TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/032392/0323610.000

Text File | 1992-10-19 | 5.6 KB | 119 lines

                                                                                RELIGION, Page 49

Expecting the Messiah


An ultra-Orthodox sect says the Redeemer is due to arrive any
day now -- and he might be an American

By LISA BEYER/KFAR HABAD -- With reporting by Hannah Bloch/
Brooklyn


    Israeli Jews like to tell an old fable of a Russian Jew
who goes to his rabbi in search of a job. The rabbi instructs
the man to stand at the village gate each morning and wait
there to greet the Messiah when he comes. For this, the rabbi
offers the man a ruble a month. "The pay is so low," the man
complains. "Yes," says the rabbi, "but the job security is
excellent."

    That mythological gatekeeper would be scanning the want
ads today, according to a group of ultra-Orthodox Jews. Israeli
members of the large and powerful Hasidic movement Habad are
convinced that at any moment, the Redeemer will arrive in
Jerusalem. In a burst of fervor, they have erected yellow
billboards across Israel, instructing passersby to PREPARE FOR
THE COMING OF THE MESSIAH. Bumper stickers carry the same
message, as do electrified signs atop Habad cars. A full-page
ad announcing "The Time for Your Redemption Has Arrived" has run
in the New York Times, and Habad speakers have been
crisscrossing the U.S. to deliver their message. And who might
the Messiah be? Easy, say Israel's Habadniks: their leader,
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, 89, of Brooklyn, N.Y.

    Utter blasphemy is what many other religious Jews say.
Critics of Habad, which is also known as the Lubavitch movement,
after the Belarussian village of its founding, are both angry
and worried. Eliezer Schach, one of Israel's leading
ultra-Orthodox rabbis, has publicly called Schneerson "insane,"
an "infidel" and "a false Messiah." The local papers carried
Schach's outrageous charge that Schneerson's followers are
"eaters of trayf," food such as pork that is forbidden to Jews.
Other detractors fret that Habad's Messianic passions will
provoke a schism in Judaism or lead to mass disillusionment,
driving believers from the fold. Says philosopher Rabbi David
Hartman: "The outpouring of Messianic fervor is always a very
disturbing development."

    Within Habad, a well-financed organization with 30,000
followers in Brooklyn and at least 100,000 worldwide, the
expectation of the Messiah's coming has been building since
Schneerson in the past few years began exhorting his disciples
more and more to actively prepare for the day. The crumbling of
the Iron Curtain and the Soviet Union's demise, explains Habad
spokesman Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, "lead one to think that these
extraordinary, shattering events are a precursor to something
even more cataclysmic."

    Anticipation sharpened after the gulf war, whose impact on
Israel Schneerson supposedly predicted. Before the fighting
began, the Lubavitcher rebbe, or spiritual leader, declared that
Israel would be the "safest place in the world." Actually, 74
Israelis died, all but six of them from heart problems caused
by the terror of 39 Iraqi Scud-missile attacks. Still, the loss
of so few lives seemed to many Lubavitchers the result of
divine Providence.

    Last month the rebbe gave permission to one of his flock
to begin building a house for him in Kfar Habad, the movement's
village in Israel. Schneerson has never set foot in the Jewish
state, and his followers believe he will do so only at the
moment of Redemption. The ground breaking was seen as a sign
that the time is near. "The Messiah will come any day," declared
Moshe Kruger, standing on the plot for Schneerson's house.

    It is not an official tenet of Habad's belief that
Schneerson is the Messiah, but many of his followers say
outright that he is, and some have petitioned him to "reveal"
himself. The rebbe has on a few occasions denied that he is the
Redeemer but has done little to discourage speculation. Two
weeks ago, Schneerson received a vote of confidence from
renowned Talmudic scholar Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz. Though a
Lubavitcher himself, Steinsaltz has a reputation for sober
erudition, so it caused a small stir among the non-Habad
Orthodox when he said Schneerson was "the most likely person on
the scene now" to become the Messiah.

    Steinsaltz, who points out that Messianic expectation is
a fundamental tenet of the Jewish faith, believes that each
generation produces a candidate and that ordinary people can
speed his coming by creating an atmosphere for Redemption. Other
scholars reject Habad's active campaigning for the event.
Followers of Rabbi Schach, a longtime rival of Schneerson's,
believe the arrival of the Messiah is God's business, not man's.
"When he comes, he comes," says Avraham Ravitz, a member of the
Knesset. "It's crazy to force the Messiah to come by selling
him like Coca-Cola, with jingles and stickers and billboards."

    Habad's critics also say the group may be creating the
conditions for large-scale spiritual disillusionment. "If you
convince people that the Messiah is coming and he doesn't," says
Amnon Levy, author of a book on the ultra-Orthodox, "a whole
generation may lose its faith."

    Concern that Schneerson might disappoint his devotees was
heightened earlier this month when the rebbe suffered a mild
stroke. But even the leader's death would not disprove his
Messianic potential, argues Steinsaltz, who believes the
Redeemer will be mortal, someone who will eventually die and
have successors. In the meantime, the rebbe's adherents are
praying he will recover in time to bring a happy denouement to
the drama they have been so eagerly anticipating.