Download or read book The Rebbe written by Samuel Heilman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012-03-25 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A biography of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson that discusses his childhood in Russia, education in Germany and Paris, messianic conviction, religious leadership, legacy, and other related topics.

Download or read book Rebbe written by Joseph Telushkin and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2016-06-14 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “One of the greatest religious biographies ever written.” – Dennis Prager In this enlightening biography, Joseph Telushkin offers a captivating portrait of the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, a towering figure who saw beyond conventional boundaries to turn his movement, Chabad-Lubavitch, into one of the most dynamic and widespread organizations ever seen in the Jewish world. At once an incisive work of history and a compendium of Rabbi Schneerson's teachings, Rebbe is the definitive guide to understanding one of the most vital, intriguing figures of the last centuries. From his modest headquarters in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, the Rebbe advised some of the world's greatest leaders and shaped matters of state and society. Statesmen and artists as diverse as Ronald Reagan, Robert F. Kennedy, Yitzchak Rabin, Menachem Begin, Elie Wiesel, and Bob Dylan span the spectrum of those who sought his counsel. Rebbe explores Schneerson's overarching philosophies against the backdrop of treacherous history, revealing his clandestine operations to rescue and sustain Jews in the Soviet Union, and his critical role in the expansion of the food stamp program throughout the United States. More broadly, it examines how he became in effect an ambassador for Jews globally, and how he came to be viewed by many as not only a spiritual archetype but a savior. Telushkin also delves deep into the more controversial aspects of the Rebbe's leadership, analyzing his views on modern science and territorial compromise in Israel, and how in the last years of his life, many of his followers believed that he would soon be revealed as the Messiah, a source of contention until this day.

Download or read book The Rebbe the Messiah and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference written by David Berger and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2008-03-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a history, an indictment, a lament, and an appeal, focusing on the messianic trend in Lubavitch hasidism. It records the shattering of one of Judaism's core beliefs and the remarkable equanimity with which the standard-bearers of Orthodoxy have allowed it to happen. This is a development of striking importance for the history of religions, and it is an earthquake in the history of Judaism. David Berger describes the unfolding of this historic phenomenon and proposes a strategy to contain it.

Download or read book The Rebbe s Army written by Sue Fishkoff and published by Schocken. This book was released on 2009-04-22 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Excuse me, are you Jewish?” With these words, the relentlessly cheerful, ideologically driven emissaries of Chabad-Lubavitch approach perfect strangers on street corners throughout the world in their ongoing efforts to persuade their fellow Jews to live religiously observant lives. In The Rebbe’s Army, award-winning journalist Sue Fishkoff gives us the first behind-the-scenes look at this small Brooklyn-based group of Hasidim and the extraordinary lengths to which they take their mission of outreach. They seem to be everywhere—in big cities, small towns, and suburbs throughout the United States, and in sixty-one countries around the world. They light giant Chanukah menorahs in public squares, run “Chabad houses” on college campuses from Berkeley to Cambridge, give weekly bible classes in the Capitol basement in Washington, D.C., run a nonsectarian drug treatment center in Los Angeles, sponsor the world’s biggest Passover Seder in Nepal, establish synagogues, Hebrew schools, and day-care centers in places that are often indifferent and occasionally hostile to their outreach efforts. They have built a billion-dollar international empire, with their own news service, publishing house, and hundreds of Websites. Who are these people? How successful are they in making Jews more observant? What influence does their late Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson (who some thought was the Messiah), continue to have on his followers? Fishkoff spent a year interviewing Lubavitch emissaries from Anchorage to Miami and has written an engaging and fair-minded account of a Hasidic group whose motives and methodology continue to be the subject of speculation and controversy.

Download or read book The Rebbe Menachem Mendel Shneerson Life and Afterlife written by Menachem Fridman and published by . This book was released on 2017-01-29 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the 1950s until his death in 1994, Menachem Mendel Schneerson--revered by his followers worldwide simply as the Rebbe--built the Lubavitcher movement from a relatively small sect within Hasidic Judaism into the powerful force in Jewish life that it is today. Swept away by his expectation that the Messiah was coming, he came to believe that he could deny death and change history.Samuel Heilman and Menachem Friedman paint an unforgettable portrait of Schneerson, showing how he reinvented himself from an aspiring French-trained electrical engineer into a charismatic leader who believed that he and his Lubavitcher Hasidic emissaries could transform the world. They reveal how his messianic convictions ripened and how he attempted to bring the ancient idea of a day of redemption onto the modern world's agenda. Heilman and Friedman also trace what happened after the Rebbe's death, by which time many of his followers had come to think of him as the Messiah himself.The Rebbe tracks Schneerson's remarkable life from his birth in Russia, to his student days in Berlin and Paris, to his rise to global renown in New York, where he developed and preached his powerful spiritual message from the group's gothic mansion in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. This compelling book demonstrates how Schneerson's embrace of traditionalism and American-style modernity made him uniquely suited to his messianic mission.Translated into Russian

Download or read book Turning Judaism Outward written by Chaim Miller and published by Kol Menachem. This book was released on 2014 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994), the Lubavitcher Rebbe, took an insular Chasidic group that was almost decimated by the Holocaust and transformed it into one of the most influential and controversial forces in world Jewry. This superbly crafted biography draws on recently uncovered documents and archives of personal correspondence, painting an exceptionally human and charming portrait of a man who was well known but little understood. With a sharp attention to detail and an effortless style, Chaim Miller takes us on a soaring journey through the life, mind and struggles of one of the most interesting religious personalities of the Twentieth Century. --

Download or read book Toward a Meaningful Life written by Simon Jacobson and published by William Morrow. This book was released on 2017-12-26 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Toward a Meaningful Life is a spiritual road map for living based on the teachings of one of the foremost religious leaders of our time: Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Head of the Lubavitcher movement for forty-four years and recognized throughout the world simply as “the Rebbe,” Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who passed away in June 1994, was a sage and a visionary of the highest order. Toward a Meaningful Life gives people of all backgrounds fresh perspectives on every aspect of their lives—from birth to death, youth to old age; marriage, love, intimacy, and family; the persistent issues of career, health, pain, and suffering; and education, faith, science, and government. We learn to bridge the divisions between accelerated technology and decelerated morality, between unprecedented worldwide unity and unparalleled personal disunity. Although the Rebbe’s teachings are firmly anchored in more than three thousand years of scholarship, the urgent relevance of these old-age truths to contemporary life has never been more manifest. At the threshold of a new world where matter and spirit converge, the Rebbe proposes spiritual principles that unite people as opposed to the materialism that divides them. In doing so, he continues to lead us toward personal and universal redemption, toward a meaningful life, and toward God.

Download or read book The Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka Schneerson written by Merkaz le-ʻinyene ḥinukh (Brooklyn, New York, N.Y.) and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A concise and illuminating narrative provides glimpses of the true stature of this modest woman. Far more than a passive observer, the Rebbetzin was often an active participant in the events that shook the very foundations of Jewish life. Her biography is an account of the trials and triumphs of the Lubavitcher movement during those tumultuous times. The first of a series, this elegantly presented booklet is enhanced by 18 illustrations, charts and maps including to rare photographs of the Rebbetzin in her youth.

Download or read book With Us More Than Ever written by Yoram Bilu and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2020-07-21 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson was the charismatic leader of the Chabad Hasidic movement and its designated Messiah. Yet when he died in 1994, the messianic fervor he inspired did not subside. Through traditional means and digital technologies, a group of radical Hasidim, the Meshichistim, still keep the Rebbe palpably close—engaging in ongoing dialogue, participating in specific rituals, and developing an ever-expanding visual culture of portraits and videos. With Us More Than Ever focuses on this group to explore how religious practice can sustain the belief that a messianic figure is both present and accessible. Yoram Bilu documents a unique religious experience that is distinctly modern. The rallying point of the Meshichistim—that the Rebbe is "with us more than ever"—is sustained through an elaborate system that creates the sense of his constant and pervasive presence in the lives of his followers. The virtual Rebbe that emerges is multiple, visible, accessible, and highly decentralized, the epicenter of a truly messianic movement in the twenty-first century. Combining ethnographic fieldwork and cognitive science with nuanced analysis, Bilu documents the birth and development of a new religious faith, describing the emergence of new spiritual horizons, a process common to various religious movements old and new.

Download or read book Open Secret written by Elliot R. Wolfson and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2009-10-21 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Menaḥem Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994) was the seventh and seemingly last Rebbe of the Habad-Lubavitch dynasty. Marked by conflicting tendencies, Schneerson was a radical messianic visionary who promoted a conservative political agenda, a reclusive contemplative who built a hasidic sect into an international movement, and a man dedicated to the exposition of mysteries who nevertheless harbored many secrets. Schneerson astutely masked views that might be deemed heterodox by the canons of orthodoxy while engineering a fundamentalist ideology that could subvert traditional gender hierarchy, the halakhic distinction between permissible and forbidden, and the social-anthropological division between Jew and Gentile. While most literature on the Rebbe focuses on whether or not he identified with the role of Messiah, Elliot R. Wolfson, a leading scholar of Jewish mysticism and the phenomenology of religious experience, concentrates instead on Schneerson's apocalyptic sensibility and his promotion of a mystical consciousness that undermines all discrimination. For Schneerson, the ploy of secrecy is crucial to the dissemination of the messianic secret. To be enlightened messianically is to be delivered from all conceptual limitations, even the very notion of becoming emancipated from limitation. The ultimate liberation, or true and complete redemption, fuses the believer into an infinite essence beyond all duality, even the duality of being emancipated and not emancipated an emancipation, in other words, that emancipates one from the bind of emancipation. At its deepest level, Schneerson's eschatological orientation discerned that a spiritual master, if he be true, must dispose of the mask of mastery. Situating Habad's thought within the evolution of kabbalistic mysticism, the history of Western philosophy, and Mahayana Buddhism, Wolfson articulates Schneerson's rich theology and profound philosophy, concentrating on the nature of apophatic embodiment, semiotic materiality, hypernomian transvaluation, nondifferentiated alterity, and atemporal temporality.

Download or read book Who Will Lead Us written by Samuel C. Heilman and published by University of California Press. This book was released on 2019-07-02 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nearly decimated in the Holocaust and repressed in the Soviet Union, Hasidism has experienced an extraordinary revival. Hasidic communities, now settled primarily in North America and Israel, have reversed the losses they suffered and are growing exponentially. With powerful attachments to the past, mysticism, community, tradition, and charismatic leadership, Hasidism seems the opposite of contemporary Western culture, yet it has thrived in the democratic countries and culture of the West. How? Who Will Lead Us? reveals the answers in the fascinating story of five contemporary Hasidic dynasties and their handling of the delicate issue of leadership and succession. Revolving around the central figure of the rebbe, the book explores two dynasties with too few successors, two with too many successors, and one that believes their last rebbe continues to lead them even after his death. Samuel C. Heilman, recognized as a foremost expert on modern Jewish Orthodoxy, here provides outsiders with the essential guide to continuity in the Hasidic world.

Download or read book Historical Atlas of Hasidism written by Marcin Wodziński and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-24 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first cartographic reference book on one of today’s most important religious movements Historical Atlas of Hasidism is the very first cartographic reference book on one of the modern era's most vibrant and important mystical movements. Featuring sixty-one large-format maps and a wealth of illustrations, charts, and tables, this one-of-a-kind atlas charts Hasidism's emergence and expansion; its dynasties, courts, and prayer houses; its spread to the New World; the crisis of the two world wars and the Holocaust; and Hasidism's remarkable postwar rebirth. Historical Atlas of Hasidism demonstrates how geography has influenced not only the social organization of Hasidism but also its spiritual life, types of religious leadership, and cultural articulation. It focuses not only on Hasidic leaders but also on their thousands of followers living far from Hasidic centers. It examines Hasidism in its historical entirety, from its beginnings in the eighteenth century until today, and draws on extensive GIS-processed databases of historical and contemporary records to present the most complete picture yet of this thriving and diverse religious movement. Historical Atlas of Hasidism is visually stunning and easy to use, a magnificent resource for anyone seeking to understand Hasidism's spatial and spiritual dimensions, or indeed anybody interested in geographies of religious movements past and present. Provides the first cartographic interpretation of Hasidism Features sixty-one maps and numerous illustrations Covers Hasidism in its historical entirety, from its eighteenth-century origins to today Charts Hasidism's emergence and expansion, courts and prayer houses, modern resurgence, and much more Offers the first in-depth analysis of Hasidism's egalitarian--not elitist—dimensions Draws on extensive GIS-processed databases of historical and contemporary records

Download or read book The Afterlife of Scholarship written by Chaim Rapoport and published by . This book was released on 2011-04 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Afterlife of Scholarship is a detailed review of The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson (Princeton University Press, 2010). Chaim Rapoport, a noted scholar and rabbi, contends that The Rebbe's authors, Samuel Heilman and Menachem Friedman, made serious - and sloppy - errors in their pseudo-biography of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Soon after the publication of The Rebbe, Rapoport published an initial essay highlighting some of the flaws in their work. Not long afterwards, Heilman and Friedman answered with a rebuttal essay. Rapoport responded with another essay, as did Heilman and Friedman. This fascinating public dialogue unfolded over three cycles, in which the flustered authors conceded that they made a number of factual errors in their work. The present volume, The Afterlife of Scholarship: A Critical Review of 'The Rebbe' by Samuel Heilman and Menachem Friedman, is a reworked version of Rapoport's original essays, with two new appendixes. The Afterlife of Scholarship is geared toward the layman, and with more than 30 illustrations and over 500 footnotes, it is sure to provide ample material for Schneerson's future biographers. The Afterlife of Scholarship is the perfect companion volume to The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson. What others have said about these books: [Rapoport has crafted an] impressively knowledgeable critique... -- Adam Kirsch in Tablet Magazine [Heilman and Friedman's] book is marked by a serious number of factual errors... -- Zalman Alpert in the Ben Atlas blog At times the attempt to find evidence leads [Heilman and Friedman] to errors. Rabbi Chaim Rapoport wrote a lengthy review... In the authors' response to his critique they admit that they have made mistakes. Greater caution could have prevented this embarrassment. -- Tomer Persico in Makor Rishon (in Hebrew) Rapoport has gotten the better of the exchange... a failure of biographical research and imagination on Heilman and Friedman's part... -- Abraham Socher in the Jewish Review of Books I cannot help but harbor the belief that the authors started with a particular agenda -- [...] and then rummaged through a mountain of arbitrary facts to support their thesis. -- Shmuely Boteach in The Jewish Week [Heilman and Friedman] unfortunately play trivial pursuit... present hearsay as facts... and sometimes wade into the cynical end of the research pool with tabloid-style innuendos and suppositions. -- Joe Bobker in the Jerusalem Report [T]here are peculiar omissions and contradictions [in Heilman and Friedman's book...] Readers of this biography may wonder if the authors have failed to grasp their subject... -- David Klinghoffer in London's Jewish Chronicle Readers looking for a thorough exploration of Menachem Mendel Schneerson's thought... will not find it in this book. -- Nathaniel Deutsch in Haaretz Heilman and Friedman rarely manage to unearth anything that exposes their subject's private emotional word... they cannot seem to penetrate it. -- Keith Kahn-Harris in the Times Literary Supplement [He] criticized the book for [...] ignoring a vast amount of "primary material which would frequently contradict its assertions." -- Steven I. Weiss as quoted in the New York Times Heilman-Friedman's conclusion is based on nothing... [It] is more akin to a spitball than to any substantiated academic conclusion, not what you'd expect from a pair of professors who demand to be taken seriously. -- Jonathan Mark in The Jewish Week

Download or read book Social Vision written by Philip Wexler and published by Herder & Herder. This book was released on 2019-07-06 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He has been described in many ways, including a prophet, a scholar, and the most influential Rabbi in modern history. Regardless, the influence of Jewish Mystical Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, popularly known as the "Lubavitcher Rebbe," cannot be underestimated. Among his many accomplishments, he was an advisor to every U.S. president from Richard Nixon to George H.W. Bush and received a Congressional Gold Medal posthumously. In one of the first works of its kind, authors Philip Wexler, Michael Wexler, and Eli Rubin explore the neglected social vision of a leader whose movement and followers span more than 50 countries and 250 colleges and universities worldwide. The book provides a window into the previously undisclosed wisdom of the Rebbe. Modern Prophet is a tour de force that provides striking and revolutionary insights into a breathtaking array of topics championed by the Rebbe. Treating each with an equal amount of passion, Rabbi Schneerson focused on such wide-ranging concerns as public education, social justice, prison reform, technology, feminism, green energy, and, of course, the hope and possibility of a new and "mystical" society.

Download or read book Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady written by Immanuel Etkes and published by Brandeis University Press. This book was released on 2014-12-02 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady (1745-1812), in imperial Russia, was the founder and first rebbe of Chabad, a branch of Hasidic Judaism that flourishes to the present day. The Chabad-Lubavitch movement he founded in the region now known as Belarus played, and continues to play, an important part in the modernization processes and postwar revitalization of Orthodox Jewry. Drawing on historical source materials that include Shneur Zalman's own works and correspondence, as well as documents concerning his imprisonment and interrogation by the Russian authorities, Etkes focuses on Zalman's performance as a Hasidic leader, his unique personal qualities and achievements, and the role he played in the conflict between Hasidim and its opponents. In addition, Etkes draws a vivid picture of the entire generation that came under Rabbi Shneur Zalman's influence. This comprehensive biography will appeal to scholars and students of the history of Hasidism, East European Jewry, and Jewish spirituality.

Download or read book A Time to Heal written by and published by Ezra Press. This book was released on 2015-10-10 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Current today as when originally provided, this volume is a collection of the Lubavitcher Rebbe's counsel to the bereaved whether responding to a widow struggling to explain her husband's death to her children, or to a community whose school was teh target of a terrorist attack, th eRebbe provided support and solace to individuals and commujnities explaining loss and tragedy, guiding them toward the hope for a brighter future.

Download or read book When a Jew Dies written by Samuel C. Heilman and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This account of the traditional customs that are practiced when a Jewish person dies provides an anthropological perspective on Jewish rites of mourning, and explains the cultural meaning behind Jewish practices and traditions.