Chabad-Lubavitch Related Controversies - Menachem Mendel Schneerson - Rabbi Elazar Shach's Critique

Rabbi Elazar Shach's Critique

Rabbi Elazar Shach issued a series of public criticisms of Schneerson, from the 1970s through Schneerson's death in 1994. He accused Schneerson's followers of false Messianism, and Schneerson of fomenting a cult of crypto-messianism around himself. He objected to Schneerson's call for "demanding" the Messiah's appearance. When some of Schneerson's followers identified him as possibly being the Messiah, Shach called for a complete boycott of Chabad, its institutions and projects by its constituents.

In 1988 Shach explicitly denounced Schneerson as a meshiach sheker (false messiah). Shach also compared Chabad and Schneerson to the followers of the 17th century false messiah Sabbatai Zevi. Pointing to a statement by Schneerson, in a passage referring to his predecessor, that a rebbe is "the Essence and Being placed into a body", Shach described this as nothing short of idolatry. His followers refused to eat meat slaughtered by Lubavitch shochetim or to recognize Chabad Hasidim as adherents of authentic Judaism. Shach once described Schneerson as "the madman who sits in New York and drives the whole world crazy."

In addition to Shach's objections to some Chabad members venerating Schneerson as the Messiah, he also disagreed with Chabad on various issues of Jewish law and philosophy, but particularly politics. While Chabad strongly opposed peace talks with the Palestinians or to relinquishing any Israeli territory under any circumstance, Shach alternately supported both left and right-wing parties in the Israeli elections. During the 1988 elections, Schneerson encouraged Israeli Haredim to vote for Agudat Israel over Shach's newly-formed Degel HaTorah party. Shach's newspaper, Yated Ne'eman, ran several articles documenting various Chabad writings and statements that it claimed supported Shach's contention that Lubavitch was becoming a breakaway sect of Judaism focused on Schneerson as the Messiah. In a conversation that he had with an American rabbi in the 1980s, Shach stated, "The Americans think that I am too controversial and divisive. But in a time when no one else is willing to speak up on behalf of our true tradition, I feel myself impelled to do so."

Shach stated in his letters that he was not at all opposed to chassidim and chassidus (including Chabad Chassidim from the previous generations); he recognized them as "yera'im" and "shlaymim" and full of Torah and Mitzvos and fear of heaven.

In the early 1980s, Shach, together with Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky (the "Steipler"), issued proclamations strongly condemning the Lag BaOmer parades that Chabad has been holding around the world since the 1940s.