{"id":3502,"date":"2011-07-05T23:04:58","date_gmt":"2011-07-06T06:04:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/216.92.17.21\/?p=3502"},"modified":"2011-07-05T23:26:35","modified_gmt":"2011-07-06T06:26:35","slug":"yahrtzeit-moshiach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/?p=3502","title":{"rendered":"yahrtzeit for the moshiach"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Rabbi<\/a>
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So. \u00a0The moshiach died on this day. \u00a0He actually died on June 12, 1994 \u2014 but that’s the wrong calendar. \u00a0On the Jewish calendar, it was 3 Tammuz, 5754. Which this year works out to July 5th \u2014 today. \u00a0I got an invite from Chabad of the East Bay to come to their Farbrengen and BBQ in memory of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, R’ Menachem Mendel Schneerson \u2014 who transformed Chabad from a small Brooklyn Lubovitcher outpost to a worldwide messianic outreach movement that is vibrant, active, and growing by leaps and bounds. \u00a0I’ve seen different estimates for the number of Chabad houses \u2014 from 1300 to 3500, in 65 or 70 countries around the world. \u00a0Whatever the number, it’s big, this Chabad.<\/p>\n

Rabbi Schneerson was born on 11 Nissan (April 12th) 1902 in southern Ukraine. \u00a0His (“brilliant”) studies in mathematics and the sciences at the University of Berlin were interrupted by the rise of the Nazis. He transferred to the Sorbonne in Paris, but escaped German occupied France in 1941. He settled in Crown Heights, Brooklyn \u2014 the domain of his father-in-law, R’ Yosef Yitzhak Schneerson \u2014 and then, he pretty much stayed put. From Crown Heights, he transformed Judaism.<\/p>\n

The growth of the Chabad movement has been such that numerous indigenous and longstanding Jewish communities, from North Africa to South America have ended up with little or none of their original forms of ritual practice and prayer. \u00a0Instead, what they’ve got is Chabad. And sometimes Chabad is just all the Judaism left in a community at all.<\/p>\n

Despite my ambivalence about the Chabad takeover of ancient localized Judaisms, I still thought to say a kaddish on the yahrtzeit of R’ Menachem Mendel Schneerson’s death \u2014 even if I’m not exactly comfortable going to a Farbrengen \/ BBQ at the Berkeley Chabad house. \u00a0And I thought, too, that my Sephardi accent and pronunciation just wouldn’t quite be right. \u00a0So I looked on the Chabad website, and lo and behold, I found the Interactive Kaddish Trainer<\/a>, which claims to be able to teach you to “say kaddish like a pro.” \u00a0Wow.<\/p>\n

I tried.<\/p>\n

I shouldn’t have tried.<\/p>\n

Of course, according to Chabad, I shouldn’t be saying kaddish at all. \u00a0And certainly, neither should Erin. \u00a0In fact, WTF is she doing, doing this project at all? \u00a0And how on earth did she send me of all people on this kaddish road, anyway? \u00a0But I guess we’ll have to answer those questions some other time. \u00a0For now, let me say that according to Chabad, a) women should not recite kaddish, b) shikses for sure shouldn’t be saying kaddish, and c) you need a minyan to say kaddish. \u00a0That would be a real<\/em> minyan. A minyan of men<\/em>. Chabadniks, \u00a0would be the preference, of course.<\/p>\n

But I’m stubborn, I guess. \u00a0And I’ve seen films of the rebbe in action, and watched the joy he could put on people’s (okay, men’s<\/em>) faces (there were no women in the films that I’ve watched). \u00a0The rebbe apparently claimed that “just one good deed could usher in the era of the moshiach” \u2014 the messianic era. \u00a0Maybe my saying kaddish for the rebbe could do it?<\/p>\n

No? You don’t think so? Well, I can try.<\/p>\n

The rebbe thought that the downfall of the Soviet Union, and the invasion of Iraq were signs of the coming of the moshiach. Somehow, some of his followers decided that what he meant was that he himself was that moshiach. \u00a0The real live messiah himself. \u00a0As you might imagine, there’s a bit of debate over this issue. \u00a0Part of the debate focuses on whether the rebbe himself actively accepted the role and appellation of messiah, or whether it was merely attributed to him by zealous followers. There’s good evidence for the former point of view.<\/p>\n

Either way, I think a kaddish here at kaddish in two-part harmony<\/a> (even in this outpost of gynocentrism) is in order.<\/p>\n

So. I set out to “learn to say kaddish like a pro” and booted up my Interactive Kaddish Learner.<\/p>\n

Given the proscriptions against me to begin with, I think I did a somewhat decent job of it. \u00a0No disrespect intended. \u00a0The rebbe himself would approve of someone (okay, a man, a Jewish man) trying to say this kaddish for him. \u00a0After all, he received a U.S. Congressional Gold Medal for his “benevolence, ethics, leadership, and scholarship…” So. That’s what outreach is all about. I get to say kaddish. For him, no less. \u00a0And I think he’d be okay with my laughter, as I was close to tears at how hard it was to get those Ashkenazi twisted vowels to come out of my Sephardi mouth. Rabbi Schneerson could move energy like nobody’s business. \u00a0 He’d have the shabbos crowds singing at those farbrengen events. \u00a0Joyous occasions \u2014 that’s what he was after. \u00a0And there’s Berkeley Chabad having a farbrengen on the anniversary of his death. I’m happy to attempt an Ashkenazi kaddish for him.<\/p>\n

So. I think a joyous attempt at a Chabadnik kaddish, and my own laughter at all my own mistakes, is exactly what the rebbe was after. \u00a0A little laughter is a powerful thing.<\/p>\n

I’m even likely to maybe try it again.<\/p>\n

For more on the Lubovitcher Rebbe, take a look at [amazon_link id=”0691138885″ target=”_blank” ]The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson[\/amazon_link], by Samuel Heilman and Menachem Friedman, published by Princeton University Press. \u00a0The rebbe’s blurring of the boundaries between this world and the world to come is very much worth the read. \u00a0And you don’t need a minyan to pick up and read a book. \u00a0I think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So. \u00a0The moshiach died on this day. \u00a0He actually died on June 12, 1994 \u2014 but that’s the wrong calendar. \u00a0On the Jewish calendar, it was 3 Tammuz, 5754. Which this year works out to July 5th \u2014 today. \u00a0I got an invite from Chabad of the East Bay to come to their Farbrengen and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[250,216],"tags":[641,642,640,198],"class_list":["post-3502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays","category-kaddish-in-two-part-harmony","tag-chabad","tag-lubovitcher-rebbe","tag-rabbi-menachem-mendel-schneerson","tag-yahrtzeit"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3502"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3511,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3502\/revisions\/3511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}