Menahem Mendel Schneersohn’s Response to the Holocaust

Menahem Mendel Schneersohn’s (the Rebbe) response to the Holocaust may be divided into two periods. The first was during his leadership of the eschatological community “Mahaneh Yisrael” during the war. The second was during the period of his presidency (Nesiyut) of the Lubavitcher movement beginning in 1951.

Wartime: Mahaneh Yisrael

The Mahaneh Yisrael (Camp of Israel) movement was established by Yosef Yitshak Schneersohn shortly after his arrival in Brooklyn in March 1940 and became the central activity of the Habad community there during the war. Soon after his son-in-law, the Rebbe, arrived on June 23, 1941, Schneersohn appointed him the executive director of the movement (Yoshev rosh).¹ The movement’s voice was heard in two periodicals, Hakeriyah vehakedushah (HK) and Kovets lubavitch.² Its spokesman held that the patriarch Jacob had secret knowledge about a dialectical relationship between life and death, hidden in the words pakod yifkod (“will surely remember,” Genesis 50:24), which passed through the generations until it was received by Yosef Yitshak Schneersohn, who shared it with the members of Mahaneh Yisrael.

The knowledge clarified that the current agonies of history were direct reflections of the messianic sufferings (Hevlei mashiah), which bridged catastrophe and redemption. The interrelationship between Hevlei mashiah, catastrophe and redemption, unfolded in terms of sin, punishment, and Teshuvah (penitent return). According to Mahaneh Yisrael ideology, Israel’s exile in AD 70 was precipitated by sins in the ancient Land of Israel. The sins increased over the generations of diaspora, and God responded with ever more severe punishments to force Jews to do Teshuvah. Finally the point came, in the twentieth century, when God moved from presenting a range of choice where sin led to different degrees of suffering, to a categorical either/or choice between continued sin and death in the course of the Holocaust, or Teshuvah and life on the level of redemption. Teshuvah would inevitably take place, since redemption, which was a metaphysical, objective reality above, required it. Teshuvah’s subjective unfolding below, however, awaited the free choice of each Jew—although at least some Jews would definitely choose for Teshuvah, given the metaphysical necessity. Members of Mahaneh Yisrael were those who made the choice for Teshuvah and, based upon (secret) knowledge of the course of events, they sought to universalize Teshuvah and ultimately remove the distance between metaphysical Teshuvah above and existential Teshuvah below. Having performed Teshuvah, they found refuge in the (invisible) Mahaneh Yisrael territory, which they called “Goshen” (where the children of Israel once found refuge from the hail falling down upon Egypt), a prolepsis of the messianic kingdom. From there they extended themselves to Jews across the globe.

Yosef Yitshak Schneersohn publicized the principles of Mahaneh Yisrael ideology in a series of proclamations. In the first one (May 26, 1941) he pleaded for Jews not to despair over the Hevlei mashiah, for once there was Teshuvah, there would be relief. Tragically, however, just as the body of Jewry was now being burned in Europe, the soul was being burned in America because of coldness to Torah and turning away from God. American Jews jumped to the conclusion that God was abandoning European Jewry, and turned their faith instead to democratic leaders. In fact, the only way to save their souls was to open their eyes to the choice they faced between Teshuvah (with life in redemption) or non-Teshuvah (and death-of-catastrophe). With the end of history and redemption itself “around the corner,” the choice had to be made immediately. In the second proclamation (June 24, 1941), Schneersohn condemned those who ignored his call for Teshuvah. He referred them to Aaron’s sons Nadav and Abbihu, who brought an alien fire to the Temple altar (Leviticus 10:1), profaning the sacred fire, and were burned alive for doing so. American Jews compromised messianic belief by failing in Teshuvah, and they would fall victim to divinely ordered suffering in the form of Amalek’s (the paradigmatic enemy of Israel) antisemitism. Schneersohn repeated the warning in his third proclamation (July 24, 1941), stressing the urgency of choice, lest one be caught...