I can't decide what I think about this movement - in the past I've been in touch with the local Chabad in my area, and they are truly very nice, warm, welcoming people. I just couldn't get my head around viewing this Rabbi as the Messiah, so I ended up not being interested. Since then, though, I've read various articles giving different opinions of this movement - some go as far as to call it a cult, which I disagree with, but it may be true that by aiming to reach out to Jewish people who feel they are missing something they are targeting people who are most likely to jump at the chance to feel a part of Judaism again. THat was the case with me. I guess I'm somewhere in the middle on them - I'm just not sure where the line between outreach and opportunism is.
They're the happiest Jews in New York, and possibly the world.
That is not something my family believes in, and two of my sons married into very prominent Chabad families who repudiate this view.
I'm just not sure where the line between outreach and opportunism is.
Opportunism is when they keep pestering you for money.
I recall reading some years back that this group had built an exact replica of their shabby Brooklyn warehouse synagogue somewhere out in the Israeli desert, so that the Messiah (meaning Schneerson, of course) would feel "at home" when he returned. Sounded mighty kooky to me, albeit in a harmless way. But from this article it sounds as if the leadership of the group is very tolerant of its kookier subsets, so perhaps it was just one of those subsets, rather than top leadership, that was behind the warehouse replica project.
As far as I knew, most Lubavitchers do not think Rebbe Schneerson was the messiah.