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Open Secret in the Rearview Mirror
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 December 2011
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Much scholarly and popular attention has been centered on whether or not Menaḥem Mendel Schneerson, the seventh rebbe of the Ḥabad-Lubavitch dynasty, identified himself as the Messiah. While this interest is surely understandable, both doctrinally and anthropologically, in my judgment, it obscures the central question concerning the nature of the messianism he propagated. This line of inquiry might seem gratuitous for two reasons. First, his writings, discourses, and actions are replete with references to a personal Messiah, and since there is no evidence that he ever deviated from the strictures of rabbinic orthodoxy, there should be no reason to cast doubt on his explicit assertions. Second, a distinguishing feature of Ḥabad ideology, in consonance with the general drift of Ḥasidism, is the ostensible commitment to divulging mystical secrets, penimiyyut ha-torah, the spreading of the wellsprings outward (hafaṣat ma‘yanot ḥuṣah) to broadcast the mysteries that impart knowledge of divinity mandatory for proper worship. Prima facie, it would appear that Ḥabad breaks the code of esotericism upheld (in theory if not unfailingly in practice) by kabbalists through the centuries. This is surely the self-understanding sanctioned by the seventh rebbe, and it can be justifiably argued that he went to greater lengths than his predecessor and father-in-law, Yosef Yiṣḥaq Schneersohn—availing himself of the socioeconomic opportunities of the postwar American environment and making use of the instruments of technology—to accomplish the diffusion of the inwardness of the Torah.
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References
1. For a representative list of previous studies on the rebbe's messianism, see Wolfson, Elliot R., Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menaḥem Mendel Schneerson (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 303 nn. 8–10. Since the publication of my book, a number of studies on Schneerson have appeared. Here I will mention a few: Loewenthal, Naftali, “The Baal Shem Tov's Iggeret ha-Kodesh and Contemporary Habad ‘Outreach,’” in Let the Old Make Way for the New: Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Eastern European Jewry Presented to Immanuel Etkes, ed. Assaf, David and Rapoport-Albert, Ada, vol. 1: Hasidism and the Musar Movement (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, 2009), 69–101Google Scholar (English section); Heilman, Samuel and Friedman, Menachem, The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010)Google Scholar; Katz, Maya Balakirsky, The Visual Culture of Chabad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010)Google Scholar; Schwartz, Dov, Maḥashevet Ḥabad me-Re'shit we-ad Aḥarit (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2010)Google Scholar; Dein, Simon, Lubavitcher Messianism: What Really Happens When Prophecy Fails? (London: Continuum, 2011)Google Scholar.
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3. Wolfson, Open Secret, 64.
4. Ibid., 3–4, 9–10, 12, 35–37, 225–26, 285.
5. Mali, Joseph, Mythistory: The Making of a Modern Historiography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003)Google Scholar.
6. Ibid., 284–93.
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8. Schneerson, Menaḥem Mendel, Torat Menaḥem: Sefer ha-Ma'amarim Meluqaṭ (Brooklyn, NY: Vaad Hanochos BLahak, 2002), 2:100Google Scholar. See Wolfson, Open Secret, 150. As I note there, “the discernment that nature is divinity is based on preserving the identity of their nonidentity in the nonidentity of their identity.” This contrasts the Ḥabad view with Spinoza's celebrated Deus sive Natura, according to which divinity and nature are so completely identified that any sense of difference between them is obliterated.
9. Wolfson, Open Secret, 87–103.
10. Corbin, Henry, Creative Imagination in the Ṣūfism of Ibn ‘Arabī, trans. Manheim, Ralph (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969), 78Google Scholar.
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12. Wolfson, Elliot R., Luminal Darkness: Imaginal Gleanings from Zoharic Literature (Oxford: Oneworld, 2006), 80–83Google Scholar, 107 n. 40.
13. Zalman, Shneur of Liadi, Liqquṭei Amarim: Tanya (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 1984)Google Scholar, part 1, chap. 33, 42a. What is expressed here is the key cosmological doctrine of Ḥabad: The material universe is nullified in relation to the light of infinity (Wolfson, Open Secret, 66–129). Most significantly, this insight is marked by the paradoxical expression mammash derekh mashal, “verily by way of parable,” which conveys that mystical gnosis implicates one in discerning that the dematerialization of the world is literally true to the extent that it is figuratively so, since, obviously, the world continues to exist and is not actually abolished by the contemplative gesture of nullification. See also Zalman, Shneur of Liadi, Torah Or (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 2001)Google Scholar, 68c, 86a; Schneersohn, Menaḥem Mendel, Derekh Miṣwotekha (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 1993)Google Scholar, 124b, cited and discussed in Wolfson, Elliot R., Alef, Mem, Tau: Kabbalistic Musings on Time, Truth, and Death (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 230–31 n. 285CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Although the locution mammash derekh mashal encapsulates my orientation in Open Secret, I did not refer overtly to it in that work. I was reminded of it during a reading course on the Tanya with my student Joshua Schwartz in the spring semester of 2011.
14. Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Liqquṭei Amarim: Tanya, part 1, chap. 2, 6a.
15. Schneerson, Menaḥem Mendel, Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5742 (Brooklyn, NY: Lahak Hanochos, 1990), 4:1785Google Scholar.
16. Schneerson, Menaḥem Mendel, Sefer ha-Siḥot 5751 (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 2003), 2:562Google Scholar.
17. Wolfson, Open Secret, 123–24. See Wolfson, Elliot R., A Dream Interpreted within a Dream: Oneiropoiesis and the Prism of Imagination (New York: Zone Books, 2011), 210Google Scholar.
18. Schneerson, Menaḥem Mendel, Iggerot Qodesh (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 1997), no. 959, 4:173–74Google Scholar. On the admixture of truth and deception in the dream according to Ḥabad, see Wolfson, A Dream Interpreted within a Dream, 203–217.
19. For fuller discussion and citation of some of the relevant sources, see Wolfson, Open Secret, 58–65.
20. Wolfson, Open Secret, 26–27, 52, 93, 103–114, 128–29, 132, 215, 218.
21. Schneerson, Menaḥem Mendel, Torat Menaḥem: Sefer ha-Ma’amarim Meluqaṭ (Brooklyn, NY: Vaad Hanochos BLahak, 2002), 3:333Google Scholar. See ibid., 114; Schneerson, Qunṭres Inyanah shel Torat ha-Ḥasidut, 23. The locus classicus for the depiction of the messianic future as a disclosure of the divine light without any garment, linked exegetically to Isaiah 30:20, 52:8, and 60:19–20, is Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Liqquṭei Amarim: Tanya, part 1, chap. 36, 46a. Concerning this theme and the citation of other relevant sources, see Wolfson, Open Secret, 25–26, 115, 116–18, 122, 129, 175, 176, 178, 196, 274.
22. Schneerson, Menaḥem Mendel, Liqquṭei Siḥot (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 1999), 39:383Google Scholar.
23. Wolfson, Open Secret, 75, 213, 319 n. 53. On the link between creating a habitation (dirah) for the divine in the physical world and the notion of the essential expansiveness (merḥav ha-aṣmi) of the infinite (see below note 44), see Schneerson, Menaḥem Mendel, Liqquṭei Siḥot (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 1999), 2:452Google Scholar.
24. Schneerson, Menaḥem Mendel, Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5717 (Brooklyn, NY: Vaad Hanochos BLahak, 2001), 1:113Google Scholar.
25. Wolfson, Open Secret, 130–60.
26. Ibid., 113, 122, 127, 212.
27. Lawrence Grossman, “The End of Days? What the Rebbe Had in Mind,” Jewish Daily Forward, January 15, 2010, www.forward.com/articles/122763/; Adam Kirsch, “American Messiah,” Tablet: A New Read on Jewish Life, July 20, 2010, www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/39279/american-messiah/; Abraham Socher, “The Chabad Paradox,” Jewish Review of Books, Fall 2010, www.jewishreviewofbooks.com/publications/detail/the-chabad-paradox; Alon Dahan, “Review of Elliot R. Wolfson, Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menaḥem Mendel Schneerson,” H-Judaic, February 2011, www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=29591.
28. I have repeated some of my argument in Wolfson, Elliot R., Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and the Poetic Imagination (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), 115Google Scholar.
29. Heidegger, Martin, What Is Called Thinking?, trans. Wieck, Fred W. and Gray, J. Glenn, introduction J. Glenn Gray (New York: Harper & Row, 1968)Google Scholar, 76. Many scholars have discussed Heidegger's notion of the unthought, but here I will cite a succinct summary given by Maly, Kenneth, “Man and Disclosure,” in Heraclitean Fragments: A Companion Volume to the Heidegger/Fink Seminar on Heraclitus, ed. Sallis, John and Maly, Kenneth (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1980), 48:Google Scholar “Thinking's task is to gather thought, to bring it together, in such a way that the unthought emerges as issue. But the disclosure of the unthought to thinking does not unfold for thinking in order to be transcended or abolished, to be taken up into thought. Rather, when heeded, the unthought as issue manifests its own refusal to yield itself up to thought; and thus it shows its essential character as insisting on continual astonishment. It is the interplay between this withholding and manifesting of the unthought that is the issue for thinking. It is the issue of disclosure and hiddenness: ἀ-λήθεια.”
30. This is the intent of the tautological statement made by Heidegger, What Is Called Thinking?, 76: “What is un-thought is there in each case only as the un-thought.”
31. A conflation of several different rabbinic sources, including Palestinian Talmud, Pe'ah 2:4, Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 19b, Leviticus Rabbah 22:1, and Exodus Rabbah 47:1. The citation appears frequently in the seventh rebbe's corpus.
32. Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 6b.
33. Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 97a.
34. Schneerson, Torat Menaḥem: Sefer ha-Ma'amarim Meluqaṭ, 3:332–33. On the relation of yegi‘ah and meṣi’ah, see ibid., 247. This theme is repeated many times in the rebbe's letters and homilies. For example, compare Schneerson, Menaḥem Mendel, Liqquṭei Siḥot (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 1999), 37:128Google Scholar. And see especially Schneerson, Torat Menaḥem: Sefer ha-Ma'amarim Meluqaṭ, 1:371. Consequent to making the point that through real effort (yegi‘ah) one can come to spontaneous discovery (meṣi’ah)—an idea supported by the language attributed to R. Isaac that one should only believe a person who says “I have labored and found,” yaga‘ti u-maṣa’ti (Babylonia Talmud, Megillah 6b)—culminating in the “essential discovery” alluded to in the verse “I have found David, my servant, anointed him with my sacred oil” (Psalms 89:21), which relates to the Messiah who comes unawares, Schneerson reports in the name of his father-in-law that the need to compel the coming of the Messiah and to communicate vigorously about it orally and in writing do not contradict this tradition; on the contrary, the true hessaḥ ha-da‘at consists of these efforts to bring the Messiah, for the Messiah cannot be brought except when one attains a metacognitive state of consciousness that is connected to yeḥidah. On the coming of the Messiah as a consequence of the innovations of Beshtian Ḥasidism, especially as refracted through Ḥabad, and the disclosure of the mysteries of the Torah, which are linked pneumatically to the aspect of yeḥidah, see Schneerson, Qunṭres Inyanah shel Torat ha-Ḥasidut, 6–7. See ibid., 11, where ḥasidic teaching is identified as the yeḥidah of the Torah, the dimension of the soul that “is unified perpetually in his essence, blessed be he.” And ibid., 17, where Schneerson writes that the “discernment of the essence of the light of infinity is possible only from the perspective of this aspect of the soul, which is unified in his essence, blessed be he.”
35. Schneerson, Menaḥem Mendel, Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5714 (Brooklyn, NY: Lahak Hanochos, 1998), 1:171Google Scholar.
36. Based on previous Ḥabad sources (see Open Secret, 119–21,140, 293, 330 n. 36), Schneerson emphasizes that the study of the inwardness of the Torah is ocular in nature as opposed to auditory; the seeing of the secrets of the Torah facilitates the seeing of divinity, based on the long-standing kabbalistic axiom that the Torah and God are one. See Schneerson, Menaḥem Mendel, Liqquṭei Siḥot (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 1999), 26:389Google Scholar.
37. Wolfson, Open Secret, 64, 171–72, 190–93, 247–48, 275, 316 n. 21, 326 n. 177, 364 n. 48, 370–71 n. 144.
38. See note 33.
39. Schneerson, Menaḥem Mendel, Reshimot (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 2003), sec. 9, 1:257Google Scholar. The passage is copied from a letter of the sixth rebbe written on 20 Av 5685 (August 10, 1925). See Schneersohn, Yosef Yiṣḥaq, Iggerot Qodesh (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 2001), no. 274, 1:485Google Scholar. On the nature of the Messiah and self-sacrifice, particularly related to the name ben david (based on an interpretation of a dictum in Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 98a), see Schneerson, Reshimot, sec. 11, 1:321–22.
40. Ibid., sec. 7, 1:190; idem, Reshimot (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 2003), sec. 154, 4:454Google Scholar.
41. Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Liqquṭei Amarim: Tanya, part 4, sec. 4, 105a–b. See Wolfson, Open Secret, 51.
42. Sefer Yeṣirah (Jerusalem: Yeshivat Kol Yehuda, 1990), 1:5Google Scholar.
43. The language is obviously based on Psalms 118:5. Compare Schneerson, Menaḥem Mendel, Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5718 (Brooklyn, NY: Vaad Hanochos BLahak, 2002), 1:3Google Scholar; idem, Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5719 (Brooklyn, NY: Vaad Hanochos BLahak, 2003), 3:208–210Google Scholar. From the standpoint of mystical enlightenment, the binary opposition is undermined, insofar as the infinite expanse is consolidated in an infinitesimal point that is above length, width, height, and depth, and thus the “essential expansiveness” is identified as the “supreme constriction,” or the letter yod, which stands metonymically for the name YHWH. See Schneerson, Menaḥem Mendel, Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5718 (Brooklyn, NY: Vaad Hanochos BLahak, 2002), 3:272Google Scholar; idem, Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5719, 3:152, 155. On the nexus between the point (nequddah) and the essential expansiveness (merḥav aṣmi), see Schneersohn, Yosef Yiṣḥaq, Iggerot Qodesh (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 1987), no. 3289, 9:485Google Scholar; Schneerson, Menaḥem Mendel, Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5719 (Brooklyn, NY: Vaad Hanochos BLahak, 2002), 1:111Google Scholar, and the extended discussion in idem, Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5719, 3:207–209.
44. To the best of my knowledge, this phrase (sometimes transcribed as ha-merḥav ha-aṣmi) is based on expressions that first appear in the fifth rebbe, Shalom Dovber Schneersohn, merḥav ha-aṣmi de-ein sof (Be-Sha‘ah she-Hiqdimu 5672 [Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 1991], 231 and 450) and merḥav ha-aṣmi de-aṣmut ein sof (ibid., 1306). See also Schneersohn, Yosef Yiṣḥaq, Sefer ha-Siḥot 5706–5710 (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 2001)Google Scholar, 381; idem, Iggerot Qodesh (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 2005), no. 513, 2:302Google Scholar; idem, Iggerot ha-Qodesh (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 2005), no. 959, 4:175Google Scholar. See above, note 23. And compare Menaḥem Mendel Schneerson, Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5717, 1:204, 208; idem, Torat Menaḥem: Sefer ha-Ma’amarim Meluqaṭ (Brooklyn, NY: Vaad Hanochos BLahak, 2002), 1:327Google Scholar; idem, Iggerot Qodesh, no. 1175, 4:453; idem, Liqquṭei Siḥot (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 1999), 4:1035Google Scholar.
45. The theme occurs frequently in Schneerson’s teachings and writings. Here I mention a modest sampling of the relevant sources: Liqquṭei Siḥot (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 1999), 18:122Google Scholar; Iggerot Qodesh (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 1997), no. 4111, 12:290Google Scholar, no. 4127, 12:307; Iggeret Qodesh (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 1997), no. 6451, 17:303Google Scholar; Iggeret Qodesh (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 1997), no. 8816, 23:175–76Google Scholar; Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5712 (Brooklyn, NY: Lahak Hanochos, 1995), 1:271Google Scholar; Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5714 (Brooklyn, NY: Vaad Hanochos BLahak, 1998), 2:210Google Scholar; Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5719, 1:15, 256; Torat Menaḥem: Sefer ha-Ma’amarim Meluqaṭ, 1:212, 368. The locution be-sha‘ta ḥada u-ve-rig‘a ḥada is derived from Zohar 1:129a. I have rendered the term sha‘ta (Hebrew sha‘ah) as “moment” instead of the more conventional translation “hour,” because the context suggests that the temporal interim designated by this term is a short while, which seems to be the meaning of sha‘ah ḥadah in Daniel 4:16. In the Ḥabad lexicon, the expression be-sha‘ta ḥada u-ve-rig‘a ḥada is applied especially to repentance (teshuvah), which is a turning from one opposite to another that occurs instantaneously. See, for example, Schneersohn, Shmuel, Liqquṭei Torah: Torat Shmu’el 5639 (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 2004), 1:33Google Scholar; Schneersohn, Yosef Yiṣḥaq, Sefer ha-Siḥot 5680–5687 (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 2004), 74Google Scholar; Schneerson, Menaḥem Mendel, Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5711 (Brooklyn, NY: Vaad Hanochos BLahak, 1994), 1:183Google Scholar; idem, Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5711 (Brooklyn, NY: Lahak Hanochos, 1995), 2:310Google Scholar, 321; idem, Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5712 (Brooklyn, NY: Lahak Hanochos, 1997), 3:180Google Scholar; idem, Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5714, 2:247; idem, Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5716 (Brooklyn, NY: Vaad Hanochos BLahak, 2000), 1:17Google Scholar.
46. Schneerson, Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5719, 1:256.
47. Schneerson, Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5712, 3:178. And compare Schneerson, Menaḥem Mendel, Torat Menaḥem: Sefer ha-Ma’amarim Meluqaṭ (Brooklyn, NY: Vaad Hanochos BLahak, 2002), 4:55Google Scholar: “The worship through repentance is in one moment and in one second, above the measurement of time, which is not the case for the ordinary worship, which is measurable by the duration and surface of time.” See ibid., 280. It is also of interest to consider the explanation in Schneerson, Liqquṭei Siḥot, 39:347, of the expression mi-yad in the statement of Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Teshuvah 7:5, “In the end Israel will repent in the termination of their exile, and immediately they will be redeemed [mi-yad hen nig'alin],” as an acrostic for Moses, Israel (that is, Israel ben Eliezer, the Beshṭ), and David, three figures related to the messianic drama. The temporal connotation of the word mi-yad is symbolic of the culmination of the redemptive process that begins with Moses and ends with David, who is identified as the king Messiah, but it also signifies that salvation will come in the “one and single moment” (eyn un eyntsiker rege), the “one and single point” (eyn un eyntsike nekude). For a similar decoding of the word mi-yad as a reference to Moses, Israel ben Eliezer, and David, see Schneerson, Sefer ha-Siḥot 5751, 2:562, and additional reference cited in Wolfson, Open Secret, 312 n. 108.
48. Schneerson, Menaḥem Mendel, Liqquṭei Siḥot (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 1999), 32:190Google Scholar. On the expression naḥalah beli meṣarim, see Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 51a, Shabbat 118a. The talmudic idiom appears frequently in Ḥabad literature.
49. There are too many references to skipping in the Ḥabad sources to list here and perhaps I will dedicate a separate study to this fascinating motif, which I think can be profitably compared to the Heideggerian notion of the leap. What is important to bear in mind in this context is that the skipping denotes the mode of worship of repentance, which involves jumping rapidly from one thing to its opposite, from darkness to light, bitterness to sweetness, wickedness to righteousness, a gesture of overcoming binary opposition that is associated with Passover and the future redemption. For example, see Schneerson, Menaḥem Mendel, Iggerot Qodesh (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 1997), no. 6794, 18:301Google Scholar; idem, Liqquṭei Siḥot, 39:86; idem, Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5711, 2:12; idem, Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5712, 3:33; idem, Torat Menaḥem: Sefer ha-Ma’amarim Meluqaṭ, 1:84, 220.
50. Schneerson, Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5712, 3:35–36.
51. Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 17a.
52. Schneerson, Menaḥem Mendel, Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5716 (Brooklyn, NY: Vaad Hanochos BLahak, 2000), 2:75–76Google Scholar.
53. Ibid., 81.
54. Schneerson, Menaḥem Mendel, Liqquṭei Siḥot (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 1999), 38:89, 101Google Scholar. Compare Schneersohn, Shalom Dovber, Yom Ṭov shel Ro’sh ha-Shanah 5666 (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 2010), 26Google Scholar, where the revelation of the “aspect of the essence” (beḥinat ha-aṣmut) in the messianic future—linked exegetically to Isaiah 52:13—is depicted as a form of comprehension (hassagah).
55. Schneerson, Menaḥem Mendel, Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5713 (Brooklyn, NY: Lahak Hanochos, 1998), 3:109Google Scholar.
56. Schneerson, Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5714, 1:74.
57. Schneerson, Torat Menaḥem: Sefer ha-Ma’amarim Meluqaṭ, 1:209.
58. Schneerson, Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5719, 3:188; idem, Liqquṭei Siḥot (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 1999), 30:189Google Scholar. See Wolfson, Open Secret, 134.
59. Wolfson, Open Secret, 161–99.
60. See above, note 41.
61. Schneerson, Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5719, 1:246. Compare idem, Liqquṭei Siḥot, 38:101. After citing the passage about the Messiah from section four of Iggeret ha-Qodesh, Schneerson comments that the “perfection of the disclosure of the dominion of the messianic king in all of the world (the collective redemption)” comes about through the “worship of a person (the individual redemption), for there is a spark of the Messiah in each and every one (the inner point of the heart).”
62. Wolfson, Open Secret, 48, 321 n. 90, 337 n. 122. On the depiction of the coming of the individual Messiah as the “enlightenment of the brain illuminating the inwardness of the heart [haskalat ha-moaḥ me’ir bi-fenimiyyut ba-lev],” see Schneerson, Menaḥem Mendel, Reshimot (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 2003), sec. 57, 3:120Google Scholar.
63. Schneerson, Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5712, 1:111–12. The text is cited in Open Secret, 51, but my translation has been slightly modified.
64. On the association of the soul of the Messiah and yeḥidah, which is correlated with Arikh Anpin, see Viṭal, Ḥayyim, Sefer ha-Gilgulim (Przemyśl, 1875)Google Scholar, chap. 60, 82b; Liqquṭei Torah (Jerusalem: Yeshivat Qol Yehudah, 1995)Google Scholar, 33 (ad Genesis 5:24); Liqquṭei ha-Shas me-ha-Ari z”l, ed. (with preface and notes) Betsalel Senior (Jerusalem, 2010), 66; Schneersohn, Shmuel, Liqquṭei Torah: Torat Shmu'el 5642 (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 2011)Google Scholar, 15, and other references cited there in n. 66. An important source for the Ḥabad formulation seems to have been the commentary of Moses Zacuto to Zohar 3:260b, cited in Buzaglo, Shalom, Miqdash Melekh (Benei-Beraq: Beit ha-Sofer, 1974)Google Scholar, part 3, 190b. For a more recent edition of this text, see Zacuto, Moses, Perush ha-ReMeZ la-Zohar ha-Qadosh: Sefer Devarim (Jerusalem, 2005), 9–10Google Scholar.
65. Schneerson, Liqquṭei Siḥot, 39:347. In that context, the Messiah is not only identified with the yeḥidah ha-kelalit, but is said to be one with the infinite essence (dos iz eyn zakh mit atsmus ein sof). Compare Schneersohn, Derekh Miṣwotekha, 111a, where it is said with respect to the Messiah, “you endowed him with the infinite in itself [ha-ein sof be-aṣmo], and from that perspective he will be the king over Israel.”
66. Schneersohn, Yom Ṭov shel Ro’sh ha-Shanah 5666, 506.
67. For references, see Wolfson, Open Secret, 332–33 n. 61.
68. Ibid., 8, 49–50, 70, 73–74, 129, 162, 183–84, 232, 275, 307 n. 44, 367 n. 96.
69. Ibid., 162. For a slightly different formulation, see ibid., 184 and 186. The expression le‘ummat zeh is an abbreviation of the phrase zeh le‘ummat zeh (Ecclesiastes 7:14), which marks the state of duality and binary opposition.
70. Schneerson, Torat Menaḥem: Sefer ha-Ma’amarim Meluqaṭ, 2:64; cited in Wolfson, Open Secret, 184. Compare Schneerson, Torat Menaḥem: Sefer ha-Ma'amarim Meluqaṭ, 2:2, 41, 189; idem, Torat Menaḥem: Sefer ha-Ma'amarim Meluqaṭ, 4:212.
71. Wolfson, Open Secret, 55–56, 75, 94, 96, 103, 117, 162, 183, 219. See Schneerson, Menaḥem Mendel, Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5725 (Brooklyn, NY: Lahak Hanochos, 2009), 2:179Google Scholar.
72. Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 7b.
73. Wolfson, Open Secret, 40, 56–58, 147–48, 167–68, 249, 289–90.
74. Ibid., 189–99, 275, 370–71 n. 144.
75. Ibid., 122.
76. Schneersohn, Yosef Yiṣḥaq, Sefer ha-Ma'amarim 5692–5693 (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 2004), 457Google Scholar. In the Ḥabad sources, the expression efes muḥlaṭ (or efes ha-muḥlaṭ) is paired with the word ayin in explicating the traditional notion of creatio ex nihilo. When interpreted mystically, this doctrine indicates that all things emanate from the essence of the infinite, which is the absolute naught. See Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Liqquṭei Amarim: Tanya, part 4, sec. 20, 130b. The passage is cited frequently by the other Ḥabad-Lubavitch masters, especially by the sixth and the seventh.
77. Wolfson, Open Secret, 23 and 126.
78. Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Torah Or, 114c.
79. The positivity that is enfolded in the utter negativity—the self-negating negativity—is well captured by Schneerson, Torat Menaḥem: Sefer ha-Ma'amarim Meluqaṭ, 3:331: “It is known that the nullification in the world, which is from the perspective of the disclosure of the light with respect to the world, is only the nullification of something [biṭṭul ha-yesh] . . . but the truth of the matter of nullification, the obliteration of existence [biṭṭul bi-meṣi'ut], is particularly from the perspective of the light that is above any relation to the worlds. And since the intention of the creation is that created beings will be nullified vis-à-vis divinity in the absolute nullification [beṭelim le'lohut be-takhlit ha-biṭṭul], the obliteration of existence, for by means of this, in particular, the habitation for him [dirah lo] is made, thus there was initially the light that is above any relation to the worlds, and from it, in particular, there emanated the light with respect to the worlds.” See also Schneerson, Qunṭres Inyanah shel Torat ha-Ḥasidut, 14–15, 17–18.
80. Midrash Shir ha-Shirim Rabbah, ed. Dunaski, Shimshon (Jerusalem: Dvir, 1980), 2:22, 68Google Scholar.
81. Schneersohn, Yosef Yiṣḥaq, Sefer ha-Siḥot 5696-Ḥoref 5700 (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 1989), 316Google Scholar; idem, Arba‘ah Qol ha-Qore me-ha-Admor Sheliṭa mi-Lubavitch (Jerusalem: Salomon, 1942–1943)Google Scholar, 6 (Hebrew text, 31), also printed in idem, Iggerot Qodesh (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 1987), no. 1447, 5:367Google Scholar. See Wolfson, Open Secret, 124–25, 287, 315 n. 11.
82. Schneerson, Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5711, 1:155. This passage and the one referred to in the following note are cited in Wolfson, Open Secret, 92, and see ibid., 222.
83. Schneerson, Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5711, 1:202. According to the Yiddish recording of the discourse (www.chabad.org/therebbe/article_cdo/aid/550378/jewish/10-Shevat-5711-Maamar.htm), the critical comment is elohus un olam in die zelbe zakh, “divinity and the world are one and the same thing.” I would like to take this opportunity to correct my rendering of part of this passage in Open Secret, 92, which was based on the Hebrew transcription. The sentence “It is not el ha-olam, that is, the divinity as an entity unto itself and the world as an entity unto itself, but rather the divinity rules over and governs the world, for the world and divinity are entirely one” should be amended to “It is not el ha-olam, that is, the divinity as an entity unto itself and the world as an entity unto itself, such that the divinity would rule over and govern the world, but rather the world and divinity are one and the same thing.” While the meaning of the text was not affected dramatically by my error in translation, the version offered here is more accurate. I thank Eliyahu Mishulovin for drawing this matter to my attention.
84. Schneerson, Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5714, 2:160.
85. Based on the eschatological teaching attributed to R. Eleazar in the Babylonian Talmud, Ta‘anit 31a: “In the future the blessed holy One will arrange a chorus for the righteous and he will sit in their midst in the Garden of Eden, and every one will point with his finger, as it is said ‘In that day they shall say: This is our God, we trusted in him, and he delivered us. This is the Lord, in whom we trusted; let us rejoice and exult in his deliverance’ (Isaiah 25:9).”
86. Schneerson, Menaḥem Mendel, Torat Menaḥem: Hitwwa‘aduyyot 5752 (Brooklyn, NY: Vaad Hanochos BLahak, 2003), 1:241–42Google Scholar. I have slightly corrected my earlier rendering of this passage in Open Secret, 285–86.
87. Wolfson, Open Secret, 286. It is of interest to consider the following exchange between Jesus and his disciples according to the Gospel of Thomas, logion 51, “His disciples said to him, ‘When will the dead rest, and when will the new world come?’ He said to them, ‘What you look for has come, but you have not perceived it’” (DeConick, April D., The Original Gospel of Thomas in Translation with a Commentary and New English Translation of the Complete Gospel [London: T & T Clark, 2006], 182)Google Scholar. See ibid., logion 113: “His disciples said to him, ‘When will the Kingdom come?’ ‘It will not come by waiting. It will not be said, “Look! Here it is!” or “Look! There it is!” Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is spread out over the earth, but people do not see it’” (295). I am grateful to Samuel Zinner for reminding me of these passages.