Menachem Mendel Schneerson
Menachem Mendel Schneerson (born April 18, 1902 in Nikolajew , Cherson Governorate , Russian Empire ; died June 12, 1994 in New York , United States of America ) was "the Rebbe" of the Chabad movement from 1950 until his death , a Hasidic group within Orthodox Judaism . Towards the end of his life, he was viewed by many Chabad as the Messiah . Even after his death and the previously missing resurrection, and despite the fact that he never accepted this from himself, some Jewish groups continue to believe that the Messiah appeared in him ( Messiah controversy ).
biography
Menachem Mendel Schneerson was the eldest son of the Kabbalist and Rabbi Levi Jizchak , who headed the community of Yekaterinoslav as rabbi from 1909 to 1937 , and the Rebbetzin Chana Schneerson. He grew up with two younger brothers. In 1923 he first met his second cousin, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, personally . In 1928 he married his daughter Chaya Moussia. He then moved to Berlin, where he began studying. Because of the National Socialist threat, he later moved to Paris. In 1940 the Wehrmacht occupied Paris. Schneerson fled to Vichy on one of the last trains. From there he went to Nice and in 1941 emigrated to New York. His sister and her husband were murdered in Treblinka concentration camp in 1942 . Already in Paris he supported his father-in-law in the administrative management of the Lubavitch movement. In 1951, a year after his father-in-law's death, he formally took over leadership of the movement.
Schneerson, who was ordained by Rabbi Josef Rosen , the “Rogachev Gaon ”, was an important representative of Hasidic Judaism and was the seventh and, for the time being, last spiritual head of the Lubavitch movement.
Aside from three visits to a children's holiday camp in the Catskill Mountains in the late 1950s, Schneerson never left New York City from 1951. Even the district Crown Heights in Brooklyn , he left little except for visits at the grave of his father-in Queens, New York. A year after his wife's death in 1988, when the traditional year of Jewish mourning came to an end, he moved to his study above the central Lubavitch synagogue on 770 Eastern Parkway.
In 1983, on the occasion of Schneerson's 80th birthday , the US Congress set his birthday as National Education Day (USA ) and awarded him the National Scroll of Honor .
Rabbi Schneerson received visitors several times a week during the night for private meetings ( Hebrew: Jechidut ). As the Chabad movement grew and the workload increased, Schneerson increasingly restricted these meetings. As of April 1986, they were completely abolished. Instead, Schneerson received thousands of people every Sunday, who individually received a US dollar bill from him, which was to be donated to charity (Hebrew Zedaka ). People often used this brief encounter to ask for advice or a blessing.
In 1992, Schneerson suffered a stroke while praying at his father-in-law's grave. As a result, he remained paralyzed on the right side of his body and could no longer speak. In June 1994, Schneerson died in a New York hospital.
For his life's work and for his "extraordinary and lasting contributions to worldwide education, morality and acts of kindness", Schneerson was posthumously awarded the highest civilian award of the US Congress, the Congressional Gold Medal .
On November 18, 2001 , a memorial plaque was unveiled at his former home, Berlin-Moabit , Hansa-Ufer 7 .
Work and activities
Rabbi Schneerson paid particular attention to the study of the Torah . He himself was a very prolific writer in this field; His Likkute Sichot alone comprises 49 volumes. Parts of his extensive correspondence have so far been published in 28 volumes under the title Igrot Kodesch ; his English-language correspondence under the title Letters from the Rebbe (4 vol.) and The Letter and the Spirit .
His explanations of the Torah, always recited in the 770 Eastern Parkway synagogue , have been published under the following titles:
- Maamarim Melukat (5 vol.)
- Likkute Sichot (39 vol.) - Explanations on the weekly sections of the Torah
- Sefer HaSichot (10 vol.) - Explanations on the weekly sections of the Torah
- Biurim le-Ferusch Raschi al ha-Tora (5 vol.) - Explanations on Raschi's commentary on the Pentateuch
- Haggadah Schel Pesach (2 vol.) - Explanations on the Haggadah and the Passover festival
- Hadranim Al ha-Shass (2 vol.) - Explanations on the Talmud
These works were all edited by R. Menachem M. Schneerson. The much more extensive edition of his unedited Torah interpretations under the title Torat Menachem - Hitwaadujot is in progress. There are currently 35 volumes (covering the years 1951–1962; as of April 2008) in a new edition, and 43 volumes (including the years 1982–1992) in an old edition.
Thousands of young Chabad rabbis and their wives were trained under Schneerson and sent as Schluchim (Hebrew ambassadors) to all parts of the world to support Jewish communities.
Schneerson initiated a total of ten mitzvah campaigns with which Jews were to be encouraged to observe the religious commandments (Hebrew mitzvot ) more intensely . Particular emphasis was placed on the laying of tefillin , the lighting of Shabbat candles by Jewish women and girls, the Torah study and kashrut , the Jewish dietary laws.
As a matter of principle, Schneerson made no decisions about halacha . Nevertheless, he spoke up in the following exceptional cases : regarding the ban on using a microphone in the synagogue on Shabbat and on Jewish holidays; in connection with Jewish-owned ships operated on Shabbat; his position that the Halacha forbid the abandonment of conquered areas for supposed peace; and his decades of efforts to align the law of return of the State of Israel to the Halacha.
literature
- Faitel Levin: Heaven on Earth. Reflections on the Theology of Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson , New York 2002, ISBN 0-8266-0488-9
- Simon Jacobson: The wisdom of Rabbi Schneerson , translated by Wulfing von Rohr , 366 S., Gütersloher Verlagshaus 2007, ISBN 978-3-579-06521-2
- Samuel Heilman, Menachem Friedman, The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson , Princeton 2010
- Joseph Telushkin: The Life and Teachings of Menachem M. Schneerson, the Most Influential Rabbi in Modern History , HarperWave 2014
Web links
swell
- ↑ Micha Brumlik: Commentary on Chabad Movement: Preservers of the Jewish Heritage . In: The daily newspaper: taz . May 30, 2018, ISSN 0931-9085 ( taz.de [accessed May 30, 2018]).
- ↑ The Rebbe: A Brief Biography , http://de.chabad.org , accessed December 31, 2017.
- ↑ chabad.org , [1]
- ↑ http://www.chabad.org/therebbe/timeline_cdo/aid/62157/jewish/1941-Flight-from-Europe.htm
- ^ Encyclopedia Judaica , Second Edition, Volume 18, page 149
- ^ Nissan Mindel (Ed.): The Letter and the Spirit. Letters by the Lubavitcher Rebbe , New York 1998, pp. XIII-XV.
- ↑ Public Law 103-457
- ↑ See Menachem M. Schneerson, Igrot Kodesch , Vol. 14, p. 46; Vol. 13, p. 285; Vol. 13, p. 321; Vol. 13, p. 335; Vol. 15, p. 217; Vol. 9, 137; Vol. 13, p. 316; Vol. 13, p. 365; Vol. 20, p. 124; Vol. 14, p. 57; reproduced together in Shimon Gadassi, Biur Hilchot Shabbat , Tel Aviv 2004, vol. 1, pp. 253-268
- ^ Nissan Mindel (Ed.): The Letter and the Spirit. Letters by the Lubavitcher Rebbe , New York 1998, pp. X-XI.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Schneerson, Menachem Mendel |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | The Rebbe |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Chief Rabbi of the Lubavitch |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 18, 1902 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Nikolayev , Kherson Governorate , Russian Empire |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 12, 1994 |
| Place of death | New York , United States of America |