The ongoing dispute between the Messianist faction at Chabad and the anti Messianists at the world headquarters in Crown Heights, is now in the hands of New York’s highest appellate court. They will rule whether to allow a judgement against the Messianists to stand, thus clearing the way for their eviction. But what popped out of an article in Ha'aretz about this for me was the following:
The messianist wing, represented by an organization named Congregation Lubavitch, Inc., believes that the former leader of Chabad, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, is really the Messiah. The plaintiffs follow the mainstream Jewish position that since Schneerson died in 1994, he cannot be the Messiah.
He cannot be the Messiah. Is this a departure from the past? Have they now finally done the unthinkable? Have they finally declared that their deceased Rebbe CANNOT be Moshiach? This is indeed the mainstream view in the Torah world. I hope that’s true. We will have to wait and see.
Too often a reporter can mis-interpret what he hears. Especially when listening to an anti Meshichist Lubavitcher talking about Meshichists. Perhaps they only said what they have been saying all along, that they are strongly opposed to people saying that the Rebbe will be resurrected as the Messiah.
But that of course is not the same thing as saying he cannot be the Messiah. It is more likely that when they express their vehement opposition to their Messianists, especially in the context of this lawsuit, it is taken by the listener to mean that they are mainstream in their beliefs and disavow this belief in its entirety. But in reality, they do not completely rule it out. Was the word ‘cannot’ actually used?
Somehow I think not. A repudiation of this type would be a major headline in the Torah world. If they are now saying this, I would think they too would make it a world wide event… announcing it in full page ads in the New York Times and in every major Jewish newspaper. Because that would put them back in the fold. They would no longer be shunned or ridiculed by so much of the Torah world.
No one in the Torah world is opposed to what they are doing in any case. It is a step in the right direction. But it is not good enough to just rid their main Shul of the strident Messianists. They indeed must say these 5 words: He cannot be the Messiah. Until that happens, nothing changes.
But there is good news to report in this area. His name is Rabbi Yehoshua Mondshein. I don’t really anything about him outside of a related article in the same issue of Ha'aretz. But I like what I read. He is a Lubavitcher Chasid who:
...is exposing the commonly accepted fictions of the ultra-Orthodox world, including the stories of wonders and miracles disseminated by Chabad Hasidim. It's a major scandal.
Truly a man after my own heart. I’m not sure of his place in Chabad. Although I don't think they use words like 'scandal' to describe their heroes. I don’t know if they disown him or not. But the one thing they can’t do apparently is ignore him or his achievements as a scholar. A website that competes with the one he writes says of him:
"Mondshein is a bit of a heretic, but tremendously knowledgeable"
I’m not exactly sure what they say his heresy is, but based on the way they put it, and how the article describes what he does, it sounds like his heresy is mainly against beliefs associated with the mystical side of Chabad in particular and Chasidus in general. To me that does not make him a heretic. It only makes him a Misnaged... with a long white beard.
