“To Make Many More Menachem Mendels”: Childlessness, Procreation, and Creation in Messianic Habad

Abstract

Miracle stories in which the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson grants offspring to childless couples are quite abundant among the radically messianic Hasidim (meshichistim) in contemporary Habad. Noting that the Rebbe himself was childless and that his death is denied by the meshichistim who keep viewing him as the designated Messiah, I seek to deconstruct these stories by exploring the implications of his exalted messianic status. The narratives in which the Rebbe’s power to grant new life is particularly evident involve dreams, visions, and the Rebbe’s pictures. One of the Rebbe’s iconic portraits, designated “the picture with baby,” recurs in stories connected to childbirth because the believers detect a baby face in the Rebbe’s raised hand there. Various associations connect the baby in the Rebbe’s hand with babies born following his blessing, thus forming the impression that in the believers’ inner lives the Rebbe may assume the role of the child’s progenitor. This notion is discussed in the context of the connection between creation and procreation in Jewish mysticism and of the Rebbe’s messianic ideas.