Chabad: A New Religion?

In 1999 this was my op-ed take on the rebbe and the messiah. I agree with it today.

The last official Rebbe of the Lubavitcher Hasidim, Rabbi Menahem Mendel Schneerson, died on June 12, 1994. On Passover 1999 a group of these Orthodox Jewish Hassidim ran a provocative advertisement in a major newspaper referring to their Rebbe, “Long live our lord and master the King Messiah for ever and ever!” The Rebbe lives on, say these believers, and is in fact the Messiah for whom Jews have been waiting for millennia.

By saying and believing these words, this group of Jews has given life to a new religion. Their faith cannot simply be categorized as another sectarian version of Hasidism, of Orthodoxy or even of Judaism. On theological grounds, Judaism has steadfastly maintained a hope and faith in the future redemption of humankind by the Messiah in the Messianic Age to come. What defines Judaism and sets it apart from Christianity and other religions – among many of its major practices and beliefs – is the certainty that the Messiah has not come and that we must await the closure of his coming in our daily lives. I have sometimes mused that this essential belief may be a factor in the somewhat neurotic character of Jewish communal life – a constant edge of expectation stands at the official core of the Judaic religion and pervades its culture.

I have always seriously believed that the expectation of a future Messianic Age has bestowed upon Jews and into Judaism a deep inspiration to survive the darkest hours of history and a pure motivation to strive forward continuously in every way to progress toward that time of salvation – to bring on that redemption.

Theologically then it is contrary to the very essence of Judaism to proclaim and accept that a man who died five years ago is the living Messiah – no matter how exceptional the Rebbe may have been in his life and work. Those who hold fast to that essence – and act on it in their rituals – have formed a new religious system that cannot be classified as a form of Judaism.

How have Jews received the news of this Hasidic phenomenon? Some Jewish thinkers fear that the followers of that great Rebbe are doing him a great disservice by proclaiming on his behalf counter-intuitive statements of religious belief that are antithetical to Judaism. They say that these Hasidim are undoing the Rebbe’s good deeds and sullying the reputation that their own lord and master painstakingly accomplished over the decades of his tireless dedication to his followers.

Others Jewish spokesmen have implored the Hasidim to get their act together lest their enterprise break up into divisions – the messianists versus the anti-messianists – each wing weaker than the former single unified entity.

Whatever paths the Hasidim take, a new religion has been born and formed over the past five years. This has been clear from the moment the first Hasid denied the Rebbe’s death in 1994 and has become ever more lucid in the recent public declarations in advertisements, in their Hasidic singing and in all that these Lubavitcher Hasidim teach.

I think that crafting a new religion a good thing for the Hasidim and for the traditional forms of Judaism that they have left behind. The creativity of a new religious and cultural entity brings excitement and energy to the world – new sparks that may kindle a light of redemption for all who come in contact with it. I extend a warm welcome then to "Chabad Lubavitchism" – a new religion among the many living faiths of the twenty first century.