World
Life, Afterlife from page 28
on the messianic era. And because the
rebbe was so alone, with no peers to
contradict him, they ask rhetorically:
Was he "getting lost in a culture of mes-
sianic delusion?"
This version of Schneerson's life con-
tradicts the official Lubavitch version of
an unbroken journey toward the mantle
of movement leadership and suggests
a more nuanced life whose twists and
turns might easily have led to a different
outcome.
Even before its publication, the book
has engendered considerable objections
in Chabad circles. One female emissary
said some of her colleagues "have been
briefed by headquarters" to steer their
people away from it.
Chabad Criticism
Lubavitchers are ripping into it, disput-
ing its details as well as its overall the-
sis, claiming it shows a lack of familiar-
ity with readily available primary sourc-
es. According to these critics, the rebbe
never trimmed his beard in Europe, he
Lubavitchers are ripping into the book, disputing
its details as well as its overall thesis, claiming it
shows a lack of familarity with primary sources.
rolled it, and the rebbe attended syna-
gogue regularly in Berlin — videotaped
interviews with Jews who saw him in
shul prove it.
And the suggestion that Schneerson
spent his European years divorced from
Chabad activities? Rubbish, they charge.
In response, Heilman said, "We do
not deny and indeed suggest that Rabbi
Levi Yitzchak Schneerson was a primary
religious and chasidic guide for his son.
Indeed, we quote from the letters they
exchanged. We particularly note the
exchanges around the time of the wed-
ding of the son to the daughter of the
sixth Rebbe."
On the question of the rebbe's beard,
Heilman said readers will be able to
judge for themselves by looking at
photographs of Schneerson, reading
comments from his father-in-law and
thinking about when those comments
were made.
In general, Heilman says, it should
come as no surprise that some Chasidim
"see things differently from the way we
do. But we have presented our viewpoint
based on the facts we have gathered?'
Chabad itself, through Jewish
Educational Media, is about to release
more than 1,200 documents related to
Schneerson's life and work, in English
and Hebrew, including his own diaries
and important correspondence between
him, his father and his father-in-law, the
sixth Lubavitcher rebbe.
One volume will come out in late June,
followed later by others, both in print
at online at chabad.org . Chabad sources
say this information will "clear up many
misunderstandings."
Wolfson, a philosopher, presents a
much different take on Schneerson's
Messianism than sociologists Heilman
and Friedman.
The NYU professor portrays
Schneerson as having a very deep and
radical understanding of Jewish eso-
terica.
"In his prime, his teaching was very
dense, very laden with kabbalistic ter-
minology," Wolfson said. "I don't know
how many really understood him; most
were simply mesmerized by his style of
presentation?'
Schneerson's teachings are rife with
internal contradictions, Wolfson says,
including the subverting of Judaism's
gender hierarchy and the boundar-
ies between the permissible and the
non-permissible. But most of this
was destined for the realm of theory.
Schneerson never intended for them to
be actualized — not in this world. E
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May 27 • 2010