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Article: Habad's dead Messiah. (Current Theological Writing).(Column)(Review)
- Article from:
- Judaism
- Article date:
- January 1, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 American Jewish Congress. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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ON A SIMHAT TORAH EVE ABOUT THIRTY YEARS AGO I brought a brilliant young woman journalist from a Marxist kibbutz in Israel to Crown Heights to witness Habad's celebration of the joyous holiday of Simhat Torah. There were several thousand Hasidim present, singing and chanting and dancing around their Master, the late Rebbe Menahem Mendel Schneerson. After hours of watching from a high and partly covered woman's gallery, my friend joined me to return to Manhattan. "The Rebbe was talking to me," she said. "The Rebbe was looking at me." I had some doubt that, amid the multitudes present, she had been singled out, but I realized first-hand what charisma could do even to a ...