The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson

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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]

Chapter 3: Coming of Age in a Time of Transition

Traces Menachem Mendel Schneerson’s childhood and youth from Nikolayev to Yekaterinoslav (later Dnepropetrovsk), his exposure to secular education and Zionist/socialist currents, his apprenticeship and university studies, the family’s move into the Lubavitcher court in Leningrad, the 1927 arrest of Yosef Yitzchak, and the couple’s life in Riga and Berlin prior to the 1928 wedding. Emphasises the tension between Hasidic expectations and Schneerson’s pursuit of secular knowledge, and the retrospective hagiographic framing of these years.

Individuals and groups

Significant quotations

From primary sources / contemporary statements:

superior “in Torah and the fear of God” but also as someone who “knows and understands worldly matters.”

(Fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe on Levi Yitzchak)[15]

I am not leaving under duress—far from it! I am doing exactly what I planned to do. … Know that I shall be with you always … know that what you are seeing is a neshamah [soul], as it exists in Gan Eden [paradise] clothed in a body.

(Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn)[16]

Analytical quotations from the authors:

The life story of a Hasidic rebbe is often shrouded in hagiography. … Every past act and event must be shown retrospectively to have led inexorably to his eminence and greatness… The farther back in the rebbe’s life one goes, the more difficult this becomes, and the more pressing is the need to shroud these distant events in hagiography, myth, mystery, and reconstructed memory.

[17]

Like so much else in his story, even the date of his birth is ambiguous. While the accepted birthday, according to his own word, was Sabbath eve, April 18, 1902… his Soviet passport indicates an earlier date, March 2, 1895…

[18]

Despite his attachment to Lubavitcher Hasidism… Levi Yitzchak Schneerson did not send his sons to the Tomekhei Temimim yeshiva… According to one internal Lubavitcher source, Levi Yitzchak did not “permit” his son Mendel to go to the yeshiva in Lubavitch.

[19]

To this end they hired Israel Eidelsohn, a confirmed socialist and Zionist… Many years later Menachem Mendel as Lubavitcher Rebbe would adamantly and publicly oppose this position [of defining Jewishness by personal choice].

[20]

Later Lubavitcher histories claim with hindsight that this move to Leningrad, the early connection with the court of the sixth Lubavitcher rebbe, and the marriage to Yosef Yitzchak’s daughter prove beyond any doubt the strength of Menachem Mendel’s Hasidic attachments. … It is entirely unclear, however, whether becoming his father-in-law’s successor was in the young man’s plans.

[21]

The fact that two were out together until the early hours of the morning is glossed over in Lubavitcher accounts of the events. Such behavior would certainly have distinguished them from a traditional Hasidic couple…

[22]

Apart from Yosef Yitzchak and Lieberman… none of the other family members were detained or imprisoned. Mendel remained untouched—and all the efforts in which internal sources describe his being active or wanted by the police remain undocumented.

[23]

We find no reliable answers for Mendel’s choice of Berlin. … Notwithstanding the claims of Lubavitchers that he spent much time there on missions for the Rebbe, Berlin was not a place where Mendel went to act in his capacity as a Hasid.

[24]

A story repeated among Lubavitchers that Menachem Mendel Schneerson received rabbinic ordination (semikhah) while in Berlin from Rabbi J. J. Weinberg… has no apparent evidentiary basis.

[25]

With this marriage, he would not only gain a wife but shift his status from that of a cousin of the Lubavitcher rebbe to being his son-in-law. In time, that status would prove far more important than having studied in Berlin.

[26]

Chapter 4: Entering the Court of Lubavitch

Describes the November 1928 wedding of Menachem Mendel Schneerson and Chaya Moussia Schneersohn in Warsaw, the couple’s subsequent life shuttling between Berlin and the Lubavitcher court in Riga, Mendel’s continuing university studies as an auditor, Yosef Yitzchak’s efforts to draw him into court activities, and the tensions surrounding secular education, appearance, and Hasidic expectations.

Individuals and groups

Menachem Mendel Schneerson | Chaya Moussia Schneerson | Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn | Shmaryahu Gourary | Levi Yitzchak Schneerson | Chana Schneerson | Sheina Schneersohn | Mendel Horensztajn | Moshe Horensztajn | Chaya Mushka Horensztajn | Abraham Mordecai Alter (Gerer Rebbe) | Yitzhak Menachem Mendel Danziger (Aleksander Rebbe) | Meir Shapiro | Meir Hildesheimer | J. J. Weinberg | Chaim Lieberman | Tomekhei Temimim | Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary | Friedrich Wilhelm University | Tseirey Agudas Yisroel

Significant quotations

From primary sources / contemporary statements:

“The crowd of guests is completely different from those seen at other [Hasidic] Rebbes’ weddings. One sees no shtraymls or the black round velvet hats [typical of Hasidim]. Most are Jews clothed in European dress and only a small number is dressed in high silk caps.” (Moment)[27]

“a young man of refined features, with an intelligent demeanor”

(Moment on the groom)[28]

“sympathetic face and a small dark beard”

(Haynt)[28]

The Torah remains only with those who give their life for it. Diligence in studying the depths of Torah is what causes that Torah to remain in a person’s mind.

(Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn at the wedding)[29]

Where… did his son “acquire this practice?” … “You are not a Samson in strength.” Such is not “the way of Torah or of repentance.”

(Levi Yitzchak Schneerson on Mendel’s fasting)[30]

Analytical quotations from the authors:

Unlike her sister, whose age at marriage was in line with the common custom of Hasidic daughters, Moussia… was at almost twenty-eight marrying at an extraordinarily late age for Hasidic brides. … unlike the husband of her older sister… Mendel… was not now nor ever had been a student at the Lubavitcher yeshiva, but someone pursuing university studies…

[31]

In all the internal Lubavitcher hagiographies, before his marriage and during what might be called a courtship, Mendel is always referred to as “the one intended to be the groom,” a title that has no precedent in Jewish tradition and law.

[31]

Mendel’s actions suggest he was determined to enter the court and marry Moussia, but they also suggest he was not ready to be a Hasid like all others.

[32]

The Rebbe Yosef Yitzchak, however, did not manage to persuade his new son-in-law to abandon completely his aspirations for secular study (which in principle he appeared to oppose) in Berlin. Perhaps this double life as both a Hasid and a student at the university was a reflection of Mendel's desires to please both Moussia and her father.

[33]

Weddings are also ceremonies that symbolize continuity and point to the future. If the new bridegroom was to be a new leader… this wedding would be the most suitable opportunity to present him to the court and the Jewish world. … But could this bride and groom serve as the vehicles for such a cultural celebration…?

[34]

If Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn wanted to impress the Hasidic world with his position as a Hasidic leader who would attract other Hasidim, this was the wrong crowd and wedding with which to do that.

[35]

Are these the directions of a father to a son who knows what is expected of a Hasidic groom…? Or are these words of guidance given by a father who is very much a rabbi and is addressing a son who he knows has embarked on a life's journey that has taken him to the heart of secular culture…?

[36]

Did he want to make such a toast with a son-in-law standing with him who was not one of the temimim, who had not spent time in a yeshiva, who was headed back to the university in Berlin…?

[29]

Did he mean that this mixing of Torah and secular learning was alright for the bride and groom because otherwise they “would be even worse”? … Or was he trying to warn them against the way of life they had apparently chosen?

[37]

In a sense, they lived a kind of bifocal life: in one they were young newlyweds in Berlin, students tasting the cosmopolitan life of the German capital… On the other hand, they were still firmly connected to the family and court from which they came…

[38]

That Mendel managed to switch easily from one mind-set to the other… must have impressed itself on him and confirmed a belief that one could be physically and culturally distant from the court… yet still remain connected to it… It would be a lesson he would many years later share with his shluchim…

[30]

Chapter 5: From Survival to Uforatzto

Covers the wartime rescue of Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn and his family from Nazi-occupied Poland, the arrival of Menachem Mendel and Moussia Schneerson in New York in 1941, the impact of the Holocaust and personal losses on Mendel’s thinking, the intensification of messianic themes, and the launch in 1958 of the Uforatzto campaign that sent young shluchim outward to “burst forth” and reach assimilated Jews.

Individuals and groups

Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn | Menachem Mendel Schneerson | Moussia Schneerson | Shmaryahu Gourary | Chana Gourary | Barry Gourary | Sheina Schneersohn | Mendel Horensztajn | Nechama Dina Schneersohn | Shterna Sarah Schneersohn | Chaim Lieberman | Chaim Hodakov | Israel Jacobson | Max Rhoade | Sam Kramer | Arthur Rabinovitz | Stephen Wise | Louis Brandeis | Robert A. Wagner | William Borah | Ernst Bloch | Breckinridge Long | Zalman Shmotkin | Zalman Schneersohn | Bentzion Shemtov | Yaakov Lipskar | Yoel Teitelbaum | Mahane Israel | Hakriya v’Hakedusha | Agudas Chassidei ChaBaD | Tomekhei Temimim | Uforatzto Campaign | shluchim

Significant quotations

From primary sources / contemporary statements:

“The sufferings I endured in prison in Russia do not compare to the torments of the 12 weeks I spent under their rule.” (Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn)[39]

“Gevalt [for heaven's sake], the Messiah told the Ba'al Shem Tov that he would come with him when he spreads the wellsprings to the outside. And this task was given to us, to lead—and what are we doing about it? We are suffering in exile even though the Rebbe sh'lita in his maymer promised that the redemption would come quickly in our days.” (Menachem Mendel Schneerson, 1948)[40]

“We need engineers and chemists, but engineering and chemistry are not the most important things.” (Menachem Mendel Schneerson)[41]

“the seventh's primary quality lies in his being seventh. In other words, he is cherished not on account of his choice, desire, or spiritual service but because he is seventh—and this is something that he is born into.” (Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Basi L'Gani)[42]

“Don't convince yourselves that you can live off the fat of the land and reside in these few blocks... There is a 'desolate land' which is thus far undeveloped spiritually. ... If you have not used your treasures for this, it must bother you.” (Menachem Mendel Schneerson on Uforatzto)[43]

Analytical quotations from the authors:

Key, however, was the fact that American officials... had been somehow persuaded... that the Lubavitcher Rebbe was “a sort of Pope” of the Jews... Indeed, in one communication to American officials, Rhoade actually compared him to St. Francis of Assisi.[44]

Neither Mendel Schneerson nor Mendel Horensztajn... had served as rabbis in any professional capacity. Both had been engaged in engineering studies... Tragically... Mendel Horensztajn and his family as Polish citizens remained disqualified for U.S. visas...[45]

These are not the words and sentiments of a man planning a career in France... This “Gevalt” is a cry from the heart of a man whose life has been turned upside down and around... The messianic message of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak... actually fit Mendel's own situation: it solved the dilemma of what the future would hold for a barren couple.[40]

When Menachem Mendel Schneerson later took up his own “Moshiach” campaign, he would reframe the messages of his predecessors so that these questions became moot. He made clear that redemption did not require any further death and suffering as a prerequisite... His was a messianism of promise.[46]

From being a somewhat mediocre mechanical and electrical engineer he would become an outstanding social and spiritual engineer who would offer his recipe for the redemption of all the Jewish people. To a significant number of his Hasidim, he would by the end appear to be the Messiah himself.[47]

This was a radically new view—that observant Jews could be surrounded by unbelievers and the unobservant but would change the environment rather than assimilating into it. He believed this possible based on his own experience of being distant from the heart of Jewish life and yet remaining tied to his Hasidic roots.[48]

His shluchim would be sent to those who were nearly lost in the depths of the spiritual dust, communicating teachings of inspiration and Judaism and thereby try to kindle the light of their Judaism... That was what it meant for this Rebbe to spread the wellsprings.[49]


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.
  15. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 69.
  16. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 82.
  17. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 65.
  18. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 66.
  19. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 71.
  20. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 72.
  21. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 75.
  22. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 79.
  23. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 80.
  24. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 84.
  25. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 87.
  26. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 89.
  27. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 97.
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 100.
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 101.
  30. ↑ 30.0 30.1 Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 106.
  31. ↑ 31.0 31.1 Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 91.
  32. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 93.
  33. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 94.
  34. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 96.
  35. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 98.
  36. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 99.
  37. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 102.
  38. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 104.
  39. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 130.
  40. ↑ 40.0 40.1 Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 139.
  41. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 141.
  42. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 150.
  43. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 158.
  44. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 131.
  45. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 133.
  46. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 146.
  47. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 149.
  48. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 159.
  49. ↑ Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, 2010, p. 162.
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