The main part of Rabbi Steinsaltz’ book deals naturally with the great accomplishments of Chabad under the decades long leadership of Rabbi Menachem Mendel. He was a composite of opposites. He was a very private person with an enormous public persona. He encouraged knowledge of all secular studies and disciplines and yet in the main opposed attending universities. He held that university degrees were relatively unimportant but that general knowledge was essential and vital. He was not a Zionist – his father-in-law was a very strong public anti-Zionist – but was a fierce supporter of the State of Israel and took a very active role in its internal political and electoral culture.
He was strongly parochial regarding the role of Chabad in God’s scheme of things as he nevertheless was universal in his outlook. He saw in himself not only a leader for the Jewish people but for all of humanity as well. He advocated public displays of Jewish ritual even in overwhelmingly non-Jewish venues. While he himself after becoming rebbe never left the neighborhood of Crown Heights in Brooklyn, he sent hundreds of his followers to all of the far distant corners of the globe. While being the subject of intense criticism by other Chasidic leaders and groupings, not to mention the strong opposition to him and Chabad launched by a number of great leaders of the non-Chasidic factions of Orthodoxy, he never publicly defended his policies and certainly never apologized for them.
Speaking only in heavily Russian accented Yiddish, his message and ideas nevertheless spread throughout the Jewish world in every spoken language. It is ironic and instructive to note that at the last major convention of Reform Judaism in the United States, the leaders of that movement openly proclaimed that the greatest competition and danger to their movement came from Chabad – and this is occurring twenty years after the death of Rabbi Menachem Mendel. Revered if not even deified by the followers of Chabad, respected and admired by Jews from all spectrum of the Jewish world, opposed and still criticized by some factions of Orthodoxy, he still remains a mysterious and enigmatic figure to all.
Rabbi Steinsaltz’ book will help clear up some of this surface mystery at least but the deeper and hidden secrets of his humanity, makeup and success are still not completely revealed. It is very hard to truly define such a complex person.
As is his usual wont and talent, Rabbi Steinsaltz has much to say in a very elegant and concise style and way. His analysis of messianism, an issue that has plagued and even harmed Chabad over the past decades, is cogent and straightforward. His understanding of holiness and holy people is most convincing and down to earth, if such a term can be applied to such a spiritual subject. As the blurb on the back cover of the book states: “In My Rebbe, celebrated author and thinker Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz shares his first-hand account of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson – an extraordinary individual who shaped the landscape of twentieth-century Jewish religious life. Written with the admiration of a close disciple and the nuanced perceptiveness of a scholar, this biography-memoir inspires us to think about our own missions and aspirations for a better world.”
Like all blurbs to be found on the back covers of books, there is a little bit of overkill in the above statement. However, it does represent the tone and content of this book and in my opinion this book therefore is not only about the life and times and accomplishments of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson but it also is a window into the soul and genius of the author, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz.