RCA Statement Regarding Chabad Messianism

Well I guess that settles it until Channanya Weissman marries a Lubavitch girl.

בקיץ תשנ”ו כתב נשיא “הסתדרות הרבנים” בארה”ב מכתב מחוצף, ובו טען כי אמונתם של חסידי חב”ד שהרבי הוא מלך המשיח, מיוסדת רח”ל על מקורות זרים. המכתב עורר סערה בקרב יהדות ארה”ב, ורבים דרשו לדעת האם אכן עומדים רבני “הסתדרות הרבנים” מאחורי הדברים האלה. כאשר שמע על כך הרב סולובייצ’יק (שהיה מנהיגה הרוחני של הסתדרות זו), פרסם מכתב חריף, “גילוי דעת”, בז’ תמוז תשנ”ו בכל העיתונים היהודיים בארצות הברית ובו מבהיר בצורה שאינה משתמעת לשני פנים, כי האמונה שהרבי הוא מלך המשיח מבוססת על מקורות איתנים בגמרא ובספרי הפוסקים, כמו גם בספרי הקבלה ובדברי הרבי עצמו:

“להלן מענה לשאלות הרבות אודות עמדתי בהנוגע לליובאוויטש ואמונתם המשיחית.

לפני ג’ תמוז כללתי את עצמי בין אלה שהאמינו כי הרבי היה ראוי להיות המשיח. אני מאמין באופן מוחלט, כי לו היינו – במיוחד הקהילה האורטודוקסית – מאוחדים, היינו זוכים לגאולה השלמה.

בהנוגע לאמונה של רבים מאנשי ליובאוויטש (כולל רבנים מובהקים וראשי ישיבות) – אמונה המיוסדת בחלקה על התבטאויות דומות של הרבי בעצמו על מורישו הרבי הקודם – שהרבי עדיין יכול להיות המשיח, וזאת לאור הגמרא בסנהדרין, הזהר, אברבנאל, כתבי האריז”ל, שדי חמד ושאר מקורות, אי אפשר לבטלה כאמונה שהיא חוץ לזרם האורטודוקסי. כל ניסיון ציני להשתמש בחילוקי דיעות לגיטימיים בכל הנוגע לפירושים בעניין זה, להכפיש ולהזיק את תנועת ליובאוויטש, שהייתה וממשיכה להיות בחזית הקדמית של אלו הלוחמים במיסיונרים, בהתבוללות, ובאדישות של יהודים ליהדותם, – כל ניסיון כזה יכול רק לתרום לפילוג המצער שממנו סובל כבר המחנה היהודי בכלל והתורני בפרט. על המחנה התורני לגייס את כל כוחותיו, להתאחד ברוח האמיתית של אהבת ישראל, ולהילחם באויב האמיתי של עם ישראל. אני מוחה, וקורא להפסק מוחלט של כל תעמולה או פגיעה בשם הטוב של ליובאוויטש, או כל תנועה לגיטימית אחרת בתוך יהדות התורה”.

Has the RCA yet issued a statement regarding the heretical activities of their long-standing RCA member Avi Weiss?

Ujm, they probably think that they don’t want to distance OO and make them go conservative.

Problem is that they’re already there, and they’re even worse than conservatism until the early 2000s, because they accept toevos.

So why doesn’t this bother the RCA enough to expel them?

Same reason messianic and god/body avodah zara doesn’t bother “mainstream” chabad enough to expel those people.

edited

Hey, sechel83, Rabbi Soloveitchik was niftar in 1993, and could not have written the letter you’re referring to

Dear Ujm,

The RCA was not happy to keep him. The issue was that he wasn’t the only member who they wished they didn’t have to deal with. Just expelling him would have been declared as implicit approval of everyone else. It is pretty clear where the RCA draws the line on orthodoxy, and they have made enough statements on the issues without singling out names. You are reading into this what you want to be true. It is not the stance of the RCA.

I’m not in denial of the monetary and political influence the more extreme factions holds over the larger organizations. But that is universal. And it takes strong leadership to overcome it. It is not at all a yardstick to measure the personal views of it’s members.

Personally, I prefer the RCA’s approach. Agudah was no more than press release. It didn’t serve any purpose than white washing themselves. The Yated and Cross Currents did nothing constructive either. Stroking your own ego is not the same thing as taking a stand for the Torah.

Again, the letter quoted by https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/users/sechel83 is not authentic. Rabbi Soloveitchik was niftar in 1993.
מדבר שקר תרחק

Nom – what do you make of cherem? We expel such a person from our community. He doesn’t count for a Minyan. You can’t walk in his 4 Amos. He’s persona non grata.

Is this the most pressing issue facing the Jewish people in 2023?

Provaxx, the R. Soloveichik who signed the letter was R. Aharon, who was still very much alive in 1996. You’re thinking of R. Yoshe Ber.

Taken from Wikipedia on “The Rebbe, the Messiah and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference” (a book by David Berger)

In June 1996, The Jewish Press published a paid advertisement that included a letter with Rabbi Ahron Soloveichik’s signature. The letter included the assertion that R’ Soloveitchik believed R’ Schneerson to have been worthy of being Messiah, that the Chabad position that R’ Schneerson was the Messiah could not be dismissed as heretical, and cited a number of sources to demonstrate that he could be the Messiah. The letter also attacked Chabad’s critics, and praised Chabad’s works.[6]

Many messianists believe that R’ Soloveichik defended their position and bring him as a source to back up their arguments. Yet the letter caused confusion as this was a reversal of R’ Soloveichik’s previous position on the matter. In 1994, R’ Soloveichik had told The Forward that R’ Schneerson “can’t be the Messiah – he is not living – a Messiah has to be living. A living Messiah, not a dead Messiah.” He had also expressed shock at the idea that anyone could suggest that the Messiah could be from among the dead noting that “that could be possible in the Christian faith, but not Judaism” adding that this was “repugnant to everything Judaism represents.”[7]

Berger provides a letter from Soloveitchik to a friend in 2000, that resolves the contradiction between his two positions. R’ Soloveichik writes:

To my great dismay. . . publications affiliated with the Lubavitch movement have persisted in stating that I validate their belief that a Jewish Messiah may be resurrected from the dead. I completely reject and vigorously deny any such claim. As I have already stated publicly. . . such a belief is repugnant to Judaism and is the antithesis of the truth. My intent in signing the original letter . . . was merely to express my opinion that we should not label subscribers to these beliefs as heretics. Any statements in that letter which imply an endorsement of their view were not shown to me at the time I signed and I once again repudiate any such ridiculous claim.
[8] HaRebbi Melech HaMoshiach, David Berger, Urim Publications, 2005. p.75, note 7. (The book is an expanded edition and translation into Hebrew of: The Rebbe, The Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference)

edited to add titles

@Adam_Neira What are you trying to say? That you know who Moshiach is and he is being silenced?

Dear Ujm,

1) Huh? See what they did, and look how it played out.

2) The gun control stuff. See #1. I’m sorry that you drooled for nothing.

3) Agudah could have ignored it because it wasn’t on their doorstep. The press release does nothing to prevent it from coming to our doorstep. At least the OU made it clear that it can’t be accepted.

If the Agudah feels that they are gaurenteed to best Rabbi Weiss in a debate, they should have publicly done so. All the small time rabbi arguments do not hold up over time. By now YCT and OO are much stronger because of those public debates. If Agudah determined that there is no clear strategy to best them in open debate, than they should of have a meeting of their greatest minds to determine why exactly we are not Conservative Jews and were OO stands. And then professionally disseminated their results. תשועה ברוב יועץ

4) The media’s role is to support the masses were they are comfortable. All the anti OO media achieved, is that frum people who are committed to Torah display open hostility to OO. They did not make more comfortable in our yiddishkiet. And they definitely didn’t explain what we should think about these issues and the sources for them. This is a recipe for more of our descendants ending up on the other side of the battle lines, CH”V.

That was weird

N0m: if you were around 100 years ago, when the Conservative movement was starting to, slowly but surely, break off from the MO movement, would you have been saying then about the Conservative movement what you are saying now how we should deal with the OO movement?

Cherem removes the person from the community until he repents; svi weiss and his heretical ill should be ostracized by MO in the same way until they do teshuva.

To Yserbius123, to answer your two questions:

(1) Yes. (I have known since 2002).

(2) Sort of…

You’ve known since 2002? Really? You know that Aleph Shin is a novel, not real life, right?

Dear Avira,

How does that answer putting oneself in nidui?

And the individual is still obligated inn mitzvos the same as everyone else.

It’s clearly less of an expulsion than a mumar.

Back to my statement, Wayward Jews do not get expelled from Judaism.

Dear Ujm,

A hundred years ago, exactly when and where? It was done to some effect in Europe. Not often enough. In America it had no chance. Almost nobody cared. We are heading back toward All American Apathy.

RULES OF THE YWN COFFEEROOM (updated):

There shall be (at least) two threads about Lubavitch-Moshiach running at at every given moment.

If a day passes without this discussion, the CR will automatically be shut down forever.

Thanks for understanding. 

DaMoshe, in the United States the Conservative movement was an offshoot of the MO movement. As earlier mentioned, many of the same rabbis that founded the Orthodox Union (OU) also founded the Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary.

So-called Chareidim never existed as a term until the MO made their seperatist movement within Orthodoxy. After the MO came into existence, the traditional Orthodox who never left or changed got their moniker of Chareidim, a term coined by outsiders. Chareidim are simply what was originally called Orthodox, just like the Orthodox are simply what was called Judaism before the breakaway Reform movement came about. The name Orthodox was also imposed on us by the non-Orthodox.

Square and Moshe: Explain the fact that the OU and the JTS share the same founding fathers.

Conservative was a mixture of many elements. Observant maskilim, like saul lieberman, total kofrim, like Mordechai Kaplan, and a lot in-between, but the common denominator was a break from mesorah and an embrace of modernity, a need to revamp yiddishkeit to save it in America… Which is basically what most of MO wanted to do as well.

This is why rav aharon says that the two are not very different.

The only differences were how far they would go, how much they would sacrifice to “save” whatever Judaism was left in their world. MO sacrificed kedushah, letting its people swim and dance mixed and barely teaching tznius, and conservative allowed people to drive on Shabbos.

But conservative was worse than MO, because while MO only gave tacit approval for their sins, conservative openly declared that driving on Shabbos was allowed, and many, many other issurim.

Failing to give mussar may make one culpable, but it’s not the same level of heresy as publicly announcing that sins are allowed.

That’s aside from the issue of many in the conservative world stating disbelief in torah she baal peh, or chumash… But MO had a tolerance threshold for heretical beliefs as well.

Ilex: Explain the fact that the OU and the JTS share the same founding fathers.