In a flowery tribute to the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Boteach says what I consider to be the magic words about the Rebbe’s Messiahship. He proclaims that he is not. Here are his exact words:
Maimonides establishes beyond the shadow of any halachic doubt that a great Jewish leader who causes the Jewish people to reembrace their tradition and fights God's moral battles - feats the Rebbe accomplished without rival - has the possibility of being the Messiah. But if he dies without having fulfilled the relevant prophecies, he is seen as an inspired leader who brought the world closer to redemption, but is not the redeemer himself.
An inspired leader, but not the redeemer. I don’t think this point should be glossed over. He is a Chabad Chasid and I understand his passion for his Rebbe. And I would even agree that much of what he said about the Rebbe is true, albeit not to the extent that he says it . It doesn’t really bother me that a Chasid thinks his Rebbe is the Gadol HaDor. That is to be expected. I would agree that he was a genuine Gadol, but not THE Gadol HaDor. I would not put him –as Rabbi Boteach does - in a category as one of the most influential Jews of all time or deserving the Nobel Peace Prize. But it is a perfectly harmless if overly exalted belief about the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
It is in fact a pity that Rabbi Boteach has for all practical purposes been expelled from the Lubavitch mainstream. He is Persona Non Grata there now. He is anathema to them now presumably because of the publication of his book Kosher Sex. They felt his treatment of the subject of sexual intimacy was too irreverent and therefore totally unacceptable - enough so to boot him out of the movement.
So ultimately this influential media figure who would normally be embraced by Lubavitch carries no weight there. Any statement he makes is therefore irrelevant to their Messianist problems. And that’s too bad.
But although his unequivocal statement about the Rebbe not being the Messiah is an important one - with which I of course agree - I disagree with his advocacy of accepting Messianic converts.
I agree with Dr. Berger’s assessment that a potential convert – even though very careful in Mitzvah observance which is a hallmark of Lubavitch can still not be accepted as a convert if he maintains the fundamentally Christian belief that a particular man will be resurrected in a second coming as the Messiah. Rabbi Boteach says we should and that his error of belief should not take away from his sincerity and commitment as to be a fully observant Jew. But he is wrong in my view.
Dr. Berger correctly states the following:
To accept such a convert would be an act of serious contempt for generations of Jews who gave their lives to preserve the theological boundaries between Judaism and Christianity.
Indeed it would ...as I wrote in a past essay.
It should also be noted that there are some in Lubavitch who go the extra step and actually deify the Rebbe, as Dr. Berger shows in his article. It is troubling that Rabbi Boteach denies something that is so demonstrably obvious.
Be that as it may... as Dr. Berger indicates... the rejection of a messianist convert adds a glimmer of hope that the tide may be changing and that Orthodoxy might finally be standing up to this notion and declaring it unacceptable. Perhaps this will ultimately lead to a re-assessment by Chabad leaders as to how they think of and speak about the Rebbe.
One can love and revere a Rebbe and miss him terribly as does Rabbi Boteach. Any great Torah giant who was beloved alive will be missed after his death. But as I have said about Lubavitch many times - their's is an obsession that is unparalleled in any other mainstream segment of Orthodox Jewry.
Maybe Chabad should welcome Rabbi Boteach back into their fold and listen to him. He could be a great asset to them both in thought and deed.
