by Rabbi Faivish Vogel
A Message and a Prayer
As Jewish people in communities around the world prepare to celebrate the yearly festival of Passover this coming Saturday night (March 27), the opening question of the Seder table liturgy “how is this night different from all other nights?” will resonate with extraordinary reverberation.
This year, everyone knows the answer: Covid-19.
Beyond the shocks to so many people’s lives, and the systems of the world, there is an open invitation to circa eight billion people to reflect on the dimension of these events which reflects G-d’s partnership in the affairs of humankind.
Collectively, we all have a lot on our plates and this year we welcome Passover and its message of freedom with increased enthusiasm. Many will do so. A study by the Pew Research Center found that some 78% of Jews celebrate Passover in one way or another, notwithstanding overwhelming cultural assimilation. For the many thousands in Chabad communities and their fellow-travelers around the world, Passover has always been the “dream season”. It is an opportunity to share the message of redemption with Jews of every shape and size.
It will have been noted by earnest scholars that Chabad, by virtue of its unique intellectual-mystical tradition, has never been short on innovation. Witness to this was the publication of a book towards the end of 2019 called “Social Vision” by prominent sociologist Dr Philip Wexler, which was subtitled: “The Lubavitcher Rebbe’s Transformative Paradigm for the World.”
Over the past decade, mainstream culture, politics and intellectual discourse have become thoroughly damaged and degraded, almost to the point of no repair. The American sociologist offers a vision of counterculture that can already be found in the effervescent Jewish mystical culture. This philosophy seeks, in its unique way, to engage with and thereby effect change in the world, advancing universal good.
Dr. Wexler argues that the Weberian principles of the Protestant Ethic and Capitalism have lost their value in the marketplace of ideas and are ripe for replacement. And he sees in the mystical ideas of the Chabad tradition a way to galvanize societies and help fill the yawning vacuum.
It is no secret that the leadership of Chabad, which has been dominated by the unique person of the Rebbe, is undergoing change. The change is neither deft nor radical but in continuity with its origins and wellsprings through all generations of Chabad. This shift has paved the way for a mystically based universalism.
This mystical tradition has been true and relevant and needed for all the seven generations of Chabad and it is even more so with the Rebbe Menachem Mendel, whose image is imprinted on the global village of our times.
As we ponder upon the upcoming one hundred and nineteenth anniversary of the birth of the Rebbe on Nissan 11 (coinciding with the calendar date of March 24) the significance carries a heightened sense of promise.
Maybe we can reflect over some thirty years when to mention the Rebbe’s name all shutters went up. For accompanying it, was the reminder of the long lost hope for and belief in the coming of the Messiah, an idea well beyond our comfort zone.
Yet on one critical day in March 1991, the Rebbe quietly informed us that he “had done all he could to bring the Messiah and from now onwards, he was calling on each and everyone to accomplish what he was unable to do himself!”
Indeed, now as then, the classic works of the Talmud and Maimonides heralding the coming of the Messiah remain highly fertile visionary resources for us to build on earth the inner grand designs of the Creator and achieve the highest purposes of creation. May he come now.
Wishing you all a very happy and kosher Passover.
Rabbi Faivish Vogel is the Chairman of the Centre For Jewish Life
He can be reached at: faivish.vogel@gmail.com