Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Cover Illustration: Tomkhei Tmimim Yeshiva Students in Otwock (Poland), Spirituality, Politics, Outreach
Summer 1939; Photo: With permission of the Lubavitch Archives, New York
Edited by
ISBN 978-965-227-350-5 ISBN 978-965-227-352-9 Jonatan Meir | Gadi Sagiv
Edited by
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G a d i S a g iv an d Jo n a ta n Me ir
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Foreword
Lubavitch, a town that the movement – or, more precisely, its main faction
– is strongly identified with to this day. Following his death, the second
rebbe was replaced by his son-in-law, Menachem Mendel Schneersohn
(1789–1866), who is also known as Tsemach Tsedek – after a collection of
halakhic works under this authorship. Another feud erupted after Menachem
Mendel’s demise. His youngest son, Shmuel (1834–1882) took over the
court in Lubavitch, whereas his older brothers founded independent courts
in other towns. These alternative centers indeed functioned for several
decades, but the dynasty later reunited under the court in Lubavitch. Once
again, the passing of the movement’s head, Shmuel, was met by a pause in
succession. Though the circumstances are vague, his eldest son, Zalman
Aharon, eschewed the helm. After having already moved to Vitebsk,
Shmuel’s second son, Shalom Dovber (1860–1920), returned to Lubavitch
and became the heir. Until the end of the Tsarist era, he was the most
prominent Hasidic figure throughout the empire. The next in line was his
son, Yosef Yitshak Schneersohn (1880–1950), who was succeeded by his
son-in-law Menachem Mendel (1902–1994) – the seventh and last leader of
Habad.
Whereas the majority of Hasidic rebbes sufficed with tending to their own
community, Lubavitch’s eminences viewed themselves and acted as though
they were the heads of the entire Jewish people. For instance, in the early
nineteenth century, it appeared as though the Tsarist government was going
to curtail the residency rights of village-dwelling Jews. Consequently,
Shneur Zalman embarked on a fund-raising trip that took him well beyond
Habad’s area of distribution. Most notably, Shalom Dovber filled a key role
in the Orthodox Jewish establishment from the end of the nineteenth century
to the initial stages of Bolshevik rule. Within this framework, he cooperated
and competed with prominent non-Hasidic rabbis. Likewise, Yosef Yitshak
deemed himself to be the savior of Russian Jewry under the communist
regime. This ecumenical ideology and the aforementioned developments
shaped the worldview and enterprise of the last rebbe, Menachem Mendel
Schneerson.
These pretensions of leading the Jewish world were tied to another
defining attribute of Habad – the complex mutual relations between the
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Foreword
the rebbes also produced halakhic literature. Furthermore, the Igrot Kodesh
(lit. “Holy Epistles”) – a collection of letters that the leaders wrote to
various correspondents – were meticulously assembled by devotees.
Over the course of its existence, Habad has also put out a wide range of
historiographic works, foremost among them are Haim Meir Heilman’s Beit
Rabbi (1902), as well as Yosef Yitshak Schneersohn’s literary enterprise
during the first half of the twentieth century. Targeting an internal audience,
this corpus advances a variety of myths that revamped the movement’s
chronicles. Furthermore, this body of work was intended to serve as a
quasi-alternative to both maskilic and research literature. In the words of the
scholar Ada Rapoport-Albert, this is “hagiography with footnotes” – a
fictional literature under the guise of history. These works evolved into an
airbrushed version of reality that was accepted by many Lubavitchers.
Similarly, Habad adopted the “Kherson repository” – a collection of
fabricated epistles that are “dated” to the movement’s inception. The tension
and discrepancies between this hagiography and the research literature still
pervade quite a few contemporary works on Lubavitch.
Against this backdrop, what did the movement’s leaders wish to convey
to their followers? Given the voluminous amount of Habad writing, a
comprehensive description is beyond the confines of this volume. However,
we can have a glimpse of the ethos of Habad by comparing the image of
“the Habad way” to the approaches of other Hasidic groups. In fact, Habad
members have long understood themselves by contrasting their own
movement’s ideology to that of other Hasidic courts.
According to this binary image of Habad vis-à-vis other groups, Habad
champions an exoteric ethos that strives to reveal secrets of divinity to the
entire flock. In addition, every member of Habad, regardless of his lot in
life, is encouraged to contemplate the Godhead. Therefore, it is the job of
the Hasidic leader to provide spiritual guidance that will allow his followers
to pursue these goals on their own. This outlook indeed explains why the
leaders of Habad were inclined to deliver Hasidic teachings at great length.
Conversely, in other Hasidic groups, which Lubavitch dubbed “Hasidisms of
Poland” (apparently in contrast to its own “Russian” nature), spiritual
responsibility was transferred from the member to the leader. On the
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premise that the “simple Jew” lacks the independent means for spiritual
endeavor, the “Polish” courts gradually reached the conclusion that the rank
and file should be instructed to distance themselves from such pursuits.
Instead, they should focus on cultivating their pure faith in the Almighty
and his worldly representative – the tsaddik. As such, a weighty burden is
thrust on the Polish tsaddik’s shoulders; besides offering guidance to the
flock, he must see to their spiritual and material needs. For this reason, his
most influential public undertakings are to conduct mystical prayers and
perform miracles. Moreover, the Polish rebbe usually did not deliver lengthy
theoretical Hasidic teachings; they were more attenuated to the practical
implications of the ethical message and sometimes also wanted to conceal
esoteric kabbalistic knowledge. To borrow a Hasidic metaphor that was
formulated in this particular context, the Habad leader who guides his
followers “shepherds the flock,” whereas his counterparts in “the Hasidisms
of Poland,” who remove the responsibility from their followers’ shoulders,
also “carry the sheep.”
A common way of formulating this difference is to categorize the
Lubavitcher ethos as intellectual worship. This ideology is manifest in the
three kabbalistic imperatives that form the acronym HaBaD: Hokhma
(wisdom), Binah (understanding), and Da’at (knowledge). In contrast, the
ethos of “Poland” is presented as the Hasid working on his or her middot
(attributes), namely the emotional and instinctual dimensions of one’s
character. For the most part, these divergent outlooks are brought up in the
Habad discourse, where they express and reinforce the flock’s
self-awareness as a group that has intellectually outshone the rest of the
Hasidic world. Put differently, in the Habad sources one can sometimes
discern a belief in the Habad Hasidim’s superiority to occupy themselves
with spiritual enterprise compared to followers of other Hasidic groups.
The intellectualist nature of Lubavitch is manifest, to a large extent, in
the seven leaders’ concerted efforts to impart to their followers a Lurianic
strain of kabbalistic knowledge. Likewise, the rank and file are taught to
predicate their religious belief on the contemplation of the Godhead. This
exoteric approach ran counter to other Hasidic groups in the Russian
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