The Rebbe and the Messiah

Being a Gentile and a Christian, I had never heard of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who died in 1994. I was very surprised when I learned that a group of Hasidic Jews consider their dead rabbi to be the Messiah.

In 2009 during a trip to New York City, I was in a taxi cab which pulled beside a motor home labeled a "Mitzvah Tank" at a traffic light. Emblazoned on the side was a huge picture of Rebbe Scneerson. The markings labeled it as being part of the "Messianic Lubavitchers." When I got home I began to do research on the Messianic Lubavitchers. First, I learned that a mitzvah is a religious commandment or a good deed. The Chasad Lubavitchers drive around in RVs and vans called "Mitzvah Tanks" and invite Jews to come inside and perform Jewish prayer rituals such as wrapping tefillin. Second, I learned that the Messianic Lubavitchers are Hasidic Jews who believe that the late Rebbe Schneerson is the Messiah and that he will come back from the dead in a Second Coming and complete the redemption of Israel.


Mitzvah Tank


Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson

Intrigued, I began to collect books about Hasidism. One of the books which I acquired was The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference (2001) by David Berger. Berger is an Orthodox Rabbi and professor who argues that by believing that a dead rabbi can be the Messiah, the Messianic Lubavitchers have removed themselves from Judaism and created a new religion. Berger also sees the belief in Rebbe Schneerson as the Messiah to be a catastrophe for Orthodox Judaism.

Why did I pull this book out and read it cover to cover during this holy season of Advent? This topic is highly relevant during this season of Advent as we celebrate the coming of the true Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, and anticipate His imminent return.


A big part of Rabbi Berger's argument is that if Orthodox Judaism allows the belief that a dead Rabbi from Brooklyn is the Messiah, then the Christian claim must also be taken seriously.

"The legitimation of Second Coming Judaism has not been lost on interested Christians. Two people have told me that Cardinal Lustiger of France, who was brought up as a Jew, has warned Jewish friends that this is how Christianity began. A stranger approached a rabbi from my neighborhood on the streets of Manhattan, showed him a picture of the Rebbe, and asked, 'How is he different from Jesus?'

Far more important than these random observations is the growing utilization of this movement by skilled and committed missionaries. A convert to Orthodox Judaism living in Minneapolis informs me that the local head of a missionary organization greeted him with the question, 'What about the Lubavitchers?' Three people have told me of a billboard or poster in California with the phone number of a missionary group, a picture of the Rebbe, and the message, 'Right Idea. Wrong Person.' Another spoke of a Jews for Jesus T-shirt with the Rebbe's picture. None of this is the least bit surprising. No missionary with a modicum of intelligence could fail to exploit the gift-wrapped opportunity that Orthodox Jewry has bestowed upon proselytizing Christianity."




New York City Billboard Proclaiming the Rebbe is the Messiah.

Rabbi Berger details instances where children in Yeshivas were instructed to pray towards pictures of the Rebbe and recite prayers to the Rebbe as the Messiah. In one of the more comic instances, Berger recounts that some Messianic Lubavitchers believe that the headquarters of Chasad Lubavitch at 770 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, will become the new Temple when the Rebbe returns as the Messiah. Berger comments with derision, "Thus, one fulfills a key requirement from moving from presumptive Messiah to definite Messiah by building a large synagogue in Brooklyn." Berger also recounts that in 1997 six high ranking Hasidic and Orthodox rabbis issued a rabbinical ruling which required all Jews to believe that Rebbe Schneerson is the Messiah!


I find this topic endlessly fascinating. Although one is tempted to laugh and to poke fun, these are deeply religious people who are desperately seeking the Messiah who will redeem them. The relationship between Jews and Christians has, through the centuries, been marked by fear, sin and excess and both sides. From the excesses of the Middle Ages against the Jewish community right through to the Holocaust and our own day, we Christians have largely failed in our mandate to manifest the love of God in our lives. We cannot possibly write off people who love God so much as our Orthodox Jewish brothers and sisters. We must continue to pray for them and for our own conversion.

Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus!


Rabbi David Berger

A Few Notes On Taking Faith Seriously

We live in a secular age in which the received wisdom is that religious faith is not supposed to interfere with secular activities and obligations. In other words, religion is OK so long as you don't really take it seriously.

A case in point is the recent action of the National High School Mock Trial Board which decided that high school students with religious obligations should be required to abandon them in order to participate in the national mock trial championship.

The State Champion team selected to represent Massachusetts in the national competition was an Orthodox Jewish school in Brookline, Massachusetts. The national mock trial board scheduled the championship, which was held at the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta, Georgia, for Wednesday through Saturday. As orthodox Jews, the students would not be allowed to observe the sabbath from sundown on Friday until sundown Sunday. The national board refused to give any consideration to accommodating the Massachusetts students.

When the State Bar of Georgia, who co-sponsored the event, wished to make accommodations, the National Board cited their contract and demanded that no changes could be made. This matter was only resolved when Chief Judge Doris Downs of the Fulton County Superior Court ordered that if the Jewish students were not accommodated, that the National High School Mock Trial could not use the Fulton County Courthouse.

Reluctantly, the mock trial board agreed to make concessions to allow the Massachusetts team to compete. However, the national high school mock trial board, which appears to this writer to be an embarrassment to the legal profession (which already has enough embarrassments), made a public statement that they felt that the board was forced into making concessions and that, in their opinion, JUDGE DOWNS had no legal right to take the action she did. As a member of the Georgia bar, I am proud of JUDGE DORIS DOWNS. If the National High School Mock Trial Board wants to sue the Georgia Bar and Fulton County for breach of contract over this, BRING IT ON BABY! I am sure we have some fine attorneys of the Jewish faith in Georgia that will be happy to represent the Judge and State Bar pro bono.

In other faith notes, yesterday I visited the nursing home where my grandmother is a patient and listened to a choir from a local MENNONITE community sing. These are definitely people who take their faith very seriously and are counter-cultural in this society. The women don't wear make-up, don't wear pants, and keep a covering on their heads. The New Georgia Encyclopedia says this about the Mennonite communities in Georgia:

"Mennonites derive their names from Menno Simons, a Catholic priest in Holland who, after joining the movement in 1536, unified and led scattered Anabaptists suffering persecution under various European authorities. . . . Mennonites tend toward a literal interpretation of the Bible that often leads them to practice a rigorous form of communal discipleship that does not always conform with modern society. Many communities choose to adopt a rural, separatist lifestyle, and these groups frequently restrict the use of modern technology, dress in traditional attire, and retain their native German language. . . ."

If, as the Baltimore Catechism says, the purpose of our life on earth is to "To know God, to love Him, to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with him forever in Heaven," then we would all be well advised to take a few pointers from Mennonites, Orthodox Jews and others who take God seriously.