The Messiah Of Crown Heights

From today's Newsday:

A new billboard on the West Side Highway and 44th Street proclaims "Moshiach" - Messiah - "Is Here" under a picture of the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson of Crown Heights, the charismatic Jewish leader known as the Rebbe who died 11 years ago.

The billboard, put up Tuesday and paid for by a group called Jewish Women United for the Redemption, is the latest sign of the messianic fervor continuing to grip parts of the Lubavitch community that Schneerson once led.

"If people take the Rebbe's words to heart, it will be good for them and good for the whole world," said Shterna Spritzer, a member of the group.

But within the ultra-orthodox Lubavich sect, which is bitterly divided over the messiah issue, some say they are embarrassed by such pronouncements. And most in the mainstream Jewish community see heresy in the idea that a person who died and was buried in an unredeemed world could be the Jewish Messiah.…

Still, members of Jewish Women United for the Redemption are not discouraged. Spokeswoman Basha Oka Botnick said that they believe that publicly acknowledging Schneerson as the Messiah would hasten the process leading to the End of Days, when, according to Jewish teaching, all people will live in peace.

They point to the Rebbe's extraordinary charisma and wisdom, and to the prophecies they say he made about world developments as well as about the Messiah's imminent arrival as evidence he is the Redeemer. The Rebbe, who died at 92 without a successor, had rebuilt a group nearly annihilated during the Holocaust in his 44 years leading the sect.

"If the world is more receptive, people will start to behave differently and we'll have a better world," she said.…

Officially, the Lubavitch movement refuses to address the question of whether the Rebbe is the Messiah, simply encouraging followers to prepare for his coming with faith and good deeds.

This is not the first time a messianic Lubavitch group has proclaimed its beliefs on metropolitan roadways. Another group posted similar billboards about Schneerson near the entrance to the George Washington Bridge and in Atlantic City about 10 years ago. That effort ended after several months because of the cost.

Botnick said her group hoped to keep the billboard up indefinitely, raising the $20,000 monthly fee from the community.

Comments

Botnick is a wackjob I somehow knew she was a part of that group even before I read the article.

As a former student of Beth Rivkah girls school, whereas I mourn the loss of the great Rebbe, I'm ashamed and saddened by this insane display. This diversion from the philosophies I believe the Rebbe truly meant is painful for me to see and harmful to all of Lubavitch and to all Judaism.

Somehow this makes me nothing but glad that I fled Chabad for mainstream Orthodoxy.

[rebeljew]

With so many Chabad families and institutions in need and so little to be accomplished by the billboard, 20K per month could certainly find a better target.