Lack of leadership in Lubavitch land
A E Anderson
Subject: Re: Lack of leadership in Lubavitch land
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Binyamin l (biny...@aol.com) wrote:
: D) Long-time Lubavitchers -- several generations back, perhaps even
: several generations in Europe -- who remember the previous leader and his
: son-in-law before he was crowned "rebbe." Many of these families never
: accepted the late leader as their personal "rebbe" but, nonetheless,
: sticked around because this is their family's tradition.
I think your typology of Lubavitchers is useful, and is a clear advance
at understanding that this is clearly not a monolithic group.
But as all typologies go, it remains useful as a quick-and-dirty tool for
understanding how Lubavitchers tend to be arrayed on the Rebbe's alleged
messiahship.
I could, of course, identify individual Lubavitchers who don't fit into
the categories you outline. For example, Shmuel Butman heads the group of
descendants of the Alter Rebbe -- making him a member of the oldest and
most established Lubavitcher families. Yet, he is one of the leading
prophets of Schneerson's resurrection (at least he was until Aguch and
Dovid Raskin got him to cool it).
[Aguch = Agudas Chasidei Chabad, the "offical" international umbrella
group that the late Rebbe created to direct the movement.]
I am aware that the Aguch leadership has made great strides in trying to
tame the radical factions of the movement, and excercise control over
errant organizations and organizational leaders. But I think it will be a
matter of years if not decades until their efforts are successful (and
who know, by then, Schneerson might just come back, or be cloned, of you
saw the Forward graphic a few weeks back!).
Seriously, I can cite the Lubavitcher girls school in Crown Heighs, Beis
Rivkah, as an example of an organization subject to Aguch authority (the
chairman of Aguch's executive board controls the purse strings). Yet,
Aguch is unable to keep teachers from singing "Yeche" with their children
or giving out blatantly messianic homework assignments (of which I have
seen plenty of examples).
This is not entirely dissimilar from the situation at the movement's
Rabbinical College of America in Morristown, NJ. There, the
Aguch-alligned dean, Rabbi Moshe Herson, reportedly made a number of
attempts to boot the head that yeshiva's ba'al teshuvah program, Rabbi
Avremel Lipskier. (I don't know if his most recent effort was successful,
but I did get email that Morristown's BT alumni were meeting in Crown
Heights earlier this month to raise money to start a new messianic
yeshiva for Lipskier.).
I think Herson has been trying to do what his conscience as dean impells
him to do: remove a faculty member who unrepentantly teaches his ba'al
teshuvah charges a hard line, probably heretical version of Schneerson
messianism.
But how does the community react: Oh, there goes Aguch and its power
hungry muckety-mucks who seek to control everything. The same for Beis
Rivkah.
So the Aguch leaders are caught between the very real problem that a
large proportion of their movement has latched onto an heresy of
near-Sabbatean proportions, and their need to maintain some semblance of
community support, without which they would be utterly ineffective.
And remember the tribal dynamic that operates in Lubavitch circles: so
many families are intermarried with one another that you simply cannot
fire an offending meshichist without starting an internal, inter-family
feud. Despite all their efforts, the Aguch leadership was utterly unable
to fire Shmuel Butman from his position as executive director of Lubavitch
Youth Organization (which falls under the Aguch ambit).
So despite the best intentions of the Aguch leaders, the plague of acute
messianism will probably continue for years to come -- I think until
people realize that no matter how much they shout "Yeche," the late rebbe
is quite dead, and will remain so. And I think it is already a foregone
conclusion that the Lubavitchers will surpass the Breslover as the
largest Chasidic court with a dead rebbe.
Already, there has been some progress. While I still can't find any
Lubavitchers who will _unequivically_ rule out the late rebbe's
messiahship (and the attendant doctrine of "techiyat ha-metim le-yichedei
segulah"), I do sense a movement to understand "Living the Rebbe" in a
metaphorical, non-literal sense, as in living with his teachings. Though
I suspect some of this may be largely cosmetic.
So, while the Aguch leadership is struggling to to its best at suppressing
outward manifestations of this acute messianism, they find themselves
under fire by other Orthodox groups that seek to take Lubavitch to task. I
heard that the Association for Advanced Rabbinical and Talmudic Schools --
the U.S. Dept of Education recognized accrediting agency for
post-secondary yeshivas -- has made noise about pulling accredited status
from the lead Lubavitch seminary (770).
So I think the larger Jewish community needs to put Lubavitch messianism
on the back burner for at least a decade. Then, when passions have had
time to die down, it might be time to revisit Lubavitch and make a
determination whether its messianic beliefs are merely harmless pap, or
whether they really threaten the continuity of the Jewish people and the
purity of Torah-true religious doctrine.
And at that time, I think a review of what has happened to Lubavitch
needs to be tempered with a recognition of the late Rabbi Schneerson's
tremendous influence in reinvigorating Jewish practice and knowledge on a
worldwide basis.
[I don't think the larger Jewish public has examined the messianic issue
within Breslov, which is in my mind not entirely dissimilar from Lubavitch
in the way tensions played out in an acute messianic movement. Art
Greene's (Brandeis U) magisterial study of Nachman touches on the movement
in that Chasidic leader's court.]
mos...@mm.huji.ac.il
[very insightful article, snipped]
> And at that time, I think a review of what has happened to Lubavitch
> needs to be tempered with a recognition of the late Rabbi Schneerson's
> tremendous influence in reinvigorating Jewish practice and knowledge
> on a worldwide basis.
Agreed.
> [I don't think the larger Jewish public has examined the messianic
> issue within Breslov, which is in my mind not entirely dissimilar
> from Lubavitch in the way tensions played out in an acute messianic
> movement. Art Greene's (Brandeis U) magisterial study of Nachman
> touches on the movement in that Chasidic leader's court.]
Court?! What court?! As Randy keeps asking "Why wasn't I invited to
that court? I paid my dues and I want my share"! :-)
I think Art greene should get out of his ivory tower in Brandeis U
and see what is actually happening in Breslov.
Moshe Schorr
It is a tremendous Mitzvah to always be happy! - Reb Nachman of Breslov
(mailed & posted)
Zev Sero
>> [I don't think the larger Jewish public has examined the messianic
>> issue within Breslov, which is in my mind not entirely dissimilar
>> from Lubavitch in the way tensions played out in an acute messianic
>> movement. Art Greene's (Brandeis U) magisterial study of Nachman
>> touches on the movement in that Chasidic leader's court.]
>
>Court?! What court?! As Randy keeps asking "Why wasn't I invited to
>that court? I paid my dues and I want my share"! :-)
Maybe because you weren't born yet (unless you're a lot older than
I think you are).
>I think Art greene should get out of his ivory tower in Brandeis U
>and see what is actually happening in Breslov.
Isn't Breslav still having major problems with the Nananana people?
--
Zev Sero It's a Jewish thing; if you have a
zs...@idt.net bit of time, I'll explain it to you.