Despite the wealth of evidence indicating the degree to which Chabad was conditioned, by both theology and activism, for the ultimate revelation that its leader was the messiah, some refuse to accept that the Rebbe himself really believed as much. To be sure, if one sought a written or a recorded statement by the Rebbe explicitly declaring his messianic status, he would be hard-pressed to find one.⁶⁶ Yet it must be borne in mind that such an expectation fails to consider the peculiar dynamics of communication in closed societies, of which Chabad is certainly one.

Closed societies and cults, especially those based on esoteric religious doctrines, tend to develop unique forms of communication in which some, if not many, things are left unsaid or merely implied. More frequently, ideas and opinions are conveyed through elaborate social codes, small details, added or omitted words, physical gestures, decorations, clothing, or the use of color—all things, in other words, that outside observers would easily overlook, but that initiates register immediately. Members of such groups are especially attuned to signals from their leader, even if these signs have never been formally established in speech or in writing. In fact, an explicit statement may well detract from the magnitude of an implicit secret. It was never necessary, therefore, for the Lubavitcher Rebbe actually to declare himself the messiah: His followers had been so conditioned, and were so prepared, to believe this to be the case that a mere half-smile at the mention of the word “messiah” was enough to ignite their passions and galvanize them for yet another missionary campaign.

But the Rebbe went much farther than mere half-smiles. Both before and after he suffered a major stroke in 1992, he encouraged his followers to refer to him as “messiah” in his presence. One striking example should suffice: In 1991, during the holiday of Shavuot, Chabad held a farbrengen, a Yiddish word used to describe a gathering of hasidim with their rebbe. Among the attendees was Rabbi David Nachshon, the current CEO of Chabad Mitzvah Mobiles. Nachshon presented the Rebbe with a bottle of wine, and announced to all gathered that the bottle would be consumed “the following Sabbath, during the farbrengen with our righteous messiah at the Temple in Jerusalem.” Nachshon then began chanting “yehi adonenu” (“long live our master”) as the crowd joined in. Smiling throughout, the Rebbe waved his hands, whipping those present into a frenzy.⁶⁷

The Rebbe also dropped hints of his true calling in his speeches, as we saw above. One such hint was his frequent use of the Hebrew adverb mamash (“really” or “very”) in a way that those outside of Chabad’s inner circles would find difficult to understand. For example, on January 16, 1970, at a ceremony marking the completion of a Torah scroll “to receive our righteous messiah,” the Rebbe stated,

To those in the Rebbe’s inner circle, the seemingly innocuous term mamash had taken on two additional, esoteric meanings: It was considered an acronym for both Mashiach Menachem Shmo (“the messiah, Menachem is his name”) and the Rebbe’s own name, Menachem Mendel Schneerson.⁶⁹ In other words, when the Rebbe said that the redeemer would come “bekarov mamash,” he was signaling to his followers not only that the messiah would arrive “very soon,” but also that he himself was the messiah. We also see these additional layers of meanings in a statement made by the Rebbe during one of his farbrengens in 1992, in which he claimed that

Here the Rebbe makes clear that the word “mamash”must be understood in all its possible meanings—including the one that points to the Rebbe himself as the messiah.