Chabad Messianism
Chabad messianism is a belief by some within the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement that the late Rabbi and leader of that movement Menachem Mendel Schneerson is the Jewish Messiah. Adherents to this belief are termed as Mishichist in Yiddish.
Before Schneerson's death in 1994, a significant body of Chabad Hasidim believed that he was soon to be crowned as the Messiah - an event that would herald the Messianic Age and the construction of the Third Temple. Books and pamphlets were written containing purported proofs for the Rabbi's status as Messiah, some of which Schneerson opposed.
Attempts by his followers to persuade him to reveal himself as the Messiah were to no avail. Followers routinely sang the mantra "Long live our master, our teacher and our rabbi, King Messiah for ever and ever" in his presence - a chant that he often encouraged in his last years, after suffering a stroke, which left him unable to speak and paralyzed on the right side of his body. During the later years of his life Rabbi Schneerson's teachings were interpreted by many to mean that he was claiming to be the Messiah.
His death in 1994 did not remove the messianist fervor. Believers soon developed new rationales to justify the belief the Schneerson was the Messiah despite being dead. Some argued that he had in fact not died at all and was still physically present. Others argued that though he was dead Judaism did not rule out the possibility of the Messiah returning from the dead.
The development of this messianism and its impact on Chabad in specific — and Orthodox Judaism in general — has been the subject of much discussion in the Jewish press, as well as within the pages of peer-reviewed journals. Nevertheless, the belief in the Lubavitcher Rebbe being the Messiah, is confined to a subset of the Chabad community and is not accepted by Jewish adherents outside of that community.
Read more about this topic: Chabad-Lubavitch Related Controversies