On the subject of Vertical Axis in the Age of Kabbalistic Cosmology. Well, in addition to the noise surrounding this subject, a couple of overlooked diversions really. In the future, people who would undertake the thankless task of decoding the messianic eruption, these would be some interesting starting points.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson in front of 770 Eastern Parkway, perhaps on his way to visit the Montefiore Cemetery (the photo scanned from the original and published with permission)
Dnepropetrovsk: It wasn’t really a traditional Jewish city like the centers in Poland, Hungary and even Lithuania. To give you a little color. I have a high school friend; his grandfather was the Rebbe’s father shamesh (secretary). He was probably the second most religious person in Dnepropetrovsk, arrested together with Levi Yitzchok Schneerson. The shamesh didn’t even consider the possibility of his children remaining observant. This should give you some flavor to the environment where Mendel Schneerson grew up and should also explain why after his Bar Mitzvah Mendel Schneerson had bitter arguments with his father about secular science. Something his brother Leibel took for granted becoming openly an antireligious Trotskyite and eventually a physicist in Liverpool.
Rayatz, the father-in-law: There are two contradictory periods in the relationship between the previous Rebbe the Rayatz and his son-in-law Mendel Schneerson. The Rayatz was not a scholar comparable in stature to the Rebbe’s father. The Rayatz as a leader was a poor match to the cataclysmic upheavals of that era, abandoning most of his followers first in Russia and then in Poland. If he wasn’t saved from Warsaw in 1939 by the half-Jewish Nazi officer Ernst Bloch on the orders of Admiral Canaris, things would have looked differently. The Rebbe’s father Levik was considered an insubordinate to the Royal Court by the Chabad apparatchiks, this lead to the common derision towards him from the fanatical Chassidim, on occasion even confrontations.
There were two contradictory periods in the Rebbe’s relationship to Rayatz. In Europe he openly disregarded his father-in-law, his opposition to University studies, etc. Mendel Schneerson annoyed his father-in-law with modern outfits during the wedding and generally stayed the heck away from the Jews, preferring instead the enlightened capitals of Berlin and Paris. Especially he didn’t shadow the Rayatz like his older brother-in-law the Rashag. But when Mendel Schneerson came to America this disregard changed to the obsessive worship that continued after the Rayatz passed away. It’s hard to figure this one out.
Wife, Musiya Schneerson: The Barry Gourary saga was already exhaustively chewed up, enough. For sure a pivotal moment involving the closest kin and the impact on the Rebbe was immense. Which brings me to the defining role of his wife Musiya Schneerson, she was your classically educated Russian lady more at home in a Salon than in a Shtible. But she was the only person with whom Menachem Mendel Schneerson could be himself, a human. I remember going through the condolences line in the 770 and the look on the Rebbe’s face was the look of a person no longer in this world. After Musiya Schneerson passed away in 1988 the wheels came off the wagon big time for the Rebbe emotionally. This was the beginning of his apocalyptic messianic outburst that outlived his physical presence. The Rebbe came apart psychologically, the broken heart love story played out on a cosmic scale.
The change we can’t believe in: There is another psychological contradiction that is the key to the understanding of his personality and ethos. He disliked any change intensely, especially after he came to America. He didn’t want a new car, new appliances in his house, bitterly opposed the community move from Crown Heights, disliked going anywhere, refused to accompany the Rayatz to Israel, even refused going to a hospital after his heart attack, more importantly he stayed uninvolved in conflicts, had a hands-off attitude towards management and governorship. I am sure this wasn’t the result of him being conservative or pious ascetic; in fact he disavowed the ascetic life in numerous speeches. This was more like a phobia, an emotional aversion to any change, an internal blockage. On the flip side of this was the messianic, let’s change every corner of the world rhetoric. I believe the two are connected. The Jungians have this idea, every person has a weak and a dominant side of personality. Often the weak side is the deeper side, connected to the subconscious. When a person evokes his weakness, he feels a high, the subterranean forces, the confrontation with the numinous. By nature the Rebbe was an introverted recluse, afraid of change and his high was talking up the visions of the grand revolutions, he was trying to overcome himself.
The yellow drones knee-deep in flood on Piazza San Marco. Venice, November 30th, 2009. Michele Crosera/Reuters