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PDF FormatAnother strong indication of the Rebbe’s belief in his own messianic destiny can be found in his many references to his father-in-law, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, the sixth Lubavitcher rebbe. Sometimes, Menachem Mendel was indeed speaking of his predecessor. On numerous other occasions, however, he spoke about the sixth Lubavitcher rebbe while actually referring to himself, a cryptic reference that was well-known to his inner circle.72 The importance of this substitution becomes clear in light of the Rebbe’s frequent declarations that his predecessor was the messiah. In 1990, for example, he stated,
Following the announcement of his honor and holiness, my teacher and father-in-law, the rebbe and leaderof our generation, messiah of our generation, that all of the work has been completed and accomplished and [we] are prepared to greet our righteous messiah, at the present time… all obstacles and hindrances have been removed. As such, the messiah [not only exists, but in fact] is also already revealed. All we have to do now is to welcome the righteous messiah in actuality mamash!73
Here the Rebbe makes two seemingly contradictory claims: first, that his father-in-law is the “messiah of our generation,” and second, that the messiah has already been “revealed” to the world. Given that the sixth Lubavitcher rebbe died in 1950, these two statements make sense only if the Rebbe was really referring to himself.
In his book The Seventh, Rabbi Yitzhak Kraus offers a similar example. According to Kraus, the Rebbe was enthusiastic about the February 1, 1992 Camp David summit between Presidents George H.W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin, which focused on nuclear disarmament. The Rebbe believed the summit was a direct result of “activities for spreading Torah and Judaism, righteousness and honesty in the entire world, which have been and continue to be directed by the leader of our generation, the messiah of our generation.”74 Kraus noted that the Rebbe, as was his custom, “attributes all of his activities to his father-in-law, the sixth Lubavitcher rebbe.”75 But an alternative explanation for this statement is that the Rebbe was in truth crediting himself with these accomplishments in the same metonymic language he had used in similar circumstances. Kraus further wrote that, during the same conversation, the Rebbe emphasized,
We are at the “climactic moment”… of the coming of our righteous messiah. “Here it (the king messiah) comes.” We are already witnessing the beginning of his influence on the nations. “And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares”—in this way God allows the kings of the nations (“the hearts of kings and ministers are in the hands of God”) to decide and declare the occasion and the condition of “and they shall beat their swords into plowshares.” And this is the reason why this decision and declaration was made precisely at this time—because of its particular relation to the true and full redemption by our righteous messiah in actuality mamash.76
Once one understands the esoteric meanings of the particular terms the Rebbe chooses to employ, the message he seeks to convey becomes clear. And indeed, the Rebbe went so far as to attribute the messianic developments taking place “at this time” to a 1991 halachic ruling signed by dozens of rabbis on Shavuot, which demanded of God that he bring about the redemption and declared unequivocally that the Rebbe was his messiah.77 Alon Dahan emphasizes that the Rebbe ordered his “emissaries to read this halachic ruling at the graves of the Lubavitcher rebbes in Russia, and he himself read it at the grave of the sixth Lubavitcher rebbe, so it is difficult to assume that he had neglected to notice the ‘insignificant detail’ that his name was listed at the head of the page as the most fitting candidate to act as messiah.”78
As we have seen, the Rebbe lived in an extremely intense eschatological frame of mind: He believed he was destined to be revealed as the messiah and redeem the world. Nonetheless, he waited for that unambiguous, providential sign that would grant him public legitimacy, secure in the belief that it would come at any moment. Time after time, he emphasized in his lectures the possibility that only one more action was needed, only one more Jew had to be touched by halacha, and all of humanity would cross the threshold of the messianic era.79 Nadav Shnerb, a national-religious columnist, has provided an apt metaphor for Chabad’s messianic vigilance: It is as though, he maintained, the drill has stalled less than an inch away from the oil deposit, and “if we could only break through the crust, we would witness an outburst of all that is good and cherished in the essence of the Jewish people.”80 Of course, the belief that salvation is imminent does not only sustain messianic tension; it also increases and intensifies it. True believers nurture a burning hope that their very next action might bring about the long-awaited redemption. Yet, to their mounting frustration, the redemption never arrives. And so the wait continues. Faced with such unrelenting tension, their souls threaten to burst. Yet they dare not forsake their dream for fear that the moment they do, the savior will be publicly revealed, and they will lose their place in the front rows of the heavenly beit midrash.
For the Rebbe, the struggle was intensely personal; not surprisingly, then, it exacted a considerable emotional price. In fact, it was not uncommon for the Rebbe to break down in tears when speaking of the imminent redemption. These emotional outbursts culminated in an impromptu speech delivered on the night of April 12, 1991: After beginning with a relatively calm discussion of the significance of the month of Nisan as the time of salvation, the Rebbe suddenly cried out:
Following what we have just said regarding the particular emphasis on redemption (especially) at this time, a great puzzlement arises: How is it possible that despite all that has transpired and all that has been done, the messiah has still not come? … This is utterly incomprehensible!
And another puzzlement: When ten Jews gather together (or many dozens of them), during a time that is fitting for the redemption, and nevertheless they do not hurry to act to bring the messiah immediately, and they do not find it absurd that our righteous savior will not arrive tonight, nor will he arrive tomorrow, nor will he arrive in two days—God help us!
Even when we shout, “How much longer?” it is only because of the commandment to do so, for if we truly had proper devotion and appealed and demanded, surely the messiah would already have come!
What more can I do? I have done all I can so that the Jewish people will truly demand and clamor for the redemption, for all that was done so far was not enough, and the proof is that we are still in exile and, more importantly, we are still in internal exile from the worship of God.
The only thing that remains for me to do is to give over the matter to you. Do all that is in your power to achieve this thing—a most sublime and transcendent light that needs to be brought down into our world with pragmatic tools—to bring the righteous messiah, immediately mamash!
May it be God’s will that, finally, ten Jews will arise who will “insist” that they must plead to God, and of course they will plead to God—as it is written “For it is a stiff-necked people… (and therefore) pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thy inheritance”—in order to bring about the true and complete redemption immediately mamash.
In order to further hasten and hurry [the redemption] through my actions—I will further entrust each and every one of you with a mission to serve as emissaries in regards to the mitzvah to give charity, because “Great is charity for it draws redemption nearer.”81
I have done my part. From this point on, all is in your hands.83
At first, the Rebbe’s audience took his words as an admission of failure.83 It appeared, after all, as though he had finally resigned himself to his inability to bring about the redemption, and had chosen instead to bequeath the task to his followers, or perhaps to the coming generations, in the hope that they would succeed where he had not. In this rare moment of sober reflection, the Rebbe had seemingly gone so far as to question Chabad’s messianic expectations, or at the very least the possibility of their realization. As is often the case with messianic movements, however, the dread of looming failure only increases the passion and motivation of the believers. And indeed, after the initial shock had worn off, Chabad commenced a flurry of renewed, reinvigorated activism whose goal was “Messiah Now.” By far the boldest of these undertakings was the publication of the halachic declaration mentioned above, which expressed Chabad’s conviction that, so far as the messiah is concerned, “If you decree it, he will come.”
