plans of rescue developed and the hopes dashed. We know that some Hasidic leaders encouraged their men to join the partisans in the forest. How did they do as fighters? How did they relate to other Jewish fighters and to the gentile fighters?—a relation we know to have been complex.
After the death of Yosef Yitshaq, Menachem Mendel was appointed by a committee to be Rebbe of Habad in 1950. The committee did not invoke the term charisma but considered it in historical Hasidic terms as the quality of being infused with the divine presence. Apparently members of this Executive Committee were drawn from leaders of Habad institutions, schools, yeshivot, Habad embassies, and so forth.
Chapter Seven, entitled “From Resurrection to Death,” is a brilliant presentation of his becoming a recognized leader in the wider world as major Israeli and American political figures beat a track to his door. Heilman and Friedman foreground those followers who identify the Rebbe as the King Messiah and suggest that, eventually, he came to accept this idea himself. The evidence for this is from several events in which some followers besought him to proclaim his messiahship. He moved his hand as if approving. To have approved would have been radically transgressive and a denial of his life as a messianic herald. At the age of 92, near the time of these events, he suffered a stroke. A psychological assessment of his condition at the time would have been helpful. He died in 1994 leaving a community divided between messianists and those who would simply carry on the work. Nowhere do the authors tell us the relative numbers in these two groups and their legitimacy in the eyes of the core group in Habad. The book overemphasizes Menachem Mendel’s role as a putative Messiah.
The two important goals which Menachem Mendel pursued were the missionary program which revitalized young Jews, and the educational program which kept Habad within Orthodox Jewry. They maintain thrice daily prayer services, using a contemporary version of the Siddur HaAri called Tehillat Hashem, encouraging, indeed, insisting on, Sabbath observance, stringency in dietary laws and separating men and women during prayer. Emissaries were sent to various locations in the Americas and the world as a whole. Some 8,000 emissaries established about 2,000 Habad houses around the world. Some Habad houses are on college campuses. Others are in places such as Russia and the Far East. Most are maintained by a married couple who are encouraged to seek local support. The Mitzvah Tank Corps is an outreach program in which Members of Habad approach members of the secular, or less religious, community and teach elementary observance in an experiential fashion. The military metaphor is intentional.
Habad has remained a non-Zionist group but has established Kfar Habad, a settlement of Habad Hasidim in Israel. Prior to the 1967 war, the Rebbe sent 200 emissaries to Israel to teach elementary religious observances to soldiers. Jews would be served wherever they might be.
Habad missionary activities have been directed only to Jews. From the mid-eighties, the Rebbe began to spotlight the Noachide Laws, principles which gentiles are expected to abide, such as refraining from murder, incest, and blasphemy, in order to dwell with Jews. Habad believed that gestures to gentiles would hasten the coming of the Messiah.
Heilman and Friedman have written a good biography of the Rebbe. They chronicle his life defending against political threats so that he could be an organizational engineer. His business model involved attracting and socializing people with little Jewish education and dispatching them as emissaries to attract further members, an organizational multiplier effect. A more dynamic picture could have emerged had the social environment been conceived as a more independent actor. As it is, Habad members and actors in the wider community appear from time to time as a Greek chorus conducted by the Rebbe. One reason for this neglect of context is their adherence to an ethnographic frame of reference. Ethnography is good for revealing dynamic relations among internal actors but degrades external forces.
This internalist frame of reference mutes conflicts with outside groups. Hasidism’s experiencing an immanent God was challenged by rabbis whose authority rested on the law codes. Hasidic dynasties (they have never budged from their monarchical polity) came into conflict with one another. In 2001, David Berger warned that Habad’s messianism is an imminent danger to Orthodox Jewry. A Messiah returning after death is a belief contrary to the Judaic idea that the Messiah does not die (Berger, p. 30). He need not have fretted. Messianists may linger in Israel but have little future in America and Europe.
What about St. Augustine? In his Confessions, this inspired teacher bemoans his misspent youth. In his The City of God he is the builder of the Church. The Rebbe wandered in the modern world and returned to build a Jewish revitalization movement.