5th And 6th Lubavitch Rebbes Sexually Molested As Children, Scholar Shows

The Rashab, Rabbi Sholom DovBer Schneersohn, and his son the Rayyatz, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, were both sexually molested as children. The Rashab and his older brother engaged in forbidden sexual escapades, as did their wives.

The 5th Chabad-Lubavitch rebbe, Sholom DovBer Schneerson, went to Vienna in 1903 to get treatment from Sigmund Freud.

While the trip to Vienna and its purpose – treatment from "Herr Professor" – is reported in the published works of the Rashab's son, the 6th rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch, Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, and Chabad lore claimed the professor was Freud, the name of the professor was only revealed when the Reshimot (notebooks) of the 7th rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, were published posthumously in 1997.

But the identity of the professor as Sigmund Freud has been problematic for scholars, because no case file for the Rashab was found, and there is no conclusive evidence in Freud's writings to confirm the treatment.

Maya Balakirsky Katz, writing in the Association of Jewish Studies Review (April 2010) has done a masterful piece of historical research and shows that the Rashab did indeed seek out treatment from Sigmund Freud, but Freud referred the Rashab to another Viennese psychoanalyst , his close disciple  Wilhelm Stekel, and consulted with Stekel on the case.

The Rashab reports being sexually molested by a male household servant from the time he was 5 or 6 years old until his marriage.

He also describes sexual liaisons he had with his sister-in-law; licentious sexual behavior of his brother, Rabbi Zalman Aharon; questionable sexual behavior of his wife; and his own frequent masturbation, sometimes carried out with his brother.

Here are excerpts from her article, An Occupational Neurosis: A Psychoanalytic Case History Of A Rabbi. References to page number in square brackets are mine:

In consultation with Sigmund Freud, the Viennese psychoanalyst Wilhelm Stekel (1868–1940) treated the first Jewish cleric known to undergo analysis, in 1903. According to the case history, published in 1908, a forty-two-year-old rabbi suffered from a Berufsneurose, an occupational neurosis associated with the pressures of his career. [p.1]…

The rabbi’s first dream took the form of a vivid military scene with soldiers in awkward poses, stretching their bayonets to mark their enemy and laughing deliriously. The leader of these soldiers seized the rabbi by his beard and demanded, “Why have you become so proud and will not have anything to do with me?” The dream was instigated by a “pornographic photograph” that the rabbi remem- bered in which a bayonet was pressed against a soldier’s penis. Stekel opined that the military leader in the dream formed a “condensation” figure—a single dream symbol that expressed the emotional content of several memories. The delirious military leader evoked both traumatic and repressed memories of a male servant, the rabbi’s brother, and a friend. The memories that followed the first dream thus were structured around the roles these three figures played in triggering the rabbi’s revelations about his early sexual experiences. Finally losing what appeared to be epic patience, the rabbi lashed out against “the cure,” a term of art that Stekel uses interchangeably with “psychoanalysis,” which the rabbi claimed was not helping in the least, but only making things worse.8

The next day, the rabbi revealed that a “man-servant,” whose tasks included watching over the rabbi in his boyhood, sexually molested him from the time he was “five or six” until his marriage, when “such things” became impossible. After retrieving the sexual trauma of his childhood, the rabbi divulged the details of the encounter, showing visible signs of emotional turmoil, and Stekel, in turn, recorded the sordid details of the encounter with clinical distance and graphic min- utiae. Stekel noted that the servant still lived in the rabbi’s house and that the rabbi still showed him great affection despite the fact that the man was frequently “rude and impertinent.” Despite their confusing sexual encounters, the rabbi “did not have the heart to be severe with him and much less to give him notice.”9 In line with psychoanalytic thought of the time, Stekel glides over the emotional conflict of traumatic memory under the premise that its discovery suffices for the patient’s recovery. Indeed, this memory of childhood sexual trauma unblocks “such a rich supply of source material that there was not enough time to discuss and incorpor- ate it all.” The rabbi admitted to masturbating since childhood, both alone and with his brother, a point that in 1903 signaled a possible cause of neurosis.10

These confessions led to the second character within the “condensation figure” represented by the tormenting soldier in the rabbi’s dream—the rabbi’s brother. The rabbi revealed that his brother, “a man-about-town and a ladies’ man—paid court to his [the rabbi’s] wife in a shocking manner.” The rabbi could not accuse them of anything definite and trusted his wife, but nevertheless, the rabbi chastised his brother for compromising his wife’s reputation. Further analysis uncovered that the real motivation for the rabbi’s jealousy toward his brother concerned not his own wife, but his brother’s wife. The brother, who married before the rabbi, habitually took the rabbi into his wife’s bedroom, “where he [the brother] displayed her in scant attire, with the idea of arousing him, and to hold his wife’s beauty before his eyes.” In his brother’s absence, the rabbi stayed with his sister-in-law, playing with her and “having fun” without getting carried away. In his characteristic dubious tone, Stekel offers a jus- tification in the rabbi’s own words: “They were all children in those days ...”11

Stekel’s inflammatory ellipses lead into the rabbi’s identification of the third character within the dream’s “condensation” figure—a male friend. The rabbi reminisced about a seaside resort where he and his young wife once spent a summer. The rabbi occasionally wrestled with the friend in the wife’s presence, and, after successfully pinning his friend on the floor with his knee, the rabbi tri- umphantly took his wife to bed. Stekel’s bold interpretation of the rabbi’s first dream is offered as “proof” of Stekel’s success as an analyst, as the interpretation led to the rabbi’s identification of the “core trauma” and the confession of a vivid sexual life. The rabbi was tormented day and night by the most unbridled fanta- sies: everything he saw, heard, read, and touched assumed sexual images. Stekel determined that this man, “who led such a pious and sequestered existence in real life, was in his fantasy life, the greatest Don Juan,” whose fantasies “would put even those of a Marquis de Sade in the shade.”12

The second dream’s setting was a sleeping compartment on a traveling train, which led to the admission that the rabbi harbored fantasies of being forced into a sexual liaison in a way that would exonerate him from the sin of adultery because it would be “an act performed against his will.” The rabbi explained that he knew of two possibilities by which he could remain true to the tenets of his religion while experiencing intercourse. In the first, a woman lying in the sleeping com- partment above him falls upon him in a way that might resemble coitus, a situation in which he could be an “unwilling” subject. In the second, he is attacked by robbers in a forest and the captain of the thieves holds a pistol to his breast, saying, “either you have intercourse with this woman who lies here before you, or I will shoot you.” In both cases, the rabbi could not be held accountable for his passive transgressions and thereby could achieve a measure of “pleasure without sin.”13

Stekel’s endeavors to account for two of the rabbi’s pathological behaviors through his interpretation of the second dream revealed that the rabbi suffered from a “traveling neurosis” (Reiseneurose), in which he was seized by a desire to travel at night by train and to walk in forests by day. “After three months an oppressive restlessness seizes him [the rabbi]; he cannot work any longer, and decides to go somewhere to consult some professor or visit some famous seaside health-resort ... . urged by the secret hope that a luscious lady would fall down on him from above.” Hence, Stekel interprets the dreamer’s anticipation of meeting a woman with whom he could have unwilling and unwitting—and hence free of sin—sex as the reason behind the rabbi’s real-life wanderings through forests and train travel. The rabbi harbored an obsessive desire for an illicit sexual experience, but he repressed this untenable desire into the unconscious, “masked by various more tenable desires, such as consultations with professors, visits to friends, trips to resorts, etc.” However, in Stekel’s estimation, the “primary motive, in fact, the only motive to these wishes, is the journey.” The rabbi “could not tolerate the spas for long, losing patience, and traveling further and as far as possible, always at night, and always in a sleeping-compartment.” Likewise, the second part of the fantasy with the sin-compelling robbers inspired the rabbi “to circle the forests for days while staying at a health-resort, always in the hope that circumstances might induce a sublime end to his innocence.”

Consequent analysis revealed that the woman in the rabbi’s train dreams triggered the memory of a “young, strikingly beautiful, and finely built woman,” resembling the housekeeper in the rabbi’s summer residence, who once extended her hand in greeting. The experience with a “foreign” woman left “a burning fire” in his left hand, and shortly afterward, he lost all sensation in that hand. Stekel records the rabbi’s fascination with travel in the rabbi’s own words: “Every time I get into a train, I think of this woman, and always hope that, by chance, she may one day share a compartment with me.” After this piecing together of details about the adult sexual fixation on the “foreign” servant and his pathological traveling, the rabbi’s left-hand numbness disappeared.

As Stekel described it, the analysis progressed rapidly, and the patient found boundless relief in being able at last to communicate unabashed, for the rabbi “did not have a single person whom he could speak about these things.”14

The third and final dream ties up the loose ends presented at the start of the case history, a performance so eloquent that it invites skepticism. Stekel assesses the value of the handwritten books that the brother demanded, to address the “deeper emotional regions.” The key to the rabbi’s obsession with the holy books lie in passages within them of a graphic sexual nature. Even when he was a child, scripture dealing with erotic life excited him, and “he pursued these portions of scripture in earnest.” The old manuscript contained significant details about the erotic symbolism found within the four letters of the divine name (YHWH), a staple of kabbalistic literature since the thirteenth century.15 Stekel concluded that the book symbolized the sexual rivalry between the rabbi and his brother, who taunted him both with the beauty of his sister-in-law and the unabashed courting of the rabbi’s wife.16 In Stekel’s interpretation, the rabbi’s real attachment to the book stemmed from his hermeneutical analysis of the sexual symbolism of the divine name. Stekel discovered that the rabbi always lost his train of thought and always halted at the name of God because “it brought the sexual symbolism of the four letters out of the unconscious and to the surface.” Stekel concludes, “His religious acts were imbued with a secret sexual symbolism. He halted—not without a deeper determination—in the middle of his speech. He [the rabbi] always halted at the word ‘YHWH’ because this word reminded him not only of his illicit thoughts, but of his inhibitions.”17 [p.3 - p.6]

In Stekel’s case history, other familial relationships besides that with the elder brother make a debut. These are revealed in the rabbi’s attraction to his brother’s wife, his confusion regarding his own wife, his incestuous thoughts about his sister, and even his incestuous feelings toward his mother. These appear to illustrate a complex interior life. Stekel never even men- tions the rabbi’s own role as a father, whose child is presumably susceptible to the “sexton in his father’s house” during his own extensive traveling. The most palp-able silence within the case history concerns the rabbi’s anger toward a father who left his child in the care of this “man-servant” on account of personal health and on behalf of the Jewish people. [p.18]…

R. Yosef Yitzchak writes that he always wished that his father had spent more time recounting his family history and the stories of other pious men, but it was not until RaSHaB was infirm in Vienna that RaSHaB began to experience vivid dreams in which the deceased R. Shmuel [his father, the 4th rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch] revealed family history. During the long walks through the forest “as per doctor’s orders,” RaSHaB, in turn, related these stories to his son. [p. 19]…

R. Yosef Yitzchak writes about his father’s two-year absence as an intensely painful time of isolation from his father: “My lifestyle during the course of those two years made me forget my earlier memories of my father” and “during my two bitter years I suffered greatly from this man [the servant Yosef Morde- khai in his grandmother’s house].” R. Yosef Yitzchak describes the time as years spent alone in his room crying without even the memory of his father to sustain him. The amnesia that he experienced during his father’s absence ended with his father’s return. The years of absence induce a selective amnesia and, in his “recollections,” R. Yosef Yitzchak’s narrative moves back and forth between R. Yosef Yitzchak’s “remembering” and “forgetting” over the two years, but “in the summer of 1889, in the space of one month, I became a different child. My father drew closer to me with a great intimacy so that I felt all the warmth of a father, all the love of a merciful father, and I would go to sleep with the thought that I too have a father and mother to which to say good- night. In the course of these two years I forgot the bitter conditions of the earlier life.”77

Freud considered hysterical amnesia a symptom of repression connected with childhood sexuality and the Oedipus complex, and R. Yosef Yitzchak’s narrative of father absence is sprinkled with accounts of the elderly servant. With his father and memory restored, however, R. Yosef Yitzchak finds himself eighteen months later paralyzed with fear when his father again falls severely ill. R. Yosef Yitzchak describes his pain and desperate intercession with God on his father’s behalf, so that when RaSHaB rises from the sick bed, R. Yosef Yitzchak writes, “With God’s mercy and with the positive turn of the situation, my father’s [return to] health became recognizable before all and not only for our family but also for our helpers and all the people who came to our courtyard ... Even Yosef Mordekhai, the old servant, had a different countenance and his perpetual bitterness subsided.”78 [p. 21-22]…

As the author notes, Chabad has claimed for more than 65 years that the Rashab went to a famous Viennese professor for psychoanalysis in 1903.

The 7th rebbe's personal notebooks, published on 1997 after his death, ID that professor as Freud.

The travels described by the rabbi in Stekel's case study match the travels of the Maharash and Rashab.

The year and time of year of the therapy matches the account published in the 1940s by the 6th Chabad rebbe, the Rayyatz, the son of the Rashab.

Numerous other details match.

But there are references Stekel makes that are incorrect.

The Rashab's age at marriage, cited by Stekel as 18 when the actual age was 13, could be a simple typographical or transcription error. (That can be seen from the Rashab's repeated statement, quoted by Steckel in reference to the sexual interplay between the Rashab, his sister-in-law, Rabbi Zalman Aharon and the Rashab's wife, the masturbation, etc., that “they were all children in those days ...” Stekel quotes this several times but doesn't attempt to explain how 18 to 20 year olds could be referred to as children in 1903, which leads me to believe Stekel's handwritten notes or manuscript had the numeral "13"  written, and that was read by his publisher as "18.")

The second error is "Stekel's report about the rabbi's daughter, whom the rabbi purportedly sent to Stekel five years after his own successful treatment. In fact, RaSHaB did not have a daughter."

This is true, the Rashab did not have a legitimate daughter. But he may have had an illegitimate daughter, or, much more likely, the reference is to a niece or a granddaughter. If the latter, it would be most likely be Chana, his oldest granddaughter, who would have been a teenager in 1908.

Maya Balakirsky Katz has done groundbreaking research that, among many other things, shows the devastating long-lasting impact of child sexual abuse even in rabbinic families, and the need for therapy to overcome that damage.

If nothing else, lets hope the haredi community takes that message to heart.

Photographs from top: The Rashab, his son the Rayyatz, and Wilhelm Stekel.

Comments

[Lubavtich]

whats ur source to this lubavitch shmitz?

[Julie Sandburg]

Very interesting.

Here's the link to the AJS Review issue: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayIssue?jid=AJS&volumeId=34&issueId=01&iid=7629480

The article quoted is the first one, and the full text is free of charge. Available as HTML text or PDF.

[Shmarya]

Thanks, Julie. I added a link to the HTML version in my post.

[Jimmy]

"The Rashab did not have a sister."
Wrong,he did
He had two or three sisters,One named Chaya Moushka married R'Moshe Horenstein and his son or grandson married Sheina, Rebbitzen Chaya Moushka Schneersons, the Rebbes wifes younger sister, who perished in Treblinka.

[Shmarya]

"The Rashab did not have a sister."
Wrong,he did
He had two or three sisters,One named Chaya Moushka married R'Moshe Horenstein and his son or grandson married Sheina, Rebbitzen Chaya Moushka Schneersons, the Rebbes wifes younger sister, who perished in Treblinka.

HaYom Yom, which was written by the 7th rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, only mentions one child, a son, Yosef Yitzchok, the 6th rebbe.

I imagine that is why Maya Balakirsky Katz thought there were no sisters.

Assuming what you say is correct, why would the Rebbe have left out the sisters?

[Jimmy]

R'Yosef Yitzchok was a SON of Rasha"b and an only child.The father Rashab had a number of siblings including an older brother Zalman Aharon

[Shmarya]

R'Yosef Yitzchok was a SON of Rasha"b and an only child.The father Rashab had a number of siblings including an older brother Zalman Aharon

Yeah, I'm tired. I caught my mistake when I was fixing my post. (I mention you, BTW.)

Anyway, thanks for catching both mistakes.

[Jimmy]

The siblings names were:

שניאור זלמן אהרן
אברהם סנדר
מנחם מענדל
דבורה לאה
חיה מושקא
There may have been an additional sister who died young.

[Adam Neira]

The life stages of human beings are as follows :

Pre-conception
Conception
Gestation
Birth
Infancy
Early Childhood (3 1/2 to 8 y.o.)
Childhood
Adolescence
Testing Years (19 to 30)
Early Adulthood
Middle Adulthood
Late Adulthood (61 to 75)
Mature Adulthood
Twilight Years
Death
Post Death

The Awareness/Healing Spectrum is...

Pure/Innocent and Free
Traumatisation
Repression sets in
Unaware that I am unaware
Aware that I am unaware
Aware that I am aware
Healing
Mindfulness
Reinvention of Self
Study
Heightened Consciousness

Most people never get beyond the unaware that they are unaware stage. The primary drive of all human beings is safety. Without safety there can be no healing or self-actualisation. The history of the Jewish people and all of humankind has been the search for safe spaces. People find sanctuary in good leadership. There is a spiritual reason for the level of denial surrounding the issue of child abuse. Freud recanted his early views under enormous political pressure from various sources. See Jeffrey Masson's "The Assault on Truth". Not enough space here to expound more on this issue.

[Shmarya]

Actually, I really screwed up.

The mistake in Stekel's report Maya Balakirsky Katz refers to is "the rabbi's daughter, whom the rabbi purportedly sent to Stekel five years after his own successful treatment. In fact, RaSHaB did not have a daughter."

That is true. He did not have a daughter. I suspect the "daughter" was really a granddaughter, probably Chana, his oldest, who would have been a teenager in 1908.

[Ber]

Shmarya,

be warned, you are playing with fire...

[harry]

can anyone doubt this is a total fantasy? Prove to me this rabbi is the rashab. And how exactlt does this woman know something that no one else seems to?

[hershko]

Jimmy - all those Mendels, Mushkas, Devorah Leas and Shneurs, but has anyone ever met an Avrahan Sender?

Why don't Chabadniks name their kids after him?

[chaim]

wow. that is so deeply disturbing

[Baruch Pelta]

Shmarya,
According to the article, Stekel makes another mistake; he claimed that he cured the Rebbe's condition when really the Rebbe had a problem with his left hand through his life. The good professor, who fell out with Freud, later committed suicide.

It's a well-researched and cogent article. My reaction when I read the article (I'm an AJS member): If (the rest of) Stekel's account is taken at face-value, that means even the Rebbe's fantasy situation was the result of him not doing something halachically wrong and shows a real dedication to a frum worldview.

[Jimmy]

Chana Schneerson-GurArie was born in 1899 and was not a teenager in 1908.This whole report seems fanciful to me

[Willy]

you are playing with a fire Bomb

[Danny Steinmetz]

Baruch Pelta,

You claim Stekel was wrong to claim a cure for the Rebbe's hand when in fact he trouble with it his whole life. It is possible that he experienced momentary cure following the interpretation and Stekel was accurately reporting what he observed at the the time.

[Israel]

Baruch - I agree.

Shmarya - Excellent find. It will be interesting to see how this is reacted to in Chabadland. I can't imagine how they'd deny it credibly. But they won't have a choice.

[Yochanan Lavie]

Apologies to the Ramones

We're a hasidic family
We're a hasidic family
We're a hasidic family
Me, mammeleh and tatty
( 2X )

Sitting here in Russia
Eating varnishkes and kasha
We're all in the mishpocha
Learning 'bout halahca

We ain't got no chevra
Our troubles are a parshah
No Hanukkah cards to Sender
Tatty went to Vienna

Tatty's telling lies
Baby's eating flies
Mammeleh talks to Freud
Baby's got annoyed

I'm friends with the psychoanalyst
I'm friends with the Czar
We're all making smoke rings
Smoking Freud's cigar

Sitting here in Brooklyn
Eating Mammeleh's cooking
We're in all the book and
We've been caught looking

We have some chassidim
Our troubles, they don't see them
No Rebbe cards to trade 'em
Daddy likes chareidim

We're a hasidic family
We're a hasidic family
We're a hasidic family
Me, mama and tatty
(10x)

[Shmarya]

Chana Schneerson-GurArie was born in 1899 and was not a teenager in 1908.This whole report seems fanciful to me

Her sister was born in 1900, according to her documents.

In other words, it far more likely that Chana was born in 1897 or early 1898.

[randomthought]

The therapists (at that time) seem more f'd up than the patients to me.

for example "Freud considered hysterical amnesia a symptom of repression connected with childhood sexuality and the Oedipus complex, " .. do we need to go further?

If he was abused as a kid, pretty tragic.

[Baruch Pelta]

You claim Stekel was wrong to claim a cure for the Rebbe's hand when in fact he trouble with it his whole life. It is possible that he experienced momentary cure following the interpretation and Stekel was accurately reporting what he observed at the the time.
I was just paraphrasing Dr. Katz's research as I understood it. (she wrote, "...Stekel
confidently pronounces his patient cured. Stekel attests to his success by reporting
that five years after his own treatment, the rabbi sent his daughter to Stekel for psychoanalytic
treatment...the fact that RaSHaB’s left hand
caused him problems throughout his life, throws into question Stekel’s self confident report that he secured a cure for his patient and provokes a critical evaluation of Stekel’s art of the case history. The question of why Stekel misrepresented
these facts requires independent treatment.")

[Successful Messiah]

Stekel's report is about an unnamed rabbi. Associating that Rabbi with Rashab is at best a guess. It may be a very educated guess, but it can't be claimed as certainty.

"He also describes sexual liaisons he had with his sister-in-law"

To be fair it refers to playing without getting carried away - whatever that means. There are a number of other inaccuracies in your description that are symptomatic of your bias.

[Shmarya]

To be fair it refers to playing without getting carried away - whatever that means. There are a number of other inaccuracies in your description that are symptomatic of your bias.

Please. He's referring to SEXUAL playing, and what it means is there was no penetration.

As for bias, check your mirror.

[Yos]

It's funny. Seeing frailty and humanity in the Rashab and Rayyatz is actually endearing. I doubt the Chabadkooks would feel the same.

[Rabbi K]

This is nothing less than moitzi shem ra on holy Tzadikim who were moiser nefesh for Judism in general and individual Jews in particular!!!
You are playing with fire!!!

[Successful Messiah]

"Please. He's referring to SEXUAL playing, and what it means is there was no penetration."

That is your guess. You may be right or you may be wrong, but you don't know. In any event, you use the term sexual liaisons which is generally used to refer to actual sexual intercourse. So even if you are right, you are still wrong.

"As for bias, check your mirror."

Right - now you want us to believe that you are not biased against chabad. As for my bias, I have no skin in the game with chabad. My only bias is to highlight your biases and lies.

[randomthought]

The analysts at this time were out to prove that everything was sexual (see Freud's secret club). You could have come in to them and said "I banged my toe" and they would have said "Ah.. interesting, so you banged your toe so that your conscious would absorb from your unconscious the pain of not banging your mother!"

The point is, any fact not clearly illustrated, should be taken with a lot of salt.

[A. Nuran]

How is he playing with fire? If the research is credible it casts light on something that was hidden. That's the whole point of research. If it is not substantiated it is wrong.

If you mean that it is correct upsets the idolatrous and they will be uncomfortable with the truth, too bad for them. If you are implying they will physically attack the author that is bad. And I hope anyone who does this is locked up in a very unpleasant prison for the rest of his days.

[randomthought]

Even look at Kinsey who is hailed by academics as this great illuminator of sexual practices... the methodology of his reveals that he was more like a sadmasochistic pedophile than a man of science.

[Bill]

Breaking! a bunch of inbred peasants slept with the help and screwed their in-laws a hundred years ago.

[chaim]

random thought -

while i think that there is some (a little) truth to your argument as to the value of early psychoanalytic theories, you take the extreme opposite, which is even less true. what makes you think that these sorts of problems could not have occurred to the rashab? did you know him personally? Besides, this speaks nothing against his contributions to judaism, the things the article describes him doing or undergoing primarily happened while he was a young child. it is tragic, not culpable. And, furthermore, if he masturbated throughout adulthood to help overcome the traumatic experiences of his youth and their ongoing impact of his psychological health, could you fault him? Just because he was a troubled man does not make him wicked or any less of an important contributor to hasidic thought. it is not as if the article is saying that he himself became an abuser (CV"S). the comments here in defense of the rashab read more as judgments of the rashab, blaming him for his trauma by implying that having been traumatized is somehow "playing with fire" - please rethink this

[alternative childcare]

Now we know why it was important to enact rules such as HIPAA to protect patient-therapist confidentiality. Why is this important to publish? I suspect that if one would reveal the sexual habits, including masturbation and porn use of bloggers and their followers, it would far outshine what is described here. As anyone who has studied the early days of psychotherapy would know, case studies of this sort were always loaded with all kinds of sexual issues, as that was central to Freud's system.

The only interesting thing in this whole case study is why did Freud decline to take the case? Is this support for Yerushalmi's argument that Freud was more Jewish than he let on?

[chunky]

haha shmarya ur hilarious who do you think is so gullible?

[Clue]

This whole thing is hearsay about which the author of the article states :

"The third and final dream ties up the loose ends presented at the start of the case history, a performance so eloquent that it invites skepticism."

The whole thing is so inherently unreliable that the only conclusion one can legitimately conclude is no conclusion at all.

[randomthought]

"while i think that there is some (a little) truth to your argument as to the value of early psychoanalytic theories, you take the extreme opposite, which is even less true."

Chaim - I'm not sure what you mean. You mean I'm saying there's no value which is less true than appreciating the "some" value?
As far as old-school-analysis:
It's perverted people trying to treat perversion. That adds up to being pretty perverted. Only in the name of science which such abhorrent things get past our filters, if it had been the demands of some other man made god we would have been much wiser.

In regards to your other point:
If this is true, there are things here which are culpable, although I agree some of it is not.

[chaim]

random thought-

it is not culpable. i read the article and also the relevant passages in the psychoanalytic text. it referrs to things that happened when he was 13 and under. one is not culpable till 20 halachically. he was a child. as for the masturbation during adulthood, as i said, he was a trauma victim at a time in history with even less effective tools for dealing with trauma than we do today. if this is one way he dealt with that trauma would you blame him?

[ej]

If this story is true there goes the Heilman-Friedman book on the Rebbe. We now have a new coherent and very romantic story why the Rebbe, out of care and love of his wife, took her as far away as he could from the Lubavitcher court.Remember molested children treat their own children poorly who in turn may end up as less than optimal parents.

All this is going to take some time to digest, but I want to point out that if the Rebbe's wife was affected it makes the Rebbe both a nister and a tzadik who 'praved golus' for reasons romantic which are also spiritual.

[Robert Wisler]

I agree with Yos's comment. To see true humanity, their sexual struggles and perversion, falling into misdeeds, and victimization within the lives of these Chabad leaders makes them real and human to me. I came out of reading the article feeling much "closer" to these Chabad luminaries (who is unfortunately the only Jewish presence in my area) than from all the idiotic "miracle" stories related by the brainwashed and cult-like sh'uchim that Chabad has foisted on the world. Let these rebbe'im masterbate. I have, you have, we were formed in our mother's wombs with these foilbles and sexual feelings. Finally, these rebbe'im are human beings!

[Tomer]

Dear Shmarya, I posted a short note on this in my blog:
http://7minim.wordpress.com/2010/06/13/rashab_sexually_abused/

[Eliezer]

sounds like more gratuitous frum bashing b.s. to me

[NotHarold]

If you ask any man who grew up in the chabad cult about their first sexual contact they will, nebach, point out it was with someone of their own gender in mikva, yeshiva etc.

Chabad has a strict antimasturbation policy so the older "bochurs" convince the younger ones that they can "help them out".

Sick but true. Ask a few and learn for yourself.

[randomthought]

Chaim, please do correct if I misunderstand, but the one part I had in mind is that the same servant who he did not later stand up to could have been involved in other abuse...?

[noyb]

Disgusting!
I can't even believe where you can get such disturbing info. from, seriously gross 2 publish rumors about tzadikim like that publicly and unabashedly! you should really be ashamed!

[Avi]

For those without time to sift through the detail here, could someone succinctly summarize how we know who this rabbi is?

[Shmarya]

Chabad has claimed for more than 65 years that the Rashab went to a famous Viennese professor for psychoanalysis in 1903.

The Rebbe's personal notebooks, published on 1997 after his death, ID that professor as Freud.

The travels described by the rabbi in Stekel's case study match the travels of the Maharash and Rashab.

The year and time of year of the therapy matches the account published in the 1940s by the 6th Chabad rebbe, the Rayyatz, the son of the Rashab.

Numerous other details match.

[randomthought]

Are there details that do not match?

[Shmarya]

Yes. The two I mentioned in my post.

[randomthought]

Gotcha. And that MMS' account says Freud treated Rashab not just that he was referred by Freud to Stekel. It is possible that there were certain confidentiality pieces involved with Rashab, making the records difficult if not impossible to find.

[R]

they were not tzadikim. So now we have got over that slight problem, is everyone ok with the research?

[Shmarya]

Gotcha. And that MMS' account says Freud treated Rashab not just that he was referred by Freud to Stekel. It is possible that there were certain confidentiality pieces involved with Rashab, making the records difficult if not impossible to find.

No.

You don't get it.

Freud kept copious case notes. None exist for the Rashab or for anyone who fits his profile.

But Freud did refer a rabbi who does fit the Rashab's profile to Stekel.

You must distinguish between what is possible – flying pigs in a remote corner of SE Asia, perhaps – and what is probable.

Otherwise, since nearly anything is possible, everything is possible and therefore 'true.'

[Jimmy]

Interesting note is that Stekel was Jewish

[ansular]

this is a joke, right?

"Stekel's handwritten notes or manuscript had the numeral "13" written, and that was read by his publisher as "18.")"

academic german writing never uses numbers and especially the german psychoanalysts always wrote the numbers. i took german and psychoanalytic studies at university for three years.

"The second error is "Stekel's report about the rabbi's daughter, whom the rabbi purportedly sent to Stekel five years after his own successful treatment. In fact, RaSHaB did not have a daughter."

This is true, the Rashab did not have a legitimate daughter. But he may have had an illegitimate daughter, or, much more likely, the reference is to a niece or a granddaughter. If the latter, it would be most likely be Chana, his oldest granddaughter, who would have been a teenager in 1908."

LOL

and then your proof in the next line quoting some study

LOL LOL LOL

[Shmarya]

Dull witted, trite and predictable.

Process (if you're not stoned): I was writing about Stekel's N-O-T-E-S, from which he (or a secretary) would later have written the case study.

When people take N-O-T-E-S, the usually do not write out numbers, the use numerals.

And, as you well know, in rabbinic parlance it is extremely common to refer to granddaughters, nieces, and even younger cousins as "daughter," just as the opposite – referring to a great-great grandfather as "garndfather" – is common.

Pull the needle out of your arm and try to function.

[Abracadabra]

Shmarya -

I would suggest adding your post of - June 13, 2010 at 02:58 PM - to what you wrote above in what you wrote right after and directly underneath the article.

I, too, had the same question of how we know who this rabbi is, and planned to ask until I saw your post of June 13, 2010 at 02:58 PM, which is buried all the way down here in the comments.

Also, why would MMS have written that it was Fruend who the Rashab saw, when it was Stekel?

[ansular]

april fool's day, and, of course, in true honorable shmarya fashion, you get all personal; when your ridiculousness is painted clearly.
i remember you doing the same when i proved, before all, that a story you wrote was a complete fabrication.
and then the other time, with the nytimes article. remember that?

[Abracadabra]

Bwt - this is great crazy stuff Shmarya. I don't know where you dig it up - but it's very good.

[ansular]

"Otherwise, since nearly anything is possible, everything is possible and therefore 'true.'"

from where, pray tell, did u pull out that one?

this is like your bad hair day?

[Menachem Mendel]

how can i verify that inside because i have trouble beleiving it plus its asur of eather loshan hora if its true and motzai shem ra if its not

[ansular]

shmarya, did you see the notes? and by the way, are you familiar with early twentieth century german penmanship. you don't come across as the academic type, just a stupid angry midwestern klutz.

[randomthought]

ansular, for that last quote he was making a point of looking for the probable in the possible rather than just giving up at not knowing... not sure he's right but there is logic to it whether or not it finds the actual truth.

[ansular]

in all seriousness the story has three major flaws which deem it false.

the ages.

the daughter

stekel would have been mentioned in the rebbe's personal candid rishimos.

it does not even work as fiction.

[Shmarya]

april fool's day, and, of course, in true honorable shmarya fashion, you get all personal; when your ridiculousness is painted clearly.
i remember you doing the same when i proved, before all, that a story you wrote was a complete fabrication.
and then the other time, with the nytimes article. remember that?

I remember you incoherently making lots of allegations about me that were false, and I remember your friend JB violating one of the cardinal rules of journalism.

in all seriousness the story has three major flaws which deem it false.

the ages.

the daughter

stekel would have been mentioned in the rebbe's personal candid rishimos.

The age issue is trivial and easily explained.

The daughter issue is more serious but still easily explained by the language normally used by haredi rabbis, even in print.

As for the reshimot of the 7th rebbe, if you were not so freaking nuts you'd know two things: 1. The only way the rebbe knew any of this was because he heard it from the 6th rebbe and, 2. As the journal article itself makes clear, the diaries of earlier rebbes are censored.

Did you ever think the rebbe did not want his wife's family's dirty laundry aired in public, so he purposely did not write Stekel's name or wrote a note that his name should not be published?

Past that, Chabad won't release the complete diaries, notebooks, etc., of the Rashab or the Rayyatz. Ever wonder why?

[Shmarya]

shmarya, did you see the notes? and by the way, are you familiar with early twentieth century german penmanship. you don't come across as the academic type, just a stupid angry midwestern klutz.

Stekel was POLISH and these were his personal notes, taken at the time of the sessions with the rabbi.

[Shmarya]

why would MMS have written that it was Fruend who the Rashab saw, when it was Stekel?

Stekel was one of Freud's 2 original disciples.

The Rashab went to Freud, who referred him to Stekel and consulted on the case.

When the 6thh rebbe, the Rashab's son, wrote about it, he said the Rashab went to Vienna to see Freud, which was true.

And the Rashab may have viewed Stekel as simply an extension of Freud, much in the way a person is treated by a leading specialist in a teaching hospital, but is really seen most often by residents and fellows, with the specialist consulting periodically.

[Shmarya]

I would suggest adding your post of - June 13, 2010 at 02:58 PM - to what you wrote above in what you wrote right after and directly underneath the article.

I added it in. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Joe the Shmoe]

FYI:

I have seen the full diary of the Rayatz, there are full copies floating around.

The reason may parts were not released is because the Rebbe did not want what was written about the Rashag to get out in the public. I have seen what he wrote, in short the Rayatz was not too fond of the Rashag...

[Joe the Shmoe]

Shmarya, i wonder if Aguch can sue you for defamation of character..

[itchiemayer]

Joe - Why did the 6th Rebbe not like the Rashag? I am trying to learn more about Rav Shmaryahu Gourary, a nearly forgotten man who some wanted to be the 7th Rebbe.
Anyhow, this story confirms for me that Rav Sholom Dov Ber was a great man. For a man of such importance to admit to weakness and to not be so secretive about going to a Psychiatrist actually shows his gadlus. This is far more endearing than what I perceive to be the secretiveness and distortion of facts that exixts today in Lubavitch. A man who tortures himself over his weaknesses as the Rashab must have done, is displaying great humility. Contrast this with the behavior of a Leib Tropper who flaunted his weaknesses.
To what extent this story is true I don't know. However, even if true, the Rashab showed greatness. Possibly the 6th rebbe as well, although most of the article forcused on #5 so I can't say for sure but I will assume so.

[Toby]

Sounds like my neighbors in New Square. Same old, same old.

[WoolSilkCotton]

++itchiemayer | June 13, 2010 at 06:35 PM++

Itchie, I agree.

Tomorrow night is the yahrzeit of the 7th Rebbe. We all miss his leadership.

[G]

Someone mentioned that you are playing with fire... and I would like to agree with that statement.
You are overstepping many boundaries here, and I think you will not be prepared for the consequences.

[butch]

wiil will not live out this year

[malacah hamoveas]

you are my next catch

[Onionsoupmix]

Sorry, FM.

Bringing Ziggy's analyses as a proof of sexual deviancy is almost as credible as asking Phillip Morris Co. to discuss the benefits of smoking.

[Adam Neira]

Invite a certain person to the Holy City and he will oversee a divinely mandated audit of everyone in the region. He has a hotline to G-d's big merit/demerit points spreadsheet of humankind. He will know how to sort through the mess and make judgement between all the different groups. G-d wants truth and justice to reign from Jerusalem. Such a structure will be of benefit to the Jewish people and all of humankind. It is a different form of command structure than any seen before. It will be hierarchical but more like a series of concentric circles emanating outwards from a fixed point. Too many current and past leaders have incorrect and toxic worldviews. Their mental maps of how the world should be constructed are completely skewiff. G-d wants a certain type of global social architecture to be established. He is the intelligent designer par excellence.

"It doesn't matter what you think, we will all know the truth and what is correct in the end !"

[Shmarya=bozo]

Shmarya sorry your a f>\^n joke

[A. Nuran]

One side is using facts and research.
The other side is saying "We idolize these men. This just can't be so!"

Which side would a rational, thinking person pay more attention to? I'll give you a hint, it's not the one going "Lalalalala! I can't hear you!"

[Dr. Dave]

I may be a product of current mores about medical privacy, but this study rubs me the wrong way.

Whether the mystery rabbi was the Lubavitcher rebbe or not, even after a centuty, this does seem too much a violation of privacy.

[NotHarold]

Its amazing how this information makes people born into Chabad become dramatic in their responses and invoke supernatural consequences.

Chabad normally likes to rewrite history and in this one case they can't do it.

Perhaps Chabad has "jumped the shark".

[SJ]

Wow sad to see chabadniks on here making death threats worthy of Islamic fundamentalists.

[sytdos]

This is shocking stuff but im confused. The same servant who abused the Rashab was retained by the latter and went on to abuse rayyatz. Something doesn't line up here.

Also I once read a vague reference to the fact the great poet Chaim Nachman Bialik was sexually abused as a young boy. Anyone know the source for that i searched but couldn't find a thing

[ansular]

"Stekel was POLISH and these were his personal notes, taken at the time of the sessions with the rabbi.'

your stupidity knows no limits. who said steel was german? read my comment: "german academic writing".

shmarya, i really feel bad for you.

[ansular]

this is the single greatest blog post in the history of jewish blogging. brilliant expose, truth finally getting out, reason at last!

shmarya, i wish to than you tonight, really thank you, and may you continue from strength to strength!

"death threats" more lie laughing gas

[ansular]

shmarya finally, finally, after all the years, finally shmarya reveals himself.

i love this post.

effie where are you?

and where is the idiot poet?

shmarya, shmarya, shamarrrrrrryaaaaaa......

[ansular]

lubavitchers: chill on this one, read the post again; read shmarya's comments. no need for death threats, this is the very end of shmarya, and all the regulars here now see that.

[ansular]

shmarya, shmarya shmarya,

[ansular]

shmarya wrote,
"Otherwise, since nearly anything is possible, everything is possible and therefore 'true.'"

WHAT?!?

[ansular]

columbia school of journalism announced that it is offering a course on journalistic standards based on this paragraph by the brilliant shmarya

"This is true, the Rashab did not have a legitimate daughter. But he may have had an illegitimate daughter, or, much more likely, the reference is to a niece or a granddaughter. If the latter, it would be most likely be Chana, his oldest granddaughter, who would have been a teenager in 1908.""

LOL

[ansular]

shmarya won't but can somebody please please explain this sentence?

"Otherwise, since nearly anything is possible, everything is possible and therefore 'true.'"

[ansular]

funniest post ever.

[Shmarya]

I see you're still high.

The cream of the Chabad crop, no less.

You wrote: "your stupidity knows no limits. who said steel was german? read my comment: "german academic writing"."

Process: I was writing about Stekel's personal NOTES taken during sessions with the Rashab.

I noted that Stekel was Polish. He would have learned to take notes the way most people take notes – using personal shorthand, which surely would have included using numerals for most numbers rather than writing them out.

Many of your friends have told you to get into rehab. They've told you you're out of control and have a serious problem.

It's time you listened.

[WoolSilkCotton]

++Dr. Dave | June 13, 2010 at 11:17 PM++

Agreed.

[soso]

I did not yet read the whole article. But what I read so far was very interesting. It is not so much scandalous (that's what the blog owner likes to point out), but it shows how difficult it is to be a Rebbe, where people come and throw out their psychological ballast.

Of course he needed to confide to someone.

However, I am shocked that privacy and confidentiality is not preserved on the long term.

Furthermore, I suspect that there might have been some misunderstandings between Stekel and his patient, since they come from two completely different cultures.

I suspect that the cultural background of the two was not congruent enough to have effective psychoanalysis or dream interpretation.

The question of childhood sexual abuse: the nikolsburger rebbe's brother said he was abused as a child, so it seems to happen in "rebbishe" households...

[Rus PhD]

To Chaim and co

Indeed, as a psycho-neuroscientist that works, between other issues, with the physiology of sexual behavior and with pathophysiology of sexual disorders, I absolutely agree with you that there is nothing wrong to have sexual fantasies and to masturbate. Opposite, permanent lack of sexual fantasies may suggest brain pathology.

[Rus PhD]

However, you gyes, religious fundamentalists in general, Orthodox Jews in particular and especially Hassidim claim the opposite. Any sexual fantasy is dirty and evil. According to Tanya, even to think in general about the intercourse between male and female organism, let alone to fantasize about specific person, makes you “Rosho Gamur” (completely evil man).

[Rus PhD]

Thus, it is very important to publish, and to re-publish, and to bring it to the people attention, and to educate youth, that your Hassidic teaching is paganism and primitivism, that your holly Rabbis spent time fantasizing about sex like common freaks, that all your concept of holly Tzadikim and connection to the Haven via them is a big piece of bullshit.

[chaim]

Dr. rus -

i think as a dr. you should be able to respect religious sensibilities where they are not directly working against the health of the patient. while i agree that the fantasy of the tzadik is just that and that the great leaders were ultimately people, the way you put it suggests that there is something scandalous about this revelation about the rebbe rashab. as a dr. you should be able to applaud the fact that (as an earlier poster said) he was a great enough man to face his trauma and not hide behind office. I am not making an argument for or against masturbation, this is a private decision. All said is that it is not for others to judge the behavior of the rashab particularly because he was clearly in psychic trauma. if you are a doctor you should learn to word your thoughts differently even if you think them as you have written because otherwise you only confirm the prejudices many people here likely have about the work you do and make it more difficult for them to accept this about the rashab and incorporate it in a healthy manner (i.e. by recognizing sexual abuse as a problem in the community and working to end it). You, in other words, when speaking as an "authority" have a responsibility to couch your ideas in a way that bring and do not impede healing. if you cannot do so then dont pin your MD. on your posts and just share whatever judgemental feelings you wish as a shmoe like the rest of us

[Yosef ben Matitya]

Reb Chaim
.... you should be able to applaud the fact that (as an earlier poster said) he was a great enough man to face his trauma and not hide behind office...

well he faced it in the sense that he seeked proffessional help rather than relying in hasidic hocus pocus. we don't see him sending people to psychiatrists in his teachings.

.....I am not making an argument for or against masturbation, this is a private decision.....

really? it is not so in hasidic teachings!

....If you are a doctor you should learn to word your thoughts differently even if you think them as you have written because otherwise you only confirm....

not really, not when the other side doesn't reciprocate the honesty and courtesy.