The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson

From Powerbase
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Academic biography of Menachem Mendel Schneerson by Samuel C. Heilman and Menachem M. Friedman

The Rebbe, by Heilman and Friedman.

The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson is a 2010 scholarly biography by Heilman, Samuel C. and Friedman, Menachem M., published by Princeton University Press. It examines the life of the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, the rise of Chabad-Lubavitch messianism, the global network of shluchim, and the movement’s response to Schneerson’s death in 1994.[1]

Contents

  • Preface
  • 1. Farbrengen: The Gathering of the Emissaries
  • 2. Death and Resurrection
  • 3. Coming of Age in a Time of Transition
  • 4. Entering the Court of Lubavitch
  • 5. From Survival to Uforatzto
  • 6. On a Mission from the Rebbe in Life
  • 7. From Resurrection to Death: We Want Moshiach Now
  • 8. On a Mission from the Rebbe in His Afterlife

Preface

The book traces Chabad’s messianic trajectory from the fifth Rebbe Schneersohn, Shalom DovBer through Schneersohn, Yosef Yitzchak to Schneerson, Menachem Mendel. It frames the movement’s post-1950 expansion and the conviction that Schneerson was the Messiah incarnate as a response to modern Jewish history (secularisation, Holocaust, Zionism, and the relocation of Jewry to Western democracies).

Key individuals and groups: Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, Shalom DovBer Schneersohn, Martin Marty, R. Scott Appleby, David Assaf, Yoram Bilu, Maya Katz, Yehuda Krinsky, Avremel Shemtov, Barry Gourary, Chana Gourary, Agudas Chassidei ChaBaD, Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch, Tomekhei Temimim.

Significant quotation:

Under the leadership of Rabbi Menachem Mendel, they saw themselves as being on a mission to transform Jewry—and indeed the world. … they also became convinced that their rebbe was the redeemer incarnate.

[2]

Chapter 1: Farbrengen: The Gathering of the Emissaries

Describes the annual kinus shluchim at 770 Eastern Parkway and the continued mission after Schneerson’s death. Covers the historical origins of Chabad outreach, the role of couples as shluchim, post-1989 expansion into the former Soviet Union, and practices at the ohel (including pidyones, bibliomancy, and video presence).

Individuals and groups

Significant quotations

our job is to make a dwelling place for God in the lower world. … We try to make the world a more and more godly place, until the coming of the Moshiach.

(Rabbi Shaltiel Lebovic)[2]

He has nothing to fear. He’s going to go and he’s going to come back and everything will be all right.

(Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn to a mother of a student sent to Poland, 1939)[2]

I am happy to provide a synagogue and kosher meal for religious Jews visiting Shanghai. But if I were not here, the observant Jew would still pray on his own … the Jews who are not observant, however, are praying because I and Dina are here … They are the reason ChaBaD has come here.

(Shalom Greenberg)[2]

Those who do not remember the Rebbe in life are ‘bigger Hasidim’ even than those who did, because they have to work harder to bring him back. … the Rebbe gives a person the strength he needs. … a tsaddik lives more today than yesterday.

(Berel Shemtov)[2]

Charity … hastens and immediately causes the true and complete redemption.

(Menachem Mendel Schneerson)[2]

Chapter 2: Death and Resurrection

Recounts the death of Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn on 10 Shvat 5710 (28 January 1950) at 770 Eastern Parkway, the succession contest between sons-in-law Shmaryahu Gourary and Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and Schneerson’s eventual acceptance of the leadership on the first yahrzeit. Analyses the construction of continuity through claims that the Previous Rebbe remained present, the role of the ohel, and the later library lawsuit that sealed Schneerson’s symbolic and legal control.

Individuals and groups

Significant quotations

From primary sources / contemporary statements:

“Jews,” he declared upon his arrival in North America in 1940, “we must repent and save our children and ourselves from the danger. We have to observe Sabbath and the laws of kashruth. Men must put on tefillin and women must go to the mikveh… children must get a religious education.” His motto had been “l'altar l'tshuvah, l'altar l'geula” — “repentance immediately, redemption immediately.”

(Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn)[3]

But we do have a Rebbe. What difference does it make where he is, in this world or the other world?

(Menachem Mendel Schneerson to Zalman Schachter, 1950)[4]

Although we have not earned it, and have not toiled for it… nevertheless, ‘all those who are seventh are most beloved,’ and therefore there are no inherent limitations that should cause an individual [of this seventh generation] to say that this status is beyond him…

(Menachem Mendel Schneerson, ma’amar of 10 Shvat 5711)[5]

I am only a stand-in.

(Menachem Mendel Schneerson)[6]

wild men think that to die is to leave completely, this is not so.

(Menachem Mendel Schneerson)[6]

It should be understood the war [conflict] is not only over the seforim [books], but rather oif dem benkel—‘over the seat’ of power.

(Menachem Mendel Schneerson on the library case)[7]

Analytical quotations from the authors:

Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak had died intestate; he left neither a will that indicated who would receive his property… nor a “moral” will that indicated who should lead the community of Hasidim after him. There were unsubstantiated rumors that there had been a will (naming Barry, his beloved grandson) but that it had disappeared, perhaps eliminated intentionally.

[8]

While Shmaryahu Gourary was swooning, his brother-in-law… Menachem Mendel Schneerson, was sobbing. … The intensity of his mourning made a deep impression on the community. This man, who had seemed to be distant… was now evidently more openly broken up than Shmaryahu Gourary over the loss of their Rebbe.

[9]

In the end, the victor is presented by the Hasidim as the most deserving leader who is truly ordained for the role. Any lingering doubts are simply banished… The key was always to ensure continuity. This happened during 1950 and into 1951 in Lubavitch. And, when it was over, as the new Rebbe would later put it, “they put the key into [my] pocket.”

[10]

This theme would become a recurring leitmotif of the reign of Rabbi Menachem Mendel… The Messiah would be brought by the seventh generation in the ChaBaD dynasty, and they were that generation. … This address… served as the basis of the entire Messiah campaign and the justification for all its missionizing and other activities.

[11]

Menachem Mendel had not invented this idea of talking to a dead rebbe… For Rabbi Menachem Mendel, it became the basis of his legitimacy. Perhaps it was why he would never stray further than a short car ride away from the cemetery…

[12]

These very same arguments were invoked within the community years later, after Menachem Mendel himself had died with his own promises of redemption unfulfilled.

[13]

Menachem Mendel Schneerson understood that the library was more than just a collection of books, and that the struggle over it with his nephew and sister-in-law was about his leadership. … When Menachem Mendel was affirmed as having that possession, he was finally judged to belong symbolically and legally to that succession.

[7]

Unlike Menachem Mendel, whose appeal emerged at this time, Gourary suddenly appeared to many people to lack personal charisma. … He was not one who would attract more followers to the movement or lead them toward the day of redemption…

[14]

Notes

  1. ↑ Heilman, Samuel C. and Friedman, Menachem M., The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, pp. xv–xvi.
  3. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 35.
  4. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 42.
  5. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 49.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 62.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 55.
  8. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 33.
  9. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 32.
  10. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 41.
  11. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 48.
  12. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 59.
  13. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 61.
  14. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 56.
Retrieved from "https://powerbase.info/index.php?title=The_Rebbe:_The_Life_and_Afterlife_of_Menachem_Mendel_Schneerson&oldid=274867"