Beginning in the early 1980s, a fervent messianic expectation began to emerge in the Lubavitch Chasidic community. The Lubavitch community, which began in Belarus in the 19th century and was transported to Brooklyn in the 1940s, had become well known through-out the Jewish world for their outreach work to less observant Jews. Under the leadership of their Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, hundreds if not thousands of Lubavitch emissaries brought kosher food, Jewish education and observance to far-flung places like Alaska, Morocco, and Katmandu. While many "Lubavitchers" merely expressed their near certainty that the coming of the Messiah was just around the corner, others hinted at or even asserted that the Rebbe was himself the Messiah. The Rebbe did little to discourage the speculation, and within a few years it became common to see bumper stickers and billboards with the Rebbe's picture and the Hebrew slogan meaning "Welcome King Messiah."

The Rebbe's stroke and near paralysis a few years later did nothing to dampen the messianic enthusiasm; if any-thing, the fervor increased. Many within the Jewish community began to worry. In the past, messianic speculation (the Bar Kokhba rebellion, Shabtai Zvi, Jacob Frank) had resulted in disaster for the Jewish people. Would the Rebbe's death lead to mass suicides, apostasy, or simply a recognition that Rabbi Schneersohn was not, in fact, the Messiah?

But when the Rebbe died in June 1994, something happened that few would have predicted. Many Lubavitcher Chasidim continued to believe in the Rebbe as Messiah and began to proclaim the imminence of his resurrection. One advertisement in the Orthodox-oriented Jewish Press of New York, the week after the Rebbe's passing, sums up the genre: "With broken hearts we reaffirm our faith that we will at once witness Techiyas Hameisim (the resurrection of the dead) and we will have the Rebbe lead us out of Golus (exile) immediately, and together we continue to proclaim, Yechi adoneinu morenu verabbenu melach hamoshiach leolam voed (May our Master, Teacher and Rabbi, the King Messiah, live for ever)."

While few if any non-Lubavitch have adopted the belief in Schneersohn as Messiah, Lubavitch Chassidism remains a respected part of the overall Jewish community. Lubavitch rabbis occupy posts in non-Lubavitch Orthodox synagogues, serve as teachers in Modern Orthodox and even non-Orthodox schools, and provide kosher supervision and slaughter. It is the continued acceptance of Lubavitch that troubles David Berger and prompted him to write this fascinating and important work. Berger is an ordained Orthodox rabbi and professor of history at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center. His field of expertise is the Christian-Jewish polemic of the Middle Ages.

The purpose of his work, which he calls "an indictment,
a lament, and an appeal," is to convince the rest of the Orthodox Jewish community to declare adherents of Lubavitch messianism to be outside the bounds of Orthodox Judaism. Berger, who has participated in intra-Jewish as well as Christian-Jewish dialogues, recognizes the irony of "an advocate of tolerance urging intolerance, a believer in inclusiveness preaching exclusion, an adherent of unity fomenting division."

At first glance, Berger's book might seem of scant interest to anyone beyond the Orthodox community. However, this work is a crucial read for anyone interested in Christian-Jewish dialogue or the internal dynamics of the Jewish community. Berger brings together and translates into English a number of widely scattered texts dealing with the rabbinic understanding of the role and identity of the Messiah and the para-meters of normative Jewish belief. These texts alone
are "worth the price of admission."

But the value of the work is far beyond that. Berger's book is an eloquent plea for placing matters of belief at the heart of the Jewish agenda. Defenders of Lubavitch often agree that while their messianism is problematic, their adherence to Jewish behavioral norms and their works of charity and education earn them a continued place within normative Judaism. Jewish secularists, on the other hand, often empty Judaism of any normative behavioral or theological content, other than the rejection of the messiahship of Jesus. Berger skillfully refutes both these perspectives.

The first argument Berger puts forth is fairly simple. Judaism has historically argued against the messiah-
ship of Jesus because of "the criteria always deemed necessary for a confident identification of the Messiah, which include the temporal (emphasis added) redemption of the Jewish people . . . peace and prosperity, (and) the universal recognition of the God of Israel." Anyone who dies without those criteria having been fulfilled is not the Messiah that classical Jewish thought expects.

While it is often assumed that Judaism emphasizes practice while Christianity emphasizes belief, Berger demonstrates that there are beliefs that have historically been considered beyond the pale. Because Lubavitch messianists continue to follow Jewish law, they are by and large accepted as Orthodox Jews. But, as Berger points out, there are also "Messianic Jews" or "Hebrew Christians" who follow Jewish law. If Lubavitch is acceptable, why not them?

Christian assertions about Jesus, of course, go well beyond asserting his messiahship to the doctrines of
the Trinity and the Incarnation. Berger notes that incarnational theology has begun to develop in Lubavitch as well, with assertions that it is permitted to pray to the Rebbe. While Chasidim have always asked their rebbes to intercede on their behalf, even after death, at least some Lubavitchers go well beyond this and assert that the Rebbe is "the Essence and Being (of God) placed in a body." According to Berger, this belief is not merely outside of normative Judaism but indeed avodah zarah (literally "strange worship," but generally translated as "idolatry") when practiced by Jews. To buttress his case, Berger has written a sixteen-page appendix dealing with the halachic definition of avodah zarah, which he defines as "the formal recognition or worship as God of an entity that is in fact not God."

In another valuable appendix, Berger deals with the question of shituf, or association. This is a complicated and sensitive topic in the history of Jewish-Christian relations, as it deals with the question of how Jewish law can consider Christian beliefs idolatrous if held by Jews but non-idolatrous if held by Christians. This is in fact the position accepted by most halachic decisors. Berger in his appendix translates and explicates a very difficult passage from Tosafot (a medieval Talmudic commentary). Berger explains that according to Tosafot, "Christians intend to worship the true God but cross a crucial line by incorporating a human being into their conception of the divine." While this is forbidden to Jews, "Tosafot concludes . . . that non-Jews, unlike Jews, are permitted to ‘associate’."

Although Berger's book is not intended to address Christian and Jewish studies, it in fact has profound implications for the field. As already mentioned, it brings together many of the classic halachic sources that analyze Christian doctrines from a Jewish legal perspective. Beyond that, it prompts one to engage in
a fascinating "thought experiment." How would the relationship between Jews and Christians have played itself out for the last two millennia if Christians had continued to follow Jewish law? Would Judaism have been content to regard Christianity as simply another Jewish sect, as most Jews seem willing to do with Lubavitch today?

While I think that this book is a "must read," a couple of caveats are in order:

1. Berger's book has been broadly criticized in the Orthodox Jewish community. Berger has been accused of vastly overstating the percentage of Lubavitchers who adhere to the messianist doctrine. He has also been criticized for attacking Lubavitch, who, after all, "do such good work" whatever their theological quirks may be. (The latter criticism, in fact, serves to prove Berger's point that in contemporary Jewish life behavioralism trumps theology.)



2. Christians may well be disturbed by much of the halachic material, which assumes as a matter of course that Christian doctrine is idolatrous. Berger has noted, both in print and in conversation with ICJS staff scholars, that this material arose in the context of Christian-Jewish polemics and thus needs to be read bearing that historical setting in mind.

This is truly an important book and well worth reading.

Rabbi Charles L. Arian is the Jewish Scholar on staff at the Institute for Christian & Jewish Studies

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