{"id":52,"date":"2010-06-01T11:45:01","date_gmt":"2010-06-01T11:45:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/2010\/06\/did-the-lubavitcher-rebbe-con-the-world.html"},"modified":"2010-06-01T11:45:01","modified_gmt":"2010-06-01T11:45:01","slug":"did-the-lubavitcher-rebbe-con-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/2010\/06\/did-the-lubavitcher-rebbe-con-the-world.htm","title":{"rendered":"Did the Lubavitcher Rebbe Con the World?"},"content":{"rendered":"

My review of Samuel Heilman and Menachem Friedman’s new biography of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, was recently published. In it, I reject as bizarre their central thesis that the Rebbe was not passionate about Judaism for the first four decades of his life and fell into the leadership of the Chabad movement almost by default because he had failed as an architect.<\/span><\/p>\n


\n<\/p>\n


<\/b><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

It’s kind of a wacky theory when you think about it, and I have
\nspent the past while wondering why Heilman and Friedman – respected academics
\nboth – wrote it. Of all the things to insinuate about the leading Jewish
\nspiritual authority of the twentieth century, that he was bored by Judaism? To
\nbe sure, like all great men, the Rebbe has his critics. I have heard sworn
\nenemies of the Rebbe tell me that he was a crazed fanatic who believed he was
\nthe Messiah and convinced his army of drones of the same, a cult leader who
\nabused his charisma for nefarious purposes. But here two great academics argue
\nprecisely the opposite, that the Rebbe was a bit of a con who was prepared to
\ngive up his chosen modern European wardrobe of tailored suits and white Stetson
\nhat for the drab and black attire of a Chassidic Rebbe because he couldn’t make
\na living as a secular professional. Is it believable that the man who almost
\nsingle-handedly reversed the tide of Jewish assimilation merely pretended to be
\ninterested in Judaism when in reality he simply needed a job?<\/span><\/p>\n

It’s kind of insulting when you think about it. Not for the Rebbe
\nbut for the rest of us. According to Heilman and Friedman, world Jewry was
\nessentially duped. The Rebbe’s hundreds of thousands of worldwide followers,
\nand the millions more who have been touched by Chabad across the globe, were
\nconned by a failed engineer. It would be akin to an author writing a book about
\nNelson Mandela that suggested that the cause of African rights bored the great
\nleader for most of his life. But when he discovered he couldn’t make a living
\nas an attorney he reluctantly decided to spend 27 years in a jail cell because
\nhe had no other career prospects. Except that in the Rebbe’s case the
\nallegation is even more preposterous because the author’s cannot account for
\nhow such a charlatan became one of the greatest Torah sages of the twentieth
\ncentury, publishing more than 100 books.<\/span><\/p>\n

Albert Einstein discovered relativity as an utterly unknown Swiss
\npatent clerk. Yet no one suggests that because he worked a dead-end job and did
\nnot teach at a University there was no way he could be serious about physics.
\nBut Heilman and Friedman are convinced that since the Rebbe studied to be an
\nengineer there was no way he was equally passionate about his Judaism. What
\ngives?<\/span><\/p>\n

I have my own theory about the author’s theory. Here goes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Two hundred years ago, when Jews first embraced the enlightenment,
\nthey believed they had discarded Judaism forever. The smartest, most educated
\nJews rejected Judaism as a primitive and superstitious relic of a dark and
\nignorant past. No doubt even these intellectuals would hold on to some
\nsemblance of their Judaism, perhaps harmless rituals like lighting Friday night
\nCandles or cultural rights like enjoying Yiddish theater. But the rest of
\nJudaism’s primal husk that had for so long stifled Jewish creativity, cutting
\nthem off from the mainstream, would be forever discarded.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, secular intellectuals accepted that there would still be
\nsome weak-minded, secularly illiterate Jews who would cling to the old
\nsuperstitious ways. Distinguished by their long, unkempt beards and long black
\ncoats, they would remain on the fringes of Jewish life, in their self-imposed
\nghettos, where they would be harmless. So long as they knew their place, their
\nexistence was not threatening. But the new face of Judaism would be urbane,
\nwell-groomed, and clean-shaven intellectual who were properly cynical about
\nfaith.<\/span><\/p>\n

Everything went according to plan for nearly two hundred years.
\nGreat Jewish minds like Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein became the most famous
\nJews in the entire world. Both were strongly attached to their Jewish
\nidentities while ridiculing Judaism as a collection of fairy-tales and myths
\nfrom a crude Jewish past.<\/span><\/p>\n

But then something changes. One of the religious Neanderthals dared
\nto rear his head publicly. Unsatisfied with seeing Judaism shunted to the
\nsidelines, he dreamed an era of global Jewish Renaissance and began to put it
\ninto practice. He refused to accept that secular Jews were any more
\nsophisticated than the religiously observant. On the contrary, possessed of a
\nformidable mind and extensive secular training himself, he demonstrated the
\nconsiderable intellectual and moral shortcomings of modern secularism and began
\nto win victories in the marketplace of ideas. He sent his emissaries to the
\nworld’s most important cities and leading Universities and, after first being
\nseen as oddities they began to win a considerable following. Within a few
\ndecades they had become the Jewish mainstream.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Rebbe obliterated the unspoken agreement that religious Jews
\nshould remain locked in their broken neighborhood hovels while secular Jews
\nbecame the grand Ambassadors of the faith. He refused to be locked in a holy
\nbox. He thought the unthinkable, that secular Jews would eventually reject
\ntheir rejection of Judaism and begin to embrace Jewish observance all over
\ngain. In so doing he brought about the greatest Jewish spiritual revolution of
\nall time and by the time he died he had almost single-handedly reversed the
\ntide of two centuries of Jewish assimilation. And he became the face of global
\nJudaism.<\/span><\/p>\n

Is that man a threat to old order, or what?<\/span><\/p>\n

So what do you do when 200 years of Jewish acculturation has been
\nturned on its head by a single man? Easy. You claim that even he was really a
\nJewish secularist. That notwithstanding his long black coat, white beard, and
\nblack hat, he too wanted to discard it all and become yet another
\nsuper-sophisticated, secular Jewish intellectual. Unfortunately, he just wasn’t
\ngifted enough to be part of the secular, professional elite. So he was forced
\nto go back to the Jewish boondocks and hang out with his backward clan, all the
\nwhile wishing the he could have stayed in Paris and Berlin. But, wink, wink, he
\nknew all along where the real action was, and envied those who were lucky
\nenough to succeed in it.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Rabbi Shmuley
\nBoteach, founder of This World: The Values Network, has just published
\n‘Renewal: A Guide to the Values-Filled Life.’ His website is http:\/\/www.shmuley.com<\/span><\/a>. Follow him on Twitter
\n@RabbiShmuley.<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My review of Samuel Heilman and Menachem Friedman’s new biography of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, was recently published. In it, I reject as bizarre their central thesis that the Rebbe was not passionate about Judaism for the first four decades of his life and fell into the leadership of the Chabad movement…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":203,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-religion-and-spirituality"],"yoast_head":"\nDid the Lubavitcher Rebbe Con the World? - Rabbi Shmuley Unleashed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/2010\/06\/did-the-lubavitcher-rebbe-con-the-world.htm\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Did the Lubavitcher Rebbe Con the World? - Rabbi Shmuley Unleashed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My review of Samuel Heilman and Menachem Friedman’s new biography of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, was recently published. In it, I reject as bizarre their central thesis that the Rebbe was not passionate about Judaism for the first four decades of his life and fell into the leadership of the Chabad movement…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/2010\/06\/did-the-lubavitcher-rebbe-con-the-world.htm\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Rabbi Shmuley Unleashed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-06-01T11:45:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rabbi Shmuley Boteach\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Did the Lubavitcher Rebbe Con the World? - Rabbi Shmuley Unleashed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/2010\/06\/did-the-lubavitcher-rebbe-con-the-world.htm","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Did the Lubavitcher Rebbe Con the World? - Rabbi Shmuley Unleashed","og_description":"My review of Samuel Heilman and Menachem Friedman’s new biography of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, was recently published. In it, I reject as bizarre their central thesis that the Rebbe was not passionate about Judaism for the first four decades of his life and fell into the leadership of the Chabad movement…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/2010\/06\/did-the-lubavitcher-rebbe-con-the-world.htm","og_site_name":"Rabbi Shmuley Unleashed","article_published_time":"2010-06-01T11:45:01+00:00","author":"Rabbi Shmuley Boteach","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/2010\/06\/did-the-lubavitcher-rebbe-con-the-world.htm","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/2010\/06\/did-the-lubavitcher-rebbe-con-the-world.htm","name":"Did the Lubavitcher Rebbe Con the World? - Rabbi Shmuley Unleashed","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-06-01T11:45:01+00:00","dateModified":"2010-06-01T11:45:01+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/#\/schema\/person\/0621b4391203aa7af99ea2f3def86931"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/2010\/06\/did-the-lubavitcher-rebbe-con-the-world.htm#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/2010\/06\/did-the-lubavitcher-rebbe-con-the-world.htm"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/2010\/06\/did-the-lubavitcher-rebbe-con-the-world.htm#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Did the Lubavitcher Rebbe Con the World?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/","name":"Rabbi Shmuley Unleashed","description":"Rabbi Shmuley Boteach","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/#\/schema\/person\/0621b4391203aa7af99ea2f3def86931","name":"Rabbi Shmuley Boteach","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/01f\/01f8c83e190b723e02d92a1ed9750af4x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/01f\/01f8c83e190b723e02d92a1ed9750af4x96.jpg","caption":"Rabbi Shmuley Boteach"},"description":"Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is host of the award-winning national TV show, Shalom in the Home on TLC. He is also the international best-selling author of 20 books, including his most recent work, The Kosher Sutra: Eight Sacred Secrets for Reigniting Desire and Restoring Passion for Life (Harper One). His book, Kosher Sex, was an international blockbuster, published in 20 languages, and his recent books on the American family, Parenting With Fire and Ten Conversations You Need to Have With Your Children, were both launched on The Oprah Winfrey Show.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/author\/dbigbee"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/203"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}