Elliot R. Wolfson. Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menahem Mendel Schneerson. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009. xv + 452 pp. $35.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-231-14630-2.

Reviewed by Alon Dahan (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Published on H-Judaic (February, 2011)
Commissioned by Jason Kalman (Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion)

R. Menahem Mendel Schneerson’s Messianic Teaching

Review translated from Hebrew by Gershon Greenberg

For almost half a century Menahem Mendel Schneerson (1902-94) served as the venerable Admor (Our Master, Our Teacher, and Our Rebbe) of Habad. The very survival of Habad following pogroms in Russia, imprisonment of its leaders (notably, Rav Yosef Yitshak Schneerson, the previous rebbe), the Yevsektsia persecutors, and the Holocaust is considered miraculous. Rationally Habad’s survival and its transformation into a Jewish movement of tremendous influence (some say its most influential) is difficult to understand. The spread of Habad’s teaching and its influence on Jews and non-Jews deserves scholarly attention--something largely absent during Schneerson’s tenure in office. During the last decades this vacuum has begun to fill with fascinating research. 

Explaining the teaching of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, preserved mainly in Hebrew and Yiddish, and its influence requires probing the roots of Habad thought, its shaping by the last two leaders, and a deep understanding of the kabbalah (the basis of Hasidic thought). Elliot R. Wolfson’s Open Secret is undoubtedly among the most important and original works in this field. He has successfully mastered numerous sources and kabbalistic and Hasidic discourse; his presentation is orderly and crystallized. Within the present framework, an extensive discussion of Wolfson’s interpretation is impossible; therefore, I will discuss some essential topics and will offer a critique.

Wolfson’s book details the messianic teaching of Habad and shows it to be a detailed system resting on clear theological foundations. According to Lurianic Kabbalah, to create the world, God contracted himself within the secret place of the infinite. He thereby created an open void, into which he emanated the influx of his light. This staged contraction (Tsimtsum) enabled the construction of an opposing material creation, experienced as the reality that surrounds us. The messianic aim is to fill anew the open void with the divine influx (Shefa) which is found beyond nature, while preserving the boundaries of nature. This is intended to change the relationship between creator and creatures, insofar as it leads to the integration of the creator into creation. This idea is defined in Habad teaching by the expression “Dirah ba’tahtonim” (a dwelling for the divine below [p. 75]). All of halakhic practice is directed to this goal of extending the comprehensive light into the open void. Fullfilling mitsvot, building on the term “to join” (tsovet), is intended to join their provider (God) with the reality in which they are observed and with the person acting. The mitsvot clarify the lower reality and enable the awakening of the comprehensive light therein. Essentially, and distinct from Lurianic concepts, the messianic process ends with materializing the sublime spiritual dimension; not with spiritualizing lower material reality and gathering it into its sublime root. 

According to Wolfson, the redemption of the world (for Habad) depends principally on the nation of Israel. Habad thinking presumes that the Jew is essentially different from other nations, insofar as the Jew’s soul includes a higher divine grounding: “There is a qualitative difference between the soul of the Jew and the soul of all other ethnicities: The latter possesses an animal soul (nefesh ha-bahamit), which derives from the aspect of the shell, the demonic other side (sitra ahara) which is located in the left chamber of the heart, whereas the former is endowed with a divine soul (nefesh ha-elohit), the spark that emanates from the light of the infinite and is located in the brain as well as in the right chamber of the heart” (p. 45). This narrows the gap between creator and creature, particularly in regard to the Jewish nation. In practice, no other nation was capable of fulfilling this messianic mission--precisely because of the stated essential difference. The higher dimension of the soul, “Yehidah,” is the point where God joins his nation in the present. The divine disclosure is made possible by Israel’s worship, as the self-annulment and the disclosure of the infinite “Yehidah” in finite reality.

From the theological perspective, divinity discloses itself, according to Habad teaching, on two essential levels: “surrounding all the worlds” (which is beyond nature) and “filling all the worlds” (the contracted light in the garment of nature). Likewise, Torah discloses itself on two parallel and similar levels. In effect, what is discussed here is the source of the linguistic representation of higher existence. The hidden portion in Torah, conceals within it the light “surrounding all the worlds,” while the portion that is disclosed in Torah conceals within it the light “which fills all the worlds.” According to Wolfson, all of reality is but the product of its linguistic root, which is found in Torah.

To clarify his discussion, Wolfson adds that the Torah is the “linguistic body,” made up of twenty-two letters, sealed by the Shem ha’meforash (YHWH). One may deduce from this that according to this view language preceded reality and that the linguistic concepts in Torah, including all its possible phrases, constitute the root of material reality. The Torah is therefore defined as a “primordial parable,” which is rendered parabolic with material reality (p. 61). The intellectualized use of Torah knowledge is suitable to bringing change in material reality, and thereby to accelerating redemption. Habad changes the spread of the secrets of Torah to the first goal in degree, precisely because of its messianic significance. 

One of the most interesting subjects on which Wolfson elaborates is the status of the woman in the era of redemption. Based on the interpretation of the rebbe, future redemption is bound up in disclosing its divine roots of reality below. Moreover, redemption has a sort of axiomatic provision, repeated in the writings of all Habad Admorim. According to it, the higher something is the more the downward descent. The significance of this provision is that the highest root of the lower strata of reality is higher than the root of the sublime strata. Schneerson often uses the motive of the ascent of the Malkhut, which appears in the writing of Luria. The Sefirah of Malkhut, according to the order of evolution, is the tenth sphere that seals the order of evolution. With the realization of the redemption, the Sefirah of Malkhut is about to reveal its root above, which is more sublime than Keter, by negating its representation in reality. Namely, the dimension of the Yod-alef (eleven) stands as the mean that joins together, beyond the Sefirot. This opens the possibility to reverse the hierarchy that exists in the future to come. Malkhut is known as the root of the material world. Therefore, while in the present the soul nourishes the body with vitality in the future to come, Schneerson maintains that the body will nourish the soul. The material will ascend above the spiritual. Another significance relates, obviously, to the feminine elements in reality. Insofar as Malkhut is the feminine Sefirah, which identifies with the Shekhinah, it constitutes the root of all feminine existence in reality below. The ascent of Malkhut and the revelation of its root in the above is ready to reverse the hierarchy that exists today between male and female, something describable in the phrase “the female will encompass the male,” and also in the phrase “a woman of valor is the crown of the husband” (pp. 147-149). This explains why the messiah of Habad is thought of as the personal representation of the Sefirah of Malkhut. For the messiah is to be revealed in the future at the end, in that Malkhut is the last Sefirah; and complete redemption is to realize itself together with the messiah’s revealing himself in the future. This subject requires additional inquiry--to my regret, missing from Wolfson’s research--which touches on the representation of the Sefirot by the Admorim. According to the rebbe, there is an earlier tradition in Habad whereby each of the Admorim constitutes a representation of a Sefirah, beginning with the Baal Shem Tov, and ending with the last Admor--messiah.

As I stated above, Wolfson’s book is without a doubt one of the most profound and comprehensive books on the subject of Habad messianism. At the same time, there are a number of issues that remain problematic to me as a researcher in the field. The first item relates to the question of personality. Did the Rebbe of Lubavitch view himself as the messiah? Wolfson decided intentionally, and he does address this, to place the entire subject of personal messianism aside. The reason for so doing emerges from Wolfson’s reading, according to which the personal issue is but a rhetorical covering. There are indeed many discussions in the writings of the Rebbe of Lubavitch that hint to his self-conception as messiah. According to Wolfson, however, they do not reflect his profound conception, according to which redemption depends on the upheaval of the soul that can and needs to occur within every person. I do not deny that such a reading is possible. But in no way does this make the need for a specific messiah superfluous. The reading that Wolfson suggests in relation to the redemption and to the messiah is not found explicitly in any Habad text. According to Wolfson: “Simply put, the image of the personal Messiah may have been utilized rhetorically to liberate one from the belief in a personal Messiah” (p. 273). This reading of the texts constitutes an additional level of interpretation of the words of the Rebbe and has no explicit trace in his writings. Schneerson devoted much effort to describing every aspect of the personality of the expected messiah. His descriptions are to be understood within his general system, in integrated fashion. I am therefore not inclined to agree with Wolfson.

Similarly, Wolfson suggests seeing the authentic and complete redemption as a type of redemption other than every other concept of redemption, including this concept itself. And so Wolfson closes his book: “True liberation, on this score, would consist of being liberated from the need to be liberated” (p. 300). In turn, finding support for this reading in Schneerson’s writings is difficult. This interpretation is highly speculative but is repeated over and over again in the book: “To discover the secret that there is no secret is the ultimate secret that one can neither divulge without withholding, nor withhold without divulging” (p. 248).

This reading is also difficult to accept, in light of Wolfson’s excellent analysis throughout the rest of the book. Detailed descriptions of the radical ramifications of the cited mixture--eternal life, prophecy, annulling free will, etc.--are found throughout Schneerson’s writing. If Wolfson is correct, we should disconnect ourselves from the thousands of pages of texts, which describe a reality with a different aim.

In conclusion, I am of the opinion that Wolfson’s problematic conclusions are rooted in his attempt to find similarity between Habad thought and concepts drawn from foreign sources, especially from Buddhism. To be sure, Wolfson emphasizes that Habad thought develops without any such outside influences. But the similarity, according to Wolfson, justifies discussing these texts. It is possible that in certain instances he has pushed the interpretation far beyond the plain meaning.

Together with the criticism, I would emphasize that the book before us is a marvelous work. Every researcher or enlightened reader should be interested in this profound construction, in order to understand the most significant Jewish messianic phenomenon in the Jewish world of the last two generations. 

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Citation: Alon Dahan. Review of Wolfson, Elliot R., Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menahem Mendel Schneerson. H-Judaic, H-Net Reviews. February, 2011.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=29591

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