As do atheists, who often choose to accept the pronouncements of the fundies because it suits them, and because they’re easy to mock.
Not to mention the Christian Fundamentalist knack for offensive commentary. Cite: Jack Chick.
Hijack: the Messiah in the Jewish sense of the term, or in the Christian sense?
That is, are they claiming Schneerson to be divine?
If you guys would take the lead when fundies pick up the megaphone, I am pretty sure atheists would be happy
I was going to say something about messianic Jews, but zostersandstorm covered it. (That they were founded by Christians to trick Jews into converting to Christianity, and as a result are extremely unpopular with many Jews, and that they are their own thing and not just Jews who happen to have become Christian.)
Unequivocally? No. But I’ve heard traditional Jews say that Chabad is the religion closest to Judaism. I’m not familiar with Sabbateans. I mean, most Jews accept Lubuvichers as weird Jews who do some helpful outreach and some annoying outreach. And in turn, the Lubuvichers tend not to talk to outsiders about their beliefs about Scheerson, or they tell the rest of us that they, personally, aren’t in the group that thinks he’s the messiah. My understanding is that the messianists were a large minority of the movement with outsized influence because they controlled a lot of the money.
No, they don’t claim that he’s divine. They claim he is the Jewish messiah in the Jewish sense of the term.
(Source: I used to work with a Lubuvicher, and we were close enough that he invited me to several of his family’s “rites of passage”. We talked religion a lot, and I offered him condolences when Scheerson died. I also have other friends who have an interest in Chabad and keep track of what they are up to. But my info may be out of date.)
I think this sentence got away from you.
Great, now the mods are speaking in tongues.
AFAIK there haven’t been Sabbateans since Sabbat died 400ish years ago.
Some Chabad people do think Schneerson was/is the Messiah. I wouldn’t speculate on what percentage of Chabad that is. I have been to a very small number of Chabad-organized events in my life, and the amount of Schneerson-as-Messiah propaganda I encountered was not zero.
But the Messiah is supposed to…well, it depends on who you ask…maybe abolish all injustice, death and suffering in the world, but AT THE VERY LEAST re-establish a Jewish theocracy based on animal sacrifice in Israel. And…this is key…they have to do it while they’re alive.
If you think your rabbi is the Messiah, that’s totally kosher. If your rabbi dies, and the world still seems to have some problems and people aren’t burning lambs in Jerusalem, and you, like the Schneerson people, say “Well, at some time in the future our guy will rise from the dead and finish the job!”…we’ve seen that movie before, and it was a very dark comedy.
So to the extent that Chabad folks promote that, they are promoting something other than Judaism, and if they don’t stop it they will eventually create a schism and become their own non-Jewish religion. Hopefully it will work out better than last time.
Anyway, I just came in here to post this:
Dark Sponge is right that you’ll get an earful if you talk to a Messianic Jew. And also if you dive headfirst into a cesspool.
For those of you who have no idea what we’re talking about: Chabad, aka Lubavitcher, is the largest subset of Hasidic Judaism — the guys with the big black hats. Their founder wrote a major mystical text called the Tanya which is pretty cool if you’re into that sort of thing. That was about 250 years ago. As is the usual practice, his rabbinic authority was transmitted to the brightest of his sons and sons-in-law, and so on until 1994 when the 7th Rebbe, Menachem Schneerson, died without making provisions for a successor. He was especially revered by his followers, and given that he brought them from Ukraine to Brooklyn, who can blame them? Since then they have been in the unusual position of being a Hasidic sect without a clearly defined leader. Some go forward based on their interpretation of the Rebbe’s teachings, some feel that they are only keeping the shop open until the Rebbe returns, and the difference is hard to see from the outside.
Today, they are known for both their rigid (even by Orthodox standards) adherence to Jewish law and their aggressive outreach efforts to non-Orthodox Jews.
I fixed my swypos.
…and not just Jews who happen …
Don’t forget that people are also supposed to rise from the dead when the messiah comes. For a few weeks after the death of the Rebbe, it wasn’t completely non-Jewish for his devotees to hope he would rise from the dead and finish the job.
I think my friend thought the Rebbe might be the messiah until the Rebbe died, but then, being a good Jew, my friend moved on. But before the death of the Rebbe, I told him I would seriously consider that the messiah had arrived if people were rising from the dead.
Yeah, it’s like they’re in a contest to out-do each other in rigid adherence to Jewish law/tradition/custom.
One benefit to being a Schrodinger Jew is that they don’t bother with me, not considering me to be actually Jewish without a conversion. (They do accept the occasional convert - I know a woman who was raised Southern Baptist who converted to a Lubavitcher and is a solid member of the community. I’m glad it worked out for her, but I could never fit into that group.)
Hmm.
Well, in some technical sense, my husband’s grandmother was raised from the dead, and doctors tried but failed to raise my grandfather from the dead. And I’d trained in CPR, so who knows, maybe someday I will raise someone from the dead.
But… that doesn’t really count.
Speaking of heresy, if we take Spinoza for example, while the official document excommunicating him is pretty hard-core in terms of imprecations and nasty death curses, it does not get into whether he is a real Jew or not—presumably he was considered so, or they would not have bothered:
Translation
The Lords of the ma’amad , having long known of the evil opinions and acts of Baruch de Espinoza, have endeavoured by various means and promises, to turn him from his evil ways. But having failed to make him mend his wicked ways, and, on the contrary, daily receiving more and more serious information about the abominable heresies which he practised and taught and about his monstrous deeds, and having for this numerous trustworthy witnesses who have deposed and borne witness to this effect in the presence of the said Espinoza, they became convinced of the truth of the matter; and after all of this has been investigated in the presence of the honourable chachamin [sages], they have decided, with their consent, that the said Espinoza should be excommunicated and expelled from the people of Israel. By the decree of the angels, and by the command of the holy men, we excommunicate, expel, curse and damn Baruch de Espinoza, with the consent of God, Blessed be He, and with the consent of all the Holy Congregation, in front of these holy Scrolls with the six-hundred-and-thirteen precepts which are written therein, with the excommunication with which Joshua banned Jericho, with the curse with which Elisha cursed the boys and with all the curses which are written in the Book of the Law. Cursed be he by day and cursed be he by night; cursed be he when he lies down, and cursed be he when he rises up; cursed be he when he goes out, and cursed be he when he comes in. The Lord will not spare him; the anger and wrath of the Lord will rage against this man, and bring upon him all the curses which are written in this book, and the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven, and the Lord will separate him to his injury from all the tribes of Israel with all the curses of the covenant, which are written in the Book of the Law. But you who cleave unto the Lord God are all alive this day. We order that no one should communicate with him orally or in writing, or show him any favour, or stay with him under the same roof, or within four ells of him, or read anything composed or written by him.
If you consider an anti-Chasidim ban:
it does start out by describing them as a suspicious cult/sect and pointing out that their religious practices are different from those of the House of Israel.
There’s a study, although AFAICT it doesn’t address political party or “operative” status. It was conducted in 2013 by the “Jews for Jesus” organization on a sample of 1567 Messianic Jews, so YMMV as to how representative its results are.
Anyway, the study found that about two-thirds of the participants had two Jewish parents (although that percentage decreased to only one-third for the participants born after 1980), and most of the rest had one Jewish parent. Under 10% of the participants had neither parent being Jewish.
Man, I’m learning so much about Jews in this thread. I thought I knew everything there was to know once I learned about the Jewish space laser that starts wildfires and zaps Jews who don’t have sex through a hole in the sheet.
Oh, come on. Get off your cross. 