March 9, 2020 - Moshiach Now

In the 1990s, signs and bumper stickers had appeared in Brooklyn and Israel that read Moshiach Now. Moshiach is Yiddish for Messiah. These Orthodox Jews thought the Messiah was about to appear.

This was not, of course, the Second Coming of Jesus but rather the first coming of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe, or just the Rebbe, the spiritual leader of the Chabad-Lubavitcher dynasty of ultra-Orthodox Jews, many of whom claimed he was the long-awaited Messiah.

However, in 1994, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson upped and died, but not the Messianic fervor around him. On the contrary, it only increased. Why? Because many claimed that, according to the Sacred Scriptures, the Messiah had to first die and then, after being resurrected, he would reign as King Moshiach.

A Messiah who dies and is, then, resurrected?

This sounds like Jews for Jesus, not ultra-orthodox Hasidim. Which explains why many other Jews, including other Orthodox, even other Chabadniks, were appalled. It was bad enough, the notion of Schneerson as the Messiah. but then, after his death, to claim that Schneerson was going to be resurrected from the dead and reign as Moshiach? Talk about affirming what Christians have been saying for centuries now!

Though controversy still exists regarding the Messianic pretensions regarding the late Rebbe that echoed out of 770 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, his former headquarters, not that far away, at 121-83 Springfield Blvd, that is at the Montefiore Cemetery, Queens—Rebbe Schneerson remains where they had first placed him almost 25 years ago.

What a contrast to Rebbe Jesus, whose tomb has been empty now for almost 2000 years.