Messianic Parallels: The Lubavitcher Jews and the Neocatechumenals

Chiesa.com ^ | February 16, 2005 | Sandro Magister

[NYer]

Menachem Mendel Schneerson

ROMA, February 16, 2005 - In an extensive interview in the first issue of "Oasis," the new international magazine of the patriarchate of Venice, the Custodian of the Holy Land, Franciscan Fr. Pierbattista Pizzaballa, speaks of the "Israeli Jews who have encountered Christ and received baptism."

In Israel, he says, these amount to "several hundred persons." And he foresees that they will remain few in number: "Judaism does not allow for conversion. Of course, the state does not forbid making different choices. But there is a lack of understanding, and tension." For this reason, Hebrew Christians maintain "a certain discretion" and "do not make an excessive show of their Christian identity; they do not provoke or constrain those around them to take too much notice of them."

But these are the Jews who have entered the Catholic Church, and have a bishop exclusively for themselves. Because there are also others, more numerous, without a relationship with the Church. They simply believe that the Jesus of the New Testament is the Messiah who will return at the end of time. They are the "messianic Jews," and Fr. Pizzaballa estimates that there are "thousands" of them. Both the first and the second kind come predominantly from religious Judaism, which is generally called "Orthodox."

* * *
Messianism has come back powerfully to the fore in the Jewish religion. And the same thing has happened in Christianity, especially in the "evangelical" and Pentecostal sectors that are expanding strongly throughout the world. The latter phenomena are, for the most part, extraneous to Catholicism, but even the Roman Church is marked by them.

One element that characterizes these new currents of Christianity is precisely friendship with Israel, contrary to the tendency of the historical Protestant Churches, which have generally been hostile. During the blackest period of the last intifada, when visits to the Holy Land decreased to almost nothing, the "evangelical" Churches never stopped bringing their pilgrims there. And the same was true, in the Catholic Church, of the communities of the Neocatechumenal Way, which is certainly the most pro-Israeli of all the Catholic renewal movements of the last half century.

The rediscovery of messianism brings a meeting of the minds between the Neocatechumenals and one current of Orthodox Judaism in particular: the Lubavitchers.

Last January 22, an entire page in the Italian newspaper "il Foglio" was dedicated to a learned and enthusiastic presentation of the messianism of the Lubavitchers. The author of the essay was Giuseppe Gennarini, one of the founders of the Neocatechumenal Way in Italy.

* * *
The Lubavitchers take their name from the Byelorussian city of Lubavitch, their place of origin. They were born in the second half of the 17th century, from a splinter of Hasidic Judaism. In terms of this vast current of religious revival, they distinguish themselves by a more marked attention to the study of the Talmudic and Cabalistic texts, both public and secret, and by their strong missionary efforts among their brothers in faith.

In 1944, their supreme rabbi, Joseph Isaac, moved to the United States, to Brooklyn, where the Lubavitchers still have their central synagogue, at 770 Eastern Parkway. They lived that migration to infidel America, with its many secularized Jews, as a descent into the world of darkness, a prelude God had willed before the salvific manifestation of the Messiah. This they saw as being fulfilled in the person of Joseph Isaac's son-in-law and successor, the new "rebbe" Menachem Mendel Schneerson (in the photo). Highly venerated, he died in 1994 at 92 years of age, after a painful illness. He had not designated anyone to succeed him. His followers believe that he will rise from the dead and return to inaugurate the definitive messianic kingdom.

The Lubavitchers constitute a revealing and dynamic portion of Hasidic religious Judaism. They are active in many countries, with more than 2,600 institutes. About 3,600 families have gone on mission. In Italy, they are present in Milan and Venice, and control the most important kosher abattoir in Rome. 150 rabbis from all over the world have signed a recognition of "rebbe" Schneerson's messianic identity.

But it is precisely their messianism that has brought fusillades against the Lubavitchers from other sectors of the Jewish world. David Berger, a famous Orthodox rabbi, but connected to "liberal" circles, published in the United States, in 2002, a book vehemently against them: "The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference." Berger defined them as heretics and idolaters. He wants them to be banned, because in his judgment their messianism turns classical Jewish doctrine upside down and puts at risk the very survival of Judaism in the world.

Berger has focused for years on relations between Jews and Christians, and is convinced that the Lubavitchers' messianism facilitates the missionary expansion of Christians among the Jews. He calls the latter to react. He writes: "If we treat the messianists as good Jews, we concede to Christianity victory in the crucial points of a millenarian struggle."

In effect, after Jesus, Jewish messianic doctrines withdrew into the shadows. They became the subject of studies that were reserved for a few. The Lubavitchers brought them back above ground and enlisted precisely the two biblical passages which in the New Testament are central to the recognition of Jesus as the Messiah, applying them to their "rebbe." The first is from Zechariah 12: "They shall look upon him whom they have pierced." The second is from Isaiah 53: "He was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities. [...] Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, he opened not his mouth. [...] When he makes himself an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days."

But not everyone within Judaism shares rabbi Berger's fears. David Singer, director of research at the American Jewish Committee, published in May of 2003, in the influential Catholic magazine "First Things," directed by Fr. Richard J. Neuhaus, a much more positive commentary. This is how it ends:

"Far worse than the disruptive presence of the Lubavitcher messianists on the current Orthodox scene would be their total absence. An Orthodox Judaism in which hope for the messiah remained permanently fixed at the level of pious affirmation would be nothing more than a religious mummy. Call them crazy, call them heretics, the Lubavitcher messianists bear powerful, if strange, witness to the continued vitality of Judaism’s belief in the messiah."

* * *
In the Catholic world, the commentary of Giuseppe Gennarini is very similar to the preceding one. This is the conclusion of his note on the Lubavitchers:

"This debate sheds new light on the relations between Christianity and Judaism, demonstrating that many aspects of Jesus and of Christianity which according to some were the fruit of Hellenizing contaminations, or in any case of contaminations extraneous to the Jewish tradition, are instead profoundly rooted in the tradition of Israel. But above all, in an age of 'feeble thought' and in a world that sees the supreme ideal in conformity or assimilation, the Lubavitchers are living witnesses that faith in the Messiah – already come or still to come – is the center of the Judaeo-Christian faith."

The Neocatechumenals, one of whose members is Gennarini, have a strong presence and activity in Israel. On top of Mount Korazym, which can be seen from the Sea of Galilee, they have built a citadel called "Domus Galilaeae" for the formation of their missionaries. Its frescoes were painted by their founder, Kiko Argüello, and it was inaugurated by John Paul II in 2002, amid the applause of many rabbis pleased by the Old Testament style of the construction.

And the Neocatechumenals attribute explicit messianic significance to the place they chose for their citadel. It is the "Galilee of the Gentiles," the "land of Zebulon and Naphtali" announced by Isaiah as the place of the Messiah's coming. Gennarini wrote in another of his contributions to "il Foglio," dated January 27, 2004:

"Following the prophecies commented upon in the Talmud and the Zohar, observant Jews today, like the Cabalistic Jewish followers of Isaac Luria in Safed in 1500, await the manifestation of the Messiah in the ‘Galilee of the Gentiles’, the historical-geographical image that announces hope when man has reached the depths of sadness, humiliation, and desperation."

Moreover, every Saturday a procession of unusual visitors enlivens the hillside of Korazym. They are Orthodox Jews who knock at the door of the "Domus Galilaeae." Next to the entrance they find a "bimah," a pulpit, as in the synagogues; on the cloister side there is Moses' decalogue carved in Hebrew in marble; at the center of the library there's a Torah from the 15th century; after the visit there are farewells, with the singing of the "Shemah Israel," and they leave emotionally moved.

In short, friendships are multiplying between Orthodox Jews and "born again" Christians, both Catholic and non-Catholic. For some these are happy friendships, for others they are suspicious, for others they are decidedly worrisome. In Israel, apart from Judaeo-Christians and messianic Jews, there are tens of thousands of immigrants from Russia and Eastern Europe, of weak and uncertain religious identity, on the edge between Judaism and Christianity. They're potential converts for the missionaries of one Messiah or the other.

__________


The website, in English, of the Lubavitchers, also called Chabad, a Hebrew acronym of chachmah, binah, and da'at, or wisdon, comprehension, and knowledge:

> www.chabad.org

__________


On issue number 133, May 2003, of "First Things," a review of the book by David Berger on the Lubavitchers:

> “The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Heresy Hunter”, by David Singer


__________


The website, in multiple languages, of the citadel of the Neocatechumenal Way in Israel:

> “Domus Galilaeae” International Center

__________

[NYer]

[NYer]

FYI Ping!

[redgolum]

We had a gentleman from the Apple of His Eye mission society at my LCMS church a few weeks ago. He was a Christian born Jewish who is making a real effort to reach out to his brethren.
http://www.appleofhiseye.org/

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

Professor Berger was actually the mentor of one of my close college friends-who's now pursuing an M.A. in history at another branch of C.U.N.Y-and is probably one of the most respected scholars, as far as this area of Judaic Studies is concerned.

I never had the pleasure of taking one of his courses, though from what I've heard, he is probably the only halfway decent history professor at Brooklyn College, with a few notable exceptions, e.g. Professor Cunningham, "K.C." Johnson, among others.

The comparison that some of the messianic Lubavitch have made between Professor Berger and Osama Bin Laden-aside from being utterly hilarious, especially for anyone who's actually met the men in person-are completely off-base.

From the brief excerpts that I've read of his seminal work on this subject, I can tell you that the vitriol heaped upon his work is misguided-at best-and completely ignores the larger cultural discoveries that he has made during his years of research in this community.

[Tamar1973]

If you want to know who these Neocatechumenals are, go to The Neocatechumenal Way according to Paul VI and John Paul II

[NYer]

DECREE OF THE PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR THE LAITY: APPROVAL OF THE STATUTES OF NEOCATECHUMENAL WAY "AD EXPERIMENTUM"

[BlackElk]

I fear that there will be an atrocious level of misunderstanding here in response to the claim of SOME Lubavitchers that the late Menachem Mendel Schneerson was somehow Messiah. This claim, as I understand it from following NYC news accounts and newspaper/TV histories of the Lubavitchers and of the late Rebbe, was never made by Menachem Schneerson nor by anyone else take seriously prior to the Rebbe being deprived of the capacity for speech, oral or written. The Rebbe, like numerous other elderly Hassidic rabbis, claimed to have dreamed dreams of the reasonably imminent coming of Messiah and he firmly asked Lubavitchers and other Jews what they were personally willing to do (by way of pious Orthodox Jewish practices such as proper Sabbath observances) to prepare for the coming of Messiah. He never suggested that he WAS Messiah. He also insisted that Jews had the obligation to do good deeds (mitzvahs) for non-Jews since Messiah would be coming for Jew and non-Jew alike as children of G-d.

Those of us who are Christians believe that Messiah has already come as Jesus Christ and that, when Messiah returns, that Messiah will be the same Jesus Christ. Unlike almost all other rabbis, Menachem Mendel Schneerson said in the New York Times in 1948, in explaining his opposition to the founding of the secular state of Israel, that the great question of all of history was: Is Jesuis Christ Messiah? He observed that Jews do not believe that Jesus Christ is Messiah and that they must wait for Messiah to come to lead them back into the Holy Land. To do otherwise would be to deny the Jewish idea of Messiah. If I am factually wrong in any of this, I will defer to Nachum who occasionally posts here and is a Lubavitcher or to any other Lubavitcher who cares to comment.

For now, it will suffice for this Gentile to say that it would be a worthwhile exercise for Christians to study and to emulate the goodness that was this man, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, a tzahdik (righteous man) and a man with whom we were privileged to share our country. May his memory be blessed.

[Nachum]

He observed that Jews do not believe that Jesus Christ is Messiah and that they must wait for Messiah to come to lead them back into the Holy Land.

To my knowledge, there were numerous reasons the Rebbe did not support the establishment of a secular state. In general, he did not discourage emigration to the Holy Land that I have ever read in his letters or speeches. One large reason for his (and numerous other Torah giants) to reject the establishment of a secular government in the Holy Land is that it would give permission to violate the Torah. In secular Israeli society, all the ills that plague modern western society were imported to the holy land and encouraged by the laws of men.

When it became apparent that masses of Jews were coming and making modern Israel their home, he did all that was in his power to support the Jews who lived there.

[nopardons]

Thanks for the inside info!

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

No problem.

:)

-good times, G.J.P.(Jr.)