First and the Last

We got an impression of one of his early writings as the new leader of Chabad, from their perspective that is the spiritual mystical leader of all of the Hasidic ‘movement’ , indeed of the entire Jewish world…

Now we will get a taste of one of his talks, with a famous spontaneous bit, towards the end of his life.

All of You Are

In June of 1994 at the age of 92 he died. But already in March of 1992 he suffered from a stroke and from then on could not speak or walk.

A year before that, in April of 1991, he delivered a sermon to a close group of adherents, which seemed kind of like career summarizing words:

Because of the unique stress on the Redemption in this time, an astonishing question arises: How is it possible that despite all these factors, Mashiach has not yet come?

This is beyond all possible comprehension.  It is also beyond comprehension that when ten (and many times ten) Jews gather together at a time that is appropriate for the Redemption to come, they do not raise a clamor great enough to cause Mashiach to come immediately. 

They are, heaven forbid, able to accept the possibility that Mashiach will not arrive tonight, and even that he will not arrive tomorrow, or on the day after tomorrow, heaven forbid.  Even when people cry out Ad masai? ("Until when will we remain in exile?"), they do so only because they were told to.

If they had sincere intent and earnest desire, and cried out in truth, Mashiach would surely have come already. 

What more can I do to motivate the entire Jewish people to clamor and cry out, and thus actually bring about the coming of Mashiach?

All that has been done until now has been to no avail, for we are still in exile; moreover, we are in an inner exile in regard to our own service of G-d.

All that I can possibly do is to give the matter over to you. Now, do everything you can to bring Mashiach, here and now, immediately - act with all the energy and power of the lights of Tohu, but have your deeds balanced with the stability of the tools of Tikkun.

May it be G-d's will that ultimately ten Jews will be found who are stubborn enough to resolve to secure G-d's consent; their stubborn resolve will surely evoke G-d's favor, as reflected by the interpretation of the verse, "for [i.e., because] they are a stiff-necked people, You will pardon our sins and wrongdoings and make us Your possession" - to actually bring about the true and ultimate Redemption, here and now immediately.

(From the Sicha of 28 Nissan 5751)

At the end here, near the end, we see consistency with several of the points from the early inauguration sermon - the goal of spiritual redemption, emphasis on the role of the individuals in the group as spiritual activists, messianic jargon…

Specifically in this talk there is not so much mentioning of his predecessors, the dynasty of Chabad - however, the extraordinary personal emotional cry - “What else can I do?!” seems so earnest...

He was so committed, especially since his inauguration of course, to be totally loyal and obedient to the cause, to the mission bestowed upon him by his father in law, his teacher and leader, and the predecessors, and G-d Himself of course. 

Not Dichotomous

The difficulty in the question of the messianism of the Rebbe lies in the common old approach that assumes there is full blown traditional messianic candidacy, true or false, messiah or not. 

In this case, it is a mix of what we encountered with figures like Nachman of Breslev, the Ba’al Shem Tov, Isaac Luria, and so on.

In the footsteps of Shimon bar Yochai, associating with the Yesod Sphere, a presumptuous messianic harbinger figure.

A mix of that, with the looming suspicion of more than that, we wask, was the Remamash associated with Malkhut or Yesod?

It seems he was associated with Malkhut. That makes him different from the others. Or, that is the mix, he is mostly that type, the Yesod harbinger type, except that he is associated with Malkhut, along with the Chabad - Hasidic - Kabbalistic concepts there, of manifestation of light and Divine Presence, and such.

By the way, within Chabad, there are traditions or ideas - nothing officially, regarding the chain of Hasidic masters, while each is associated with the chain of Spheres of Kabbalah.

But there are different ways of calculating - starting from the Alter Rebbe or starting from the Ba’al Shem Tov through the Magid of Mezritch, and then the 7 Chabad leaders, for example, and / but the Spheres can be counted or listed in different matters.

I mention this not because it brings more clarity, but because it adds to the significance of this particular important point, of association, of the Rebbe, with one Sphere or another.

The question remains, whether he is supposed to be associated with Malkhut-Kingdom, or not. It feels like he had one leg in Yesod and the other in Malkhut. 

No to Disparity

The other big difference with the Lubavitcher is that he did much more by far than all of them, by associating suggestively to his people as the traditional Messiah. 

He was a genius - not just scholastically but also organizationally and socially and he knew exactly how everyone was responding and what they were thinking and how his words and behavior fed into it all.

One could argue that Nachman of Breslev had just as high of a sense of self, and self-conscious spiritual mystical ego, perhaps even higher, than the Lubavitcher, yet the latter was perceived as Messiah, within his lifetime, before his eyes, suggestively but intentionally.

Last point, as we ponder - why then did he go along with it? A possible explanation lies in the idea that his spiritualistic worldview Chabad-style meant that for him it was all directing the people and Israel in the right direction - messianism as spiritualism as enlightenment as redemption, and so he encouraged it, and for him it was not a contradiction in the end that they thought he was THE Messiah and he was encouraging messianism as spiritualism.

Perhaps this was his mindset - encouraging the spirituality. 

Maybe also he thought of himself in terms of messianic potential, and so he was earnestly trying the whole time, he wasn’t leading people on, and towards the end it became clear that it was not going to happen, so he shifted more to a narrative of everyone else, the people his followers, to do the job - the messianic task - which is spirituality beyond, which is the messianic redemption - and there never was for him disparity.