Lubavitch Hasidism

Abstract

Chabad Hasidism developed at the end of the eighteenth century around the persona of rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady (b. 1745–d. 1813). Shneur Zalman, who was a student of two important leaders of the nascent Hasidic movement, Dov Ber of Mezeritch and Menachem Mendel of Witebsk, gradually rose to become a Hasidic leader in his own right following the latter’s immigration to Palestine. His literary output, which encompasses both legal and mystical teachings, forms the core of Chabad doctrine. Following his death and a succession feud, his followers split into two groups. One followed his son Dov Ber Shneuri (b. 1773–d. 1827), while another followed his outstanding disciple, Aharon ha-Levi (b. 1766–d. 1826). Dov Ber relocated to the neighboring town of Lyubavitchi, from which the movement obtained the second part of its name: Chabad-Lubavitch. Aharon did not manage to perpetuate his leadership; when he died the majority of his followers rejoined Chabad-Lubavitch, confirming the father-to-son succession model in Chabad. Lyubavitchi remained the spiritual center of the Lubavitch faction of Chabad until 1915, when the fifth rebbe, Shalom Dovber Schneersohn (b. 1860–d. 1920), relocated to Rostov in an attempt to flee the advancing German army. After the October Revolution, the new communist regime and the antireligious persecutions that followed eventually forced Chabad out of Russia and into Latvia and Poland. The Polish episode in Chabad history did not last long and was abruptly ended by the outbreak of the Second World War. Thanks to persistent diplomatic efforts, Yosef Yitshak was allowed to leave occupied Poland and in 1940 arrived in the United States. Yosef Yitshak saw in the atrocities of the war and the Holocaust the birth-pangs of the messiah; the Chabad institutions that he founded in Brooklyn were intended as a tool of bringing American Jews back to the fold of religion and thus preparing the ground for the messianic advent. His son-in-law and successor, Menachem Mendel Schneerson (b. 1902–d. 1994), took up his message and developed around it Chabad as a transnational organization, emissaries of which are active providing orthodox religious services all around the globe. The success of Chabad outreach, the centrality of messianic message, and the charisma of the rebbe led part of his followers to believe that the rebbe himself was the long-expected messiah; this belief persisted to some extent even despite his death in 1994, and it caused a major controversy within the orthodox community with regard to the boundaries of Jewish messianism. The controversy notwithstanding, Chabad has continued to thrive, and with over a thousand centers scattered around the world, it has become perhaps the most visible Hasidic movement and a dominant force in the Jewish orthodox community of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.