I was surprised to read an article in the Five Towns Jewish Times last week which seemed to propound the belief that either a) the Rebbe is not really dead, or that b) he will return from the dead to be mashiach.
The article, "Gimmel Tammuz," was written by Yanki Tauber and also appears at Chabad.org. When reading such articles, one needs to realize that it is an art form to hint at these matters without explicitly saying so, so that there is plausible deniability. And what is not said is almost as important as what is said.
Gimmel Tammuz is the yartzeit of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, tz"l. So one would expect a mention that the Rebbe is dead - a zecher tzaddik livracha. Now, perhaps he omits this based on this statement by the Rebbe, which he cites from the Rebbe. (Though depending on how he understands this statement and why he thinks it is an important statement to mention, that might be further proof that he believes the Rebbe to not truly be dead.) However, when there are people around who actively believe that the Rebbe is not really dead, or that he went into hiding and will return, then omitting it carries meaning, and if one wishes to avoid that meaning, one should use zatzal.
Further, thoughout the article, he never mentions that the Rebbe has died. He talks about the funeral and the cemetery, but omits the fact that the Rebbe died:
I remember hearing the news early Sunday morning (Israeli Time) and rushing to the airport. I remember arriving at the cemetery hours after the funeral, in midst of the throng still pouring in, as it would through the night and the days and nights to follow, from all over the world.
He omits what the news is, and talks around it by mentioning cemetery and funeral, such that his readers know to what he is referring while cleverly avoiding a statement that the Rebbe died.
The closest he gets to stating that the Rebbe died is the following:
I remember thinking: The Rebbe, who has redefined virtually every aspect of life, has also redefined death.
The Rebbe thus did not die, but rather redefined death.
Wow. Could you elaborate? He writes later in the article:
In one of his talks, the Rebbe quoted the Talmudic dictum that "Sleep is one sixtieth of death." Well, said the Rebbe, if sleep is a form of death, then death is a form of sleep. Sleep is not a termination or even an interruption of life -- it is a time of foment, the means by which body and soul recoup their energies for a fresh and refreshed onslaught upon the coming day. So is death. Death, said the Rebbe, is a "descent for the sake of ascent," a retraction of the arrow of life so that it can be impelled by the bow of vacuity with redoubled force.
The Rebbe, zatzal, was presumably talking about death in general, for everyone, and eventual techiyat hameitim. In the context of this article, it is talking specifically about the Rebbe.
The impression one gets (or one could get) from this quote is that, unlike normal people who simply die, the Rebbe redefined death. Death is a form of sleep, so he is not dead, just resting. ("No, no, 'e's uh,...he's resting.") He is in hiding somewhere obscured from us, in a "descent for the sake of ascent." It is a retraction of the arrow of life so that it can be impelled by the bow of vacuity with redoubled force. And that redoubled force is presumably the Rebbe's Second Coming.
(Alternatively, the Rebbe is dead, but his death is preparation for his eventual Second Coming.)
Early in the article, he writes:
There was shock and incredulity. There was grief and agony. There was passionate disagreement and fervent expectation and many, many unanswered and unanswerable questions.
What does he mean by these "unanswered and unanswerable questions?" The Rebbe had died. What are the questions?
He answers at the end, after citing the Rebbe that
Death, said the Rebbe, is a "descent for the sake of ascent," a retraction of the arrow of life so that it can be impelled by the bow of vacuity with redoubled force.
he writes:
How? When? Why? The unanswered questions remain unanswered. But we know what we need to do. And we're doing it. You can go see for yourself -- if you reside on planet earth, chances are that you are within driving distance of a Chabad-Lubavitch center.
Thus, the unanswered questions about the Rebbe's death -- or in the later context, it seems the Rebbe's return (being "impelled by the bow of vacuity with redoubled force") -- are: How? When? Why?
What does he mean by these questions? My best guess is: How will the Rebbe return? When? Why did he need to remove himself from the world?
But they know what to do -- to bring the Mashiach -- just as Chabad is always focused on. And they are doing it.
To me, this seems the correct elucidation of this deliberately oblique article. My question is if the editor of the paper realized this as well.
I wonder whether there will be any Letters to the Editor regarding this.
Anyway, consider this blogpost a sign of my "Orthodox Difference."
- posted by joshwaxman @ 9:42 AM
Comments:
Don't be so surprised. The editor/ owner of the 5 Town J Times is Larry Gordon, who has Chabad roots. His father was Nissan Gordon, who wrote for the Algemeiner Zhournal.
Not that its a bad thing, but Larry Gordon has Chabad sympathies. This came out some time ago as well when the paper featured some scathing critiques of David Berger's (scathing) critiques of Chabad.
# posted by Anonymous : Tuesday, July 04, 2006 11:47:46 AM
5tjt (www.5tjt.com) runs Lubavitch pieces all the time. They regularly feature pieces by Tauber and similar. Sometimes people may not realize that they are Lubavitch, however, as they often disguise them with titles such as 'from the Chassidic masters', or general Jewish sounding ones.
Larry Gordon is intelligent. He doesn't put the Lubavitch stuff front and center, on the front page, in your face. He doesn't want to turn off people or appear too far out of the mainstream. However, the Lubavitch stuff is there, you just gotta turn some pages till you get to it.
# posted by Anonymous : Tuesday, July 04, 2006 11:47:26 PM
Another good example of this recently was how 5tjt handled an article by Marvin Schick that appeared in the Jerusalem Post criticizing some aspects of Lubavitch.
Whereas elsewhere it was published alone, Gordon didn't publish it at first, only doing so when he had a Lubavitch rebuttal to put alongside it.
# posted by Anonymous : Tuesday, July 04, 2006 11:54:12 PM
very interesting. thanks.
I have no problem with Lubavitch articles. In fact, IIRC, there was another article in the same paper which did not strike me as problematic. What surprised me was *meshichist,* moshiach from the dead, Lubavitch articles. and I wonder if the editor, Larry Gordon, realized this about this specific piece, or if it just slipped by his notice.
# posted by joshwaxman : Wednesday, July 05, 2006 6:33:03 AM
update:
I've had some correspondence with the editor and it is clear that he saw nothing in the article that implied that the Rebbe ztz"l did not die or that the Rebbe would return from the dead as mashiach. and he continues to see nothing in the article that implies this. he thinks I am way off on this and believes I have an agenda or a desire to have something to blog about.
# posted by joshwaxman : Wednesday, July 05, 2006 8:44:17 AM
The article, "Gimmel Tammuz," was written by Yanki Tauber and also appears at Chabad.org. When reading such articles, one needs to realize that it is an art form to hint at these matters without explicitly saying so, so that there is plausible deniability. And what is not said is almost as important as what is said.
Gimmel Tammuz is the yartzeit of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, tz"l. So one would expect a mention that the Rebbe is dead - a zecher tzaddik livracha. Now, perhaps he omits this based on this statement by the Rebbe, which he cites from the Rebbe. (Though depending on how he understands this statement and why he thinks it is an important statement to mention, that might be further proof that he believes the Rebbe to not truly be dead.) However, when there are people around who actively believe that the Rebbe is not really dead, or that he went into hiding and will return, then omitting it carries meaning, and if one wishes to avoid that meaning, one should use zatzal.
Further, thoughout the article, he never mentions that the Rebbe has died. He talks about the funeral and the cemetery, but omits the fact that the Rebbe died:
I remember hearing the news early Sunday morning (Israeli Time) and rushing to the airport. I remember arriving at the cemetery hours after the funeral, in midst of the throng still pouring in, as it would through the night and the days and nights to follow, from all over the world.
He omits what the news is, and talks around it by mentioning cemetery and funeral, such that his readers know to what he is referring while cleverly avoiding a statement that the Rebbe died.
The closest he gets to stating that the Rebbe died is the following:
I remember thinking: The Rebbe, who has redefined virtually every aspect of life, has also redefined death.
The Rebbe thus did not die, but rather redefined death.
Wow. Could you elaborate? He writes later in the article:
In one of his talks, the Rebbe quoted the Talmudic dictum that "Sleep is one sixtieth of death." Well, said the Rebbe, if sleep is a form of death, then death is a form of sleep. Sleep is not a termination or even an interruption of life -- it is a time of foment, the means by which body and soul recoup their energies for a fresh and refreshed onslaught upon the coming day. So is death. Death, said the Rebbe, is a "descent for the sake of ascent," a retraction of the arrow of life so that it can be impelled by the bow of vacuity with redoubled force.
The Rebbe, zatzal, was presumably talking about death in general, for everyone, and eventual techiyat hameitim. In the context of this article, it is talking specifically about the Rebbe.
The impression one gets (or one could get) from this quote is that, unlike normal people who simply die, the Rebbe redefined death. Death is a form of sleep, so he is not dead, just resting. ("No, no, 'e's uh,...he's resting.") He is in hiding somewhere obscured from us, in a "descent for the sake of ascent." It is a retraction of the arrow of life so that it can be impelled by the bow of vacuity with redoubled force. And that redoubled force is presumably the Rebbe's Second Coming.
(Alternatively, the Rebbe is dead, but his death is preparation for his eventual Second Coming.)
Early in the article, he writes:
There was shock and incredulity. There was grief and agony. There was passionate disagreement and fervent expectation and many, many unanswered and unanswerable questions.
What does he mean by these "unanswered and unanswerable questions?" The Rebbe had died. What are the questions?
He answers at the end, after citing the Rebbe that
Death, said the Rebbe, is a "descent for the sake of ascent," a retraction of the arrow of life so that it can be impelled by the bow of vacuity with redoubled force.
he writes:
How? When? Why? The unanswered questions remain unanswered. But we know what we need to do. And we're doing it. You can go see for yourself -- if you reside on planet earth, chances are that you are within driving distance of a Chabad-Lubavitch center.
Thus, the unanswered questions about the Rebbe's death -- or in the later context, it seems the Rebbe's return (being "impelled by the bow of vacuity with redoubled force") -- are: How? When? Why?
What does he mean by these questions? My best guess is: How will the Rebbe return? When? Why did he need to remove himself from the world?
But they know what to do -- to bring the Mashiach -- just as Chabad is always focused on. And they are doing it.
To me, this seems the correct elucidation of this deliberately oblique article. My question is if the editor of the paper realized this as well.
I wonder whether there will be any Letters to the Editor regarding this.
Anyway, consider this blogpost a sign of my "Orthodox Difference."
- posted by joshwaxman @ 9:42 AM
Comments:
Don't be so surprised. The editor/ owner of the 5 Town J Times is Larry Gordon, who has Chabad roots. His father was Nissan Gordon, who wrote for the Algemeiner Zhournal.
Not that its a bad thing, but Larry Gordon has Chabad sympathies. This came out some time ago as well when the paper featured some scathing critiques of David Berger's (scathing) critiques of Chabad.
# posted by Anonymous : Tuesday, July 04, 2006 11:47:46 AM
5tjt (www.5tjt.com) runs Lubavitch pieces all the time. They regularly feature pieces by Tauber and similar. Sometimes people may not realize that they are Lubavitch, however, as they often disguise them with titles such as 'from the Chassidic masters', or general Jewish sounding ones.
Larry Gordon is intelligent. He doesn't put the Lubavitch stuff front and center, on the front page, in your face. He doesn't want to turn off people or appear too far out of the mainstream. However, the Lubavitch stuff is there, you just gotta turn some pages till you get to it.
# posted by Anonymous : Tuesday, July 04, 2006 11:47:26 PM
Another good example of this recently was how 5tjt handled an article by Marvin Schick that appeared in the Jerusalem Post criticizing some aspects of Lubavitch.
Whereas elsewhere it was published alone, Gordon didn't publish it at first, only doing so when he had a Lubavitch rebuttal to put alongside it.
# posted by Anonymous : Tuesday, July 04, 2006 11:54:12 PM
very interesting. thanks.
I have no problem with Lubavitch articles. In fact, IIRC, there was another article in the same paper which did not strike me as problematic. What surprised me was *meshichist,* moshiach from the dead, Lubavitch articles. and I wonder if the editor, Larry Gordon, realized this about this specific piece, or if it just slipped by his notice.
# posted by joshwaxman : Wednesday, July 05, 2006 6:33:03 AM
update:
I've had some correspondence with the editor and it is clear that he saw nothing in the article that implied that the Rebbe ztz"l did not die or that the Rebbe would return from the dead as mashiach. and he continues to see nothing in the article that implies this. he thinks I am way off on this and believes I have an agenda or a desire to have something to blog about.
# posted by joshwaxman : Wednesday, July 05, 2006 8:44:17 AM
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