Menachem Mendel Schneerson

Lore & Background

As leader of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, he took an insular Hasidic group that almost came to an end with the Holocaust and transformed it into one of the most influential movements in religious Jewry, with an international network of over 5,000 educational and social centers. The institutions he established include kindergartens, schools, drug-rehabilitation centers, care homes for disabled people, and synagogues. Schneerson's published teachings fill more than 400 volumes, and he is noted for his contributions to Jewish continuity and religious thought, as well as his wide-ranging contributions to traditional Torah scholarship. He is recognized as the pioneer of Jewish outreach. During his lifetime, many of his adherents believed that he was the Messiah, though not all Chabadniks subscribe to this belief. His own attitude to the subject, and whether he proclaimed it, is hotly debated among academics and scholars of Judaism. During Schneerson's lifetime, the messianic controversy and other issues elicited fierce criticism from many quarters in the Orthodox world, from Israel's Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef to Elazar Shach. In 1978, the U.S. Congress asked President Jimmy Carter to designate Schneerson's birthday as the national Education Day in the U.S. It has been since commemorated as Education and Sharing Day. In 1994, Schneerson was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for his 'outstanding and lasting contributions toward improvements in world education, morality, and acts of charity'. Schneerson's resting place attracts Jews for prayer.

Reader's Guide

Menachem Mendel Schneerson was born on April 5, 1902 (OS) (11 Nisan, 5662), in the Black Sea port of Nikolaev in the Russian Empire (now Mykolaiv in Ukraine). His father was rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, a renowned Talmudic scholar and authority on Kabbalah and Jewish law. His mother was Rebbetzin Chana Schneerson (née Yanovski). He was named after the third Chabad rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, the Tzemach Tzedek, from whom he was a direct patrilineal descendant. In 1907, when Schneerson was five years old, the family moved to Yekatrinoslav, where Levi Yitzchak was appointed Chief Rabbi of the city. He served until 1939, when he was exiled by the Soviets for five years to Kazakhstan for his activities on behalf of strengthening Judaism in the Soviet Union. Schneerson had two younger brothers: Dov Ber Schneerson, who was murdered in 1944 by Nazi collaborators, and Yisroel Aryeh Leib Schneerson, who died in 1952 while completing doctoral studies at Liverpool University. During his youth, he received a private education and was tutored by Zalman Vilenkin from 1909 through 1913. When Schneerson was 11 years old, Vilenkin informed his father that he had nothing more to teach his son. At that point, Levi Yitzchak began teaching his son Talmud and rabbinic literature, as well as Kabbalah. Schneerson proved gifted in both Talmudic and Kabbalistic study and also took exams as an external student of the local Soviet school. He was considered an illui and genius. Throughout his childhood, Schneerson was involved in the affairs of his father's office. He was also said to have acted as an interpreter between the Jewish community and the Russian authorities on a number of occasions. Schneerson went on to receive separate rabbinical ordinations from the Rogatchover Gaon, Joseph Rosen, and Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg, author of Sridei Aish. In 1923, Schneerson visited the sixth Chabad-Lubavitch Rebbe, Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, for the first time. He met the rabbi's middle daughter Chaya Mushka, who was a distant cousin. Sometime later, they became engaged but were not married until 1928 in Warsaw, Poland. Menachem Mendel and Chaya Mushka were married for 60 years and were childless. After his wedding, Schneerson and his wife moved to Berlin, where he studied mathematics, physics, and philosophy at the University of Berlin. In 1933, after the Nazis took over Germany, th

Did You Know?

• Schneerson's father, Levi Yitzchak, was exiled by the Soviets to Kazakhstan for five years for strengthening Judaism.
• Schneerson and his wife Chaya Mushka were married for 60 years and were childless.
• In 1978, the U.S. Congress asked President Jimmy Carter to designate Schneerson's birthday as Education Day.
• Schneerson was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1994.

Notable Quotes (Wikiquote)

"As cited in Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky, Pluto Press (1999), pp. 59–60. ISBN: 0-7453-2091-0." — Menachem Mendel Schneerson "If you see what needs to be repaired and how to repair it, then you have found a piece of the world that G-d has left for you to perfect." — Menachem Mendel Schneerson "It's the small acts that you do on a daily basis that turn two people from a 'you and I' into an 'us.'" — Menachem Mendel Schneerson "God gave each of us a soul, which is a candle that He gives us to illuminate our surroundings with His light. We must not only illuminate the inside of homes, but also the outside, and the world at large." — Menachem Mendel Schneerson