Chabad
Based on Wikipedia: Chabad
The Most Unlikely Global Movement
In 1927, a rabbi sat in a Soviet prison cell awaiting execution. His crime? Teaching Judaism. The Bolsheviks had decided that religion was incompatible with their vision for society, and this particular rabbi—the leader of a small Hasidic sect called Chabad—had refused to stop.
He didn't die. International pressure secured his release, and he eventually made his way to Brooklyn, New York. From that unlikely base, his movement would grow into something unprecedented: a network of over 5,000 outreach centers spanning more than 100 countries, touching the lives of perhaps a million Jews annually who might otherwise have no connection to their heritage.
This is the story of Chabad-Lubavitch, a movement that defies easy categorization. It's Hasidic, meaning it emerged from the mystical revival that swept through Eastern European Judaism in the 18th century. Yet unlike most Hasidic groups, which tend toward insularity—preserving their traditions by minimizing contact with the outside world—Chabad does the opposite. It seeks out Jews wherever they are, from remote college campuses to tropical vacation destinations, offering a Shabbat dinner, a chance to wrap tefillin, or simply a conversation.
How did a small sect from a Russian shtetl become a global phenomenon? The answer involves persecution, exile, tragedy, brilliant organizational thinking, and a fundamental disagreement about what Judaism should be.
The Brain Rules the Heart
The name "Chabad" is actually an acronym. In Hebrew, the letters Chet, Bet, and Dalet stand for Chochmah, Binah, and Da'at—Wisdom, Understanding, and Knowledge. These aren't just nice-sounding words. They represent a specific philosophical claim about how humans should approach God.
When Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi founded the movement in 1775, he was entering an ongoing debate within Hasidism. The broader Hasidic movement, founded by the charismatic Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, emphasized joy, emotion, and direct experience of the divine. God desires the heart, the Hasidim taught. Sing, dance, pray with fervor—these were the paths to spiritual connection.
Shneur Zalman agreed that God desires the heart. But he added a crucial caveat: God also desires the mind. And more than that, the mind is the gateway to the heart.
This might sound like a subtle theological distinction. It wasn't. It represented a fundamentally different approach to Jewish spirituality. Where other Hasidic groups (sometimes called "Chagat" schools, after the Hebrew words for loving-kindness, severity, and beauty—qualities associated with emotion) saw feelings as responses to external stimuli like music and dancing, Shneur Zalman taught that authentic emotion should flow from intellectual understanding.
He had a phrase for this: moach shalit al halev, which translates to "the brain rules the heart." Study Torah deeply enough, understand Kabbalistic concepts thoroughly enough, and the appropriate emotional response—love of God, awe of the divine—would naturally follow.
This created something unusual: a form of rational mysticism. Shneur Zalman was trained as a Talmudist, skilled in the rigorous logical analysis that characterizes traditional Jewish scholarship. He took that analytical approach and applied it to mysticism, attempting to make the esoteric teachings of Kabbalah accessible through systematic explanation.
The result was the Tanya, a book first published in 1797 that remains the foundational text of Chabad philosophy. Chabad followers study it daily, often completing the entire work in the course of a year.
The Book of In-Between People
The Tanya's original title reveals its central concern: Sefer Shel Beinonim, which means "Book of the Intermediates" or "Book of the Average Person." This wasn't false modesty. Shneur Zalman was making a radical psychological claim.
Traditional Jewish thought recognized two categories of people: the tzaddik (righteous one) and the rasha (wicked one). The tzaddik had conquered their evil inclination; the rasha had succumbed to it. Simple enough.
But Shneur Zalman introduced a third category: the beinoni, the intermediate person. And here's the key insight—he argued that almost everyone falls into this category. The beinoni isn't someone who sins occasionally and does good occasionally, averaging out to middling. The beinoni is someone who never sins in action, speech, or thought—but who still feels the pull of their lower nature.
This sounds like a contradiction. How can someone never sin yet still struggle?
The answer lies in Shneur Zalman's model of the soul. Every person, he taught, has two souls: a divine soul (nefesh ha'elokit) oriented toward God and goodness, and an animal soul (nefesh habehamit) oriented toward physical desires and self-interest. These souls are locked in constant struggle.
The tzaddik has transformed their animal soul—the struggle is over. The rasha has let the animal soul take control. But the beinoni? The beinoni fights and wins every single battle while feeling the full force of the struggle. Victory is possible, Shneur Zalman taught, because "the matter is very near to you, in your mouth, your heart, to do"—a quote from Deuteronomy that he interpreted to mean that self-mastery is achievable for everyone, not just spiritual giants.
This was psychologically sophisticated and strategically brilliant. It acknowledged the reality of internal conflict while insisting that such conflict didn't make you wicked. It set a high bar (never actually sinning) while making that bar seem reachable. And it created a framework for thinking about religious life as an ongoing process rather than a static state.
A Town Called Lubavitch
The "Lubavitch" in "Chabad-Lubavitch" comes from a small town in what is now Russia, near the border with Belarus. Its name means "town of love" in Russian—an appropriate coincidence for a movement emphasizing both intellectual and emotional connection to the divine.
Shneur Zalman died in 1812 while fleeing Napoleon's invasion of Russia. (He opposed Napoleon, believing that the freedoms the French Revolution offered Jews would lead to assimilation.) His son, Rabbi Dovber Schneuri, moved the movement's headquarters to Lubavitch in 1813, where it would remain for over a century.
For four generations, the rebbes—the spiritual leaders—led from this small village. The title "rebbe" itself is significant. In Hasidism, a rebbe isn't just a rabbi (a learned teacher of Jewish law). A rebbe is a spiritual leader believed to have exceptional closeness to God and special insight into the divine. Hasidim see their rebbe as an intermediary who can elevate their prayers and guide their spiritual development.
Each rebbe built on the work of his predecessors. Dovber Schneuri expanded his father's philosophical writings. His successor, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn (known as the Tzemach Tzedek after the title of his legal responsa), contributed works on both mystical thought and Jewish law. This dual focus—kabbalah and halakha, mysticism and law—remained characteristic of Chabad.
The fifth rebbe, Rabbi Shalom Dovber Schneersohn, made a crucial organizational decision: he established a yeshiva. Called Tomchei Temimim ("Supporters of the Pure"), this wasn't just a school for studying Talmud. It trained young men in Chabad philosophy, creating a cadre of knowledgeable adherents who could spread the movement's teachings.
This investment in education would prove essential for survival.
The Crucible of Persecution
The Russian government made life difficult for Chabad from the beginning. Under the Czars, all but one of the Chabad rebbes faced imprisonment at some point. The state viewed Hasidism with suspicion—its charismatic leaders, tight-knit communities, and alternative authority structures seemed threatening.
But the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 brought something far worse. The new Soviet government didn't just want to limit Jewish religious practice; it wanted to eliminate it entirely. Religion was the opiate of the masses, Marx had written, and Lenin's followers intended to free the masses from this addiction.
The sixth rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, refused to comply. He organized underground religious education, maintained a network of ritual circumcisers and religious teachers, and continued leading his community in defiance of state persecution. In 1927, he was arrested and sentenced to death.
The sentence was commuted through international pressure, including intervention by Latvian and German diplomats. He was released and eventually expelled from the Soviet Union, moving the movement's headquarters first to Riga, then to Warsaw.
Meanwhile, the Hasidim who remained in Soviet Russia went underground. They maintained a secret network across the USSR, conducting religious activities at enormous personal risk. Many were imprisoned; some were executed. During World War II, when Germans invaded the Soviet Union, some Chabad families evacuated to the Uzbek cities of Samarkand and Tashkent, creating small islands of Hasidic life in Central Asia.
The Warsaw period didn't last long. When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak faced another existential threat. Through a remarkable diplomatic effort—American Jewish organizations convinced the State Department to intervene, and a Nazi official was bribed to allow the rebbe's escape—he made it to New York in March 1940.
He would never return to Europe. Neither would European Jewry as it had existed. The Holocaust killed six million Jews, devastating the world of Eastern European Hasidism. Entire communities, entire dynasties, were wiped out.
Chabad survived. But survival wasn't enough.
Brooklyn Becomes the New Lubavitch
The address 770 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, became the new world headquarters of Chabad. In Hasidic parlance, it's simply called "770" (pronounced "seven-seventy")—a Georgian Revival building that has taken on nearly sacred significance. Replicas of it have been built in Jerusalem, Los Angeles, Melbourne, and other cities.
Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak spent his final decade building organizational infrastructure. He established Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch (the movement's educational arm), Machne Israel (its social service arm), and Kehot Publication Society (its publishing house). He sent emissaries to establish Chabad houses in cities across America.
This was new. Traditionally, Hasidic rebbes drew followers to themselves—people came to the rebbe's court to receive blessings, seek advice, and experience spiritual elevation. Chabad reversed this dynamic. The rebbe sent representatives out to bring Judaism to Jews who would never make the journey themselves.
When Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak died in 1950, his son-in-law, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, initially declined to assume leadership. For a year, the movement functioned without a rebbe—an almost inconceivable situation in Hasidic life. Finally, on the first anniversary of his father-in-law's death, he formally accepted the role.
The movement he inherited was small but ambitious. What he built over the next four decades would exceed anything his predecessors imagined.
The Seventh Generation
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson—usually referred to simply as "the Rebbe" by Chabad adherents—was not an obvious choice for leadership. Yes, he had yichus (distinguished lineage)—he was descended from the third Chabad rebbe. And yes, he had married into the dynasty. But he was also a trained engineer who had studied at the University of Berlin and the Sorbonne. He wore modern clothes rather than traditional Hasidic garb during his early years in America. He seemed, in some ways, more worldly than the typical rebbe.
This worldliness proved crucial. The Rebbe understood modern communication, organization, and outreach in ways that transformed Chabad from a refugee community into a global movement.
His core innovation was the shlichus (emissary) system. Young Chabad couples, after completing their education, would be sent to establish permanent outreach centers anywhere in the world—college towns, remote cities, countries with tiny Jewish populations. Once dispatched, they stayed. This wasn't a temporary posting; it was a lifetime commitment. The shliach (male emissary) and shlucha (female emissary) would build a community from scratch, often starting with just a few interested individuals.
They weren't just building synagogues. Chabad houses became Jewish community centers offering religious services, holiday celebrations, educational programs, youth activities, kosher food, and simple hospitality. A Jewish backpacker in Kathmandu could find a Shabbat dinner. A college student at a rural American university could light Chanukah candles. A business traveler in Tokyo could join a minyan (prayer quorum).
The scale expanded relentlessly. Under the seventh Rebbe's leadership, which lasted from 1951 until his death in 1994, Chabad established hundreds of new centers across the globe. Today, there are more than 5,000 emissary couples in over 100 countries.
Meeting Jews Where They Are
The Chabad approach to outreach was—and remains—distinctive within Orthodox Judaism. Most Orthodox groups draw clear boundaries: you're either observant or you're not, and outreach usually involves encouraging non-observant Jews to become fully observant. Chabad, while certainly hoping its activities lead to greater observance, focuses on individual mitzvot (commandments) without preconditions.
Consider the mitzvah tanks—vehicles that park in busy areas where emissaries offer male passersby the opportunity to put on tefillin. Tefillin are small leather boxes containing Torah verses, worn during morning prayers in a specific ritual manner. In traditional practice, tefillin are part of a daily routine performed by observant men. What Chabad does differently is offer this experience to anyone Jewish, regardless of whether they'll continue doing it tomorrow or ever observe any other mitzvah.
The theological reasoning runs like this: every mitzvah has infinite value. A Jew who puts on tefillin once has done something cosmically significant, even if they immediately go back to eating bacon cheeseburgers. The mitzvah isn't diminished by the person's overall level of observance. And who knows? Maybe this one experience plants a seed.
This approach generated controversy within the Orthodox world. Some rabbis criticized what they saw as enabling non-observance—making people feel good about doing isolated religious acts without committing to the entire system. Others worried about the legal complexities (can someone who doesn't observe Shabbat properly fulfill certain mitzvot?). Still others simply found the public nature of Chabad outreach undignified.
But the approach proved phenomenally effective at engagement. Chabad became the Orthodox movement that non-Orthodox Jews actually knew, actually had positive experiences with, and actually felt welcomed by. According to some reports, up to a million Jews participate in Chabad activities at least once a year—attending a Passover seder, coming to High Holiday services, stopping by a Chabad house while traveling.
This created a strange category that scholars of contemporary Judaism have struggled to name: non-Orthodox Jews who affiliate with Chabad. They're not Hasidic. They're not even Orthodox. But they're also not nothing. Some researchers have called them "non-Orthodox Hasidim"—a term that would seem oxymoronic in any other context.
The Population Puzzle
How big is Chabad, really? The answer depends on how you count.
In 2018, historian Marcin Wodziński published the Historical Atlas of Hasidism, the first systematic attempt to estimate the global Hasidic population. He counted Chabad's core adherents—those who identify as Chabad Hasidim, follow Chabad customs, and affiliate with Chabad communities—at around 16,000 to 17,000 households. With average family sizes, this yields perhaps 90,000 to 100,000 people, accounting for about 13% of the total global Hasidic population.
By this measure, Chabad isn't actually the largest Hasidic group. Satmar, a rigorously insular group centered in Brooklyn and upstate New York, is larger. So is Ger, based primarily in Israel. Chabad's actual Hasidic population is moderate by Hasidic standards.
But this misses the point. Those 90,000 core adherents maintain a global infrastructure that serves millions. The emissary system means that Chabad's presence vastly exceeds what its numbers would suggest. A Satmar family has many children and grandchildren who remain Satmar. A Chabad shliach has perhaps a few children but influences hundreds or thousands of people annually through their center's programming.
Historian Jonathan Sarna has characterized Chabad as having the fastest rate of growth of any Jewish religious movement from 1946 to 2015. This growth isn't primarily demographic (though Chabad families are large by general standards). It's institutional—the constant establishment of new Chabad houses, new programs, new touchpoints with unaffiliated Jews.
The Global Network
The distribution of Chabad centers tells a story about Jewish geography in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
The most visible concentrations are where you'd expect: Crown Heights in Brooklyn remains the movement's spiritual epicenter, home to 770 Eastern Parkway and thousands of Chabad families. Kfar Chabad, a village in Israel established in 1948 specifically for Chabad refugees from the Soviet Union, is another major center. But the emissary system has created Chabad presences in places no other Jewish organization has bothered to go.
University campuses were an early focus. The Rebbe recognized that college was where many Jews drifted away from their heritage, and also where they might be open to exploration. Today, hundreds of Chabad houses serve university communities. The rabbis and their families become fixtures of campus life, hosting weekly Shabbat dinners that can draw dozens or hundreds of students.
Tourist destinations followed similar logic. Jews travel. Where they travel, they might want Jewish connection. Chabad centers in Thailand, India, Nepal, South America, and elsewhere have become legendary among backpackers for their combination of religious authenticity and radical hospitality.
Then there are the truly improbable locations. Chabad has emissaries in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cambodia, Kazakhstan, and dozens of other countries with tiny Jewish populations. The question isn't always whether there's a thriving Jewish community to serve. Sometimes it's whether there are any Jews at all who might pass through and need a connection.
Interestingly, this global network created unexpected diplomatic significance. In Russia, where Chabad had maintained its underground network throughout the Soviet era, the movement re-emerged publicly after the USSR's dissolution in 1991. The Chief Rabbi of Russia, Berel Lazar, is a Chabad emissary. He has maintained a relationship with President Vladimir Putin, receiving state honors and serving as a bridge between the Russian government and the Jewish community. This relationship has generated controversy—particularly after Russia's invasion of Ukraine—but it reflects the strange places Chabad's global reach has taken it.
The Messiah Question
There's something we've been avoiding. It's the elephant in the room whenever Chabad is discussed, the thing that generates the most controversy and the strongest reactions.
Many Chabad Hasidim believe that Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson was—and is—the Messiah.
This needs to be unpacked carefully, because it involves both theology and sociology, belief and controversy.
First, the background. In traditional Jewish thought, the Messiah (Mashiach in Hebrew) is a human being, descended from King David, who will usher in an era of universal peace, rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem, and gather all Jews back to the Land of Israel. Messianic expectation has been a constant thread in Jewish history, sometimes quiescent, sometimes intense.
Hasidism, from its beginning, has had a heightened messianic consciousness. The Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, believed that spreading his teachings would hasten the Messiah's arrival. Each generation of Hasidim has prayed for redemption, hoped for redemption, looked for signs of redemption.
The seventh Rebbe himself intensified this focus. He spoke frequently about the imminence of the Messianic age. He urged his followers to prepare themselves and the world. He emphasized that the generation was unique, poised at the threshold of redemption.
Many of his followers concluded that he was speaking about himself.
During his lifetime, this belief was widespread but not universal within Chabad. The Rebbe never explicitly claimed to be the Messiah, but he also didn't clearly deny it when followers made such claims. Songs declaring him as Mashiach became common at Chabad gatherings. Yellow flags reading "Long Live Our Master, Our Teacher, Our Rebbe, King Messiah, Forever and Ever" appeared at 770.
Then, in 1992, the Rebbe suffered a severe stroke that left him unable to speak. He died in June 1994 without ever regaining his full faculties.
He also died without naming a successor.
After the Rebbe
The death of a rebbe without a clear successor is traumatic for any Hasidic group. For Chabad, with its messianic expectations, it created a theological crisis.
Some followers accepted the death and mourned the end of an era. The movement would continue without a living rebbe, guided by his teachings and organizational structures. This is the position of the mainstream Chabad institutional leadership today.
But others didn't accept it—at least not in the way that death is usually accepted. Some continued to believe that the Rebbe was the Messiah and would soon be resurrected. Others went further, arguing that he hadn't really died at all, or that death for someone at his spiritual level was different than death for ordinary people. A small minority began to attribute divine qualities to him.
This movement within Chabad is often called "meshichism" or "Chabad messianism." Its adherents, sometimes called "meshichistim," are a distinct faction within the broader movement. They can be identified by certain practices: continuing to write letters to the Rebbe as if he were alive, singing the messianic songs with intensified fervor, and in some cases, treating 770 Eastern Parkway as a kind of shrine.
The broader Jewish world reacted with alarm. For many Jews, the idea that the Messiah could come, die, and then return sounded uncomfortably similar to Christian theology. (Christianity, of course, originated as a Jewish messianic movement around the figure of Jesus of Nazareth.) Rabbis from other Orthodox movements issued statements distancing themselves from Chabad messianism, and some questioned whether meshichistim could be considered Orthodox at all.
Within Chabad itself, the conflict became bitter. Institutions split between meshichist and non-meshichist camps. Synagogues that had been united were torn by disputes over whether to sing certain songs or display certain symbols. Families divided. The movement's leadership tried to suppress the most extreme manifestations of messianism while avoiding an outright condemnation that might split the movement entirely.
Today, three decades after the Rebbe's death, the situation remains unresolved. Chabad operates without a rebbe—an unprecedented situation for a Hasidic dynasty. The meshichist faction remains significant, especially in Israel. The mainstream continues to downplay or discourage messianic belief while focusing on outreach activities. And the broader Jewish community remains uncomfortable with the entire phenomenon, even as it continues to benefit from Chabad's services.
The Paradox of Chabad
How should we understand this movement? The paradoxes pile up.
Chabad is Hasidic—part of a world known for distinctive dress, Yiddish language, insularity, and separation from modern life. Yet Chabad emissaries dress in modern suits, speak the local language fluently, and engage constantly with the non-Hasidic world.
Chabad is Orthodox—committed to traditional Jewish law in all its details. Yet it welcomes Jews who observe nothing, never pressuring them to become fully observant as a precondition for participation.
Chabad is intellectual—founded on the principle that the mind must guide the heart, that study and contemplation are the path to spiritual development. Yet it's famous for joyous, emotional gatherings, for singing and dancing, for experiences that seem to bypass the intellect entirely.
Chabad is decentralized—thousands of independent emissaries making their own decisions about how to serve their communities. Yet it maintains a remarkably unified identity, with emissaries around the world running similar programs, using similar materials, teaching similar ideas.
Chabad lost its leader thirty years ago. Yet it continues to grow, continues to open new centers, continues to reach Jews who would otherwise have no Jewish connection at all.
Perhaps the paradoxes are the point. The founder's key insight was that apparent opposites—wisdom and emotion, intellect and heart—could be unified rather than held in tension. The movement he created has spent 250 years demonstrating that synthesis in action.
The Forever Mitzvah
There's a concept in Chabad thought called the "pinteleh Yid"—the little point of Jewishness that exists in every Jewish soul, no matter how assimilated, no matter how disconnected. It cannot be extinguished. It can only be hidden, covered over, forgotten. The work of outreach is not to create something new but to reveal something that was always there.
This idea explains Chabad's distinctive approach. Other Jewish movements might see an unaffiliated Jew as someone to be educated, convinced, transformed. Chabad sees them as someone whose inner spark needs only a breath of oxygen to burst into flame. Every mitzvah, no matter how isolated, fans that spark. You don't need to become a different person; you need to become more fully yourself.
Whether this theology is true is a question each person must answer for themselves. But its effectiveness at Jewish engagement is undeniable. In an era when many Jewish institutions are struggling—when synagogue membership declines, when Jewish identity becomes ever more optional, when the American Jewish community worries about its own continuity—Chabad continues to grow.
It started in a small town in Belarus. It survived Czarist oppression, Bolshevik persecution, and the Holocaust. It rebuilt from a refugee community in Brooklyn into a worldwide network. It has outlasted its founder's death and the controversy that followed.
And somewhere tonight, in hundreds of cities around the world, a Chabad emissary is setting up for Shabbat dinner. Students will arrive, travelers will stop in, curious locals will show up to see what it's about. Candles will be lit. Wine will be poured. Songs will be sung.
The spark continues to burn.