Chabad Messianist Convert Rejected by Religious Zionist Beit Din – Chief Rabbi Amar to Decide Case

Here's an English-language translation of the Ma'ariv article, courtesy of Schmorgel (Borgel):

A beit din for conversions has refused to convert a messianist adherent of Chabad. Apparently, the rabbinical judges found no fault in his religious comportment, however, they rejected him on account of problems in his beliefs in fundamentals of Jewish faith, as he comes from a yeshiva in which it is believed that the Lubavitcher rebbe, who passed away in 1994, is still alive and is the King Messiah.

The person in question is a young man in his 20s who immigrated to Israel from Russia more than 10 years ago, and recently has been learning in a meshichist Chabad yeshiva.

According to the young man, his maternal grandmother was indeed Jewish, nevertheless, he went to learn in an institute for conversion to Judaism, completed his studies there successfully, and was brought before a beit din for conversion.

People involved in the conversion proceedings who were involved in his tutelage severely attacked the composition of the beit din's judges, and claimed that the matter has caused a severe crisis in the young man's class.

"This is simply a disaster. He is the first from the class who has made it to the level of converting. The other students said 'If they aren’t converting him, then who will they convert?' If they don’t agree to convert a real yeshiva bocher like him, what will Svetlana the shop clerk think, who sits alongside him in class?!' How can we say that we encourage conversions? Why did the dayyanim even bring up the subject of the Rebbe and Moshiach with him?" Another one [translator's comment—I guess one of the teachers] added…
"There are dayyanim who are bored and they want a topic for a speech or an essay—'The Status of the ger who came from Chabad' And all on the back of this poor guy."

In the conversion institute they said, the beit din was composed of rabbinical judges from the Religious Zionist stream, and they conferred with four rabbis, two of whom who are among the most prominent the Religious Zionist movement, and those two told them that they should not convert the young man. The two others, who had a more haredi orientation, decreed that they should convert the young man.

"An atypical situation has arisen, where, in this instance, Religious Zionist dayyanim are more stringent than haredi dayyanim" one of the people from the Conversion Institute accused…and "now that they have conferred with their rabbis, they want to entangle Rabbi Amar with Chabad." This last comment refers to the fact that the case is supposed to come to the Chief Sepharadi Rabbi Shlomo Amar's desk in order for him to cast the deciding vote in the matter.

Comments

[Solitude Standing]

I don't get it. If the guy is halachically Jewish, why is he converting?

[Shmarya]

He can't prove he is halakhicly Jewish.

[Neo-Conservaguy]

It's about time some of the Israeli MO rabbinate grew some betzim and began following through on the criticism of Chabad. That poor Russian boy has been mislead and now is paying the price for the sins of the Chabad yeshiva.

[Patrick Keefe]

The whole thing is ridiculous. None needs an Israeli conversion court to be Jewish. Just convert in America or some other place where you can more easily be converted to Judaism.

[Misnaged]

I hope rav. Amar will oppose to this giur. May the guy do a new exam to a serious truly Jewish Beth Din.

[R]

Well, i feel bad for the guy as he has been mislead in this way as have all the others attending this bogus yeshiva.
Seriously, if they breed idiots who act like christians, what do they expect when it comes to Judaism? Maybe they ought to go to the Priest and see if they can become christian...they might get rejected though as they only believe in rebbe jesus and not in actual jesus. Shame really. I think Chabad ought to admit to having a different religion and then convert the guy to Lubavitchsm, which won't be hard as he is most of the way there.

[Garnel Ironheart]

A guy like this came to my door a couple of years ago shnorring for money for airfare to get to a yeshivah like this in Israel. He waS born Protestant but switch to Chabad because he felt it made more sense to believe in the Rebbe as redeemer of the world than J.C. He was quite sincere, and he honestly believed all the stuff Chabad had fed him about the Rebbe and his divinity. But think about it: the entire Christian concept of a messiah is against Jewish thought. If this guy was able to simple take out J.C. and put the Rebbe into his philosophy, what does that say?

Why does he have to convert let him just put mms insted of jc in his prayers

[Isa]

While I feet they should NOT convert the guy- I am all for compromise....
They should throw a picture of the tin g-d Rebbe on the floor and say
"pee on that picture and we will convert you"

[thanbo]

lsa: makes sense until you realize that even if he wasn't moshiach, he was a godol of the previous generation. just because his followers are crazies doesn't make him worthy of such bizoyon.

[The Apikorus Kid]

Just because you shuckel when you daven and wear a dark suit doesn't make you kosher if your theology is off. The Rebbe as Moshiach is not Jewish.

[Yochanan Lavie]

They should throw a picture of the tin g-d Rebbe on the floor and say
"pee on that picture and we will convert you"

When the Japanese outlawed Christianity, they required Dutch traders to trample on a picture of the cross before they could do business in Japan. (This was before Admiral Perry and modernization). Maybe history will repeat itself...

[Archie Bunker]

http://daledamos.blogspot.com/2007/12/important-reminder-for-jblogosphere.html

Shafran finally decides to hit back.

[Dave]

Yochanan, Apikorus, you are both right on.
Someone who is a "gadol" has to stand up and say "because feeble minds do not believe the Mashiach according to Rambam's interpretation (ie. he is a Man who Lives and Dies and does Not revive, and the world continues afterward, albeit in a better state)and because other feeble and superstitious minds have perverted the concept of the Mashiach to the extent of denying G-d's Unity, so we are now officially saying that the normative Jewish belief henceforth that there will be a time of the Mashiach, but it will only be a period in history and there will be No person-Mashiach, but a time in history when the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Eternal, and we shall all live in peace".

[Shmarya]

AB –

I posted that article an hour ago.

[avi]

Funny,

Most of you guys don't believe in
Oral Torah and Mitzvot, disrepect all rabbis and believe the rest of Judaism is "myth" and fantasy.

Yet you judge what qualifies others as "real" Jews.

On what source do you base this position?

Regards,

Avi

[Dave]

Yochanan, Apikorus, you are both right on.
Someone who is a "gadol" has to stand up and say "because feeble minds do not believe the Mashiach according to Rambam's interpretation (ie. he is a Man who Lives and Dies and does Not revive, and the world continues afterward, albeit in a better state)and because other feeble and superstitious minds have perverted the concept of the Mashiach to the extent of denying G-d's Unity, so we are now officially saying that the normative Jewish belief henceforth that there will be a time of the Mashiach, but it will only be a period in history and there will be No person-Mashiach, but a time in history when the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Eternal, and we shall all live in peace".

[Yochanan Lavie]

Most of you guys don't believe in
Oral Torah and Mitzvot, disrepect all rabbis and believe the rest of Judaism is "myth" and fantasy.

Avi, did you take a poll of FM readers? That is true of some FM readers, but not all.

(Disclosure: I have doubts about aspects of the Oral tradition and rabbinic authority, but I respect many rabbis- living & dead, and believe in God, Mitzvot, the Miqra, and revelation. "Myth" does not necessarilty mean a story is false, just that is bigger than life and frames our understanding. Mythical stories can be factual or allegorical, but they are not bullshit or lies. Then, they are not Myth, but bullshit and lies- another conceptual category. I believe Miqra contains both factual and allegorical stories, but is true in the deepest sense of the word- it teaches one how to live a Godly life. I guess I am an apikorus.)

See: http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/PaulGreenberg/2007/12/28/the_bible_as_literature

[Yochanan Lavie]

Shmarya; Maybe an informal reader's survey might be interesting. I know there are many normative Orthodox Jews out there who are concerned with rabbinic enabling, and other abuses of authority, just like many devout Catholics were horrified by their own scandals.

[Isa]

Someone is asking for belief...
OK here is mine...
The Sephardi Torah [there is one letter difference between the Askenazi and the Sephardi, alef in askenazi and aien in sephardi]
Is 100% word of Ha Shem, the interpretation is something else. Oral Torah only part of it is sacred. My MO of old believed this as well as some rabbis from a heredi yeshiva.
The Chabad Rebbe and his gang are nothing but heretics.

[Neo-Conservaguy]

There is a vast range of belief regarding the origin and status of sacred text in Judaism. It's not even a simple two-dimensional range, because there are multiple lines of belief that interplay/intersect across time. As a simple example, you could believe the 100% of the written Torah was divinely given, 2% or written Torah was written by God's own "hand", 97% written by Moshe, 1% written by Joshua, but that the original text was destroyed and then recreated in parts by Ezra with some clever redaction and a bit of "filling in" some implied missing parts. There are an infinite number of variations of this example for both the Written and "Oral" Torah.

In none of these cases, however, will one find approval for a proto-Christian approach to Judaism as taught by some in Chabad.

[Yosef ben Matitya]

those yucky freaks are nothing but minim.
there is nothing of judaism in them and in their alien manners. not philosophically & not ethnically.
apart from that, they are totally devoid of manners or scrupples of any sort. what may appear as manners, is nothing but lies, window dressing and deceipts used as required to achieve their wicked and nefarious goals.
it occured to me that there are 2 differences between them and al qaidah. the minim are liers, while al qaidah does not hide it's evil intentions.
al qaidah consists of a bunch of murderers, while the minim would be out eliminating enemies if only they were not cowards. i do not think they avoid eliminating others out of scrupples of any sort or of prohibitions due to religious beliefs. they do not avoid shedding others blood in the jewish meaning by loshon haraa behind their backs.

[Dave]

Yosef, Isa, and Neo- I agree with you guys 100 percent. The problem is that the meshictim are being funded by saps who think that these guys are authentically Jewish. That's one of my ideas behind RTJ-
Rational Traditional Judaism- to establish shlichim/ shluchim who clearly present Normative traditional Judaism to both Jews and non-Jews- none of this man-G-d heresy.

[Mordecai]

I am shocked that this young man was not accepted as a bona fide Jew. Of course the Rebbe is alive and is King Mosiach. Just this morning, after breakfast, I saw him. He gave me a dollar. By the way he was accompanied by Bar Kochba and Sabbatai Tzvi.

[Dave]

Hey, Mordecai, how come Jacob Frank wasn't there too? ROTFL !

[R]

i was told he was with the king - elvis.

[SB]

Why is it that these rabbis (both the zionistic ones and the meshichistim) always have to use innocent people as pawns in their unholy games of politics and greed?
The zionists also believe that the state of Israel is "moshiach" and are willing to die to defend inches of sand. They're on the same or worse level of apikorsus as the meshichistim.

[Dave]

SB, strangely enough the "meshichstim" are actually helping to re-unite Judaism- against them- since everyone including Reform, Karaite, Conservative, Modern Orthodox, and haredi- is anti-meshichstim.

[Paul Freedman]

I am a secular Jew--what offends me about the Messianic drivel surrounding the Rebbe is that it is stupid not that it is Christian.

[avi]

All of this has been hashed and rehashed, especially on this site.

Except for minute number of crackpots ( probably < 10) no-one believes that Rebbe is G-d (CV"s)

Those that believe the Rebbe is a candidate for Moshiach have numerous documented sources for their position.

BTW IMO, those who deny the explicit terminology of ( im min ha-meisim) in the Talmud (Sanhedrin) are disingenuous.

For those who deny Talmud altogether, please bring proofs from your sources why the Meshichists are wrong. (other than "it is stupid")

Regards,

Avi

[Shmarya]

BTW IMO, those who deny the explicit terminology of ( im min ha-meisim) in the Talmud (Sanhedrin) are disingenuous.

I guess that makes the vast majority of Rishonim and Achronim "disingenuous" in your eyes.

It also shows what years of Mendel Schneerson did to the ability of the average Chabadnik to learn.

[avi]

Shmarya,

"vast majority"?

Your comment is comical. I guess you don't read your own blog.

BTW, why are you so exited? You routinely bash every rabbi you can.

Regards,

Avi

[Shmarya]

Right. Vast majority.

No Rishonim understand the gemara the way Chabad does.

No Achronim do, either.

Saying "vast majority" is actually being charitable to Chabad. "None" would have been more accurate.

[avi]

Shmarya,

You're simply wrong, as usual.

Why don't you dig up the proof, for a change.

Regards,

Avi

[avi]

"No Rishonim understand the gemara the way Chabad does"

Your comment, if you would be factual, would have said:

"The way Meshichisten do"

Regards,

Avi

[Shmarya]

No.

"The way Chabad does" is correct.

Even the so-called "anti"-meshichisten say the same things.

The only difference is the "antis' publicly say coming from the dead is a "possibility." (Privately they say it is a high probability or it is definitely way it will happen.)

The "meshichisten" say it is definitely what will happen.

[Paul Freedman]

Avi: it is stupid to say that the Rebbe was the Messiah (not a Messianic candidate for his generation--and we don't need to get into the false distinctions between Messiah and a candidate in potentio who will be revealed to have been the Messiah in the end times in actuality--that is the same thing as saying Messiah but circuitously) because he made no fundamental historic contribution to the Jewish people; he didn't shift the axes, Israel is still threatened, the world goes on. The Rebbe was one of many communal and political leaders who made contributions by organizing the activities of individual Jews.

That's it.

I'm sorry that mere humanity is felt to be insufficient.

Look, either you end up redefining-down what Messiah does to make that term fit the (comparatively) modest framework of the Rebbe's achievements or you go down the rabbit's hole of endless allegorization of his activities to metaphorize those activities into symbolic palimpests of what Messiah is.

Is there a source in Jewish tradition that calls Messiah a mid-level communal leader who mostly was a good guy and did good things along the way with mistakes but failed to guarantee the security of the Jewish community in its role as nation Israel among the nations ?

Much was hinted at.

It didn't materialize.

[Paul Freedman]

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof"

[Edious]

The greats are often disregarded by the common imbecile.

[BREW]

ur all a bunch of haters chabad "messianism" isnt close to the christian concept of jesus the chabadniks dont think he's god incarnate nor is the idea that he is the moshiach universaly accepted.chabadniks follow halacha read the tenach and believe in one g-d IE practice judaism end of story

[RJBZ]

Untrue Brew, this week, my Habad nephew told me "I should pray to the Rebbe..."

I was genuinely shocked and sad....