Did Chabad's Founder Envision an American Future?

In the spring of 1802, Thomas Jefferson was president of the United States. On the other side of the globe, in a village three hundred miles west of Moscow, one of the era's most influential rabbinic scholars was thinking about America.

Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi (1745-1813), known today as the founding rebbe of the Chabad movement, was a kabbalist and halachist who became renowned for his uniquely systematic distillation of the spiritual philosophy, or ethos, of Chassidism. He taught that through contemplating the greatness of G‑d—as it is manifest both in creation and beyond creation—every thinking person can be inspired to live a life of loving union with G‑d through Torah study and mitzvah observance.

His magnum opus, known as The Tanya, empowers the individual to succeed in the inner struggle to control “the small city that is the body,” and, thereby, to do the right thing rather than the wrong thing.1 Each such act, each union with G‑d, is an eternal redemption of the soul from bodily imprisonment, and the body too is thereby elevated and transformed.2

But Rabbi Shneur Zalman wasn’t only concerned with the personal spiritual success of the individual. In Chapter 36 of Tanya the author turns his attention to the spiritual redemption of the entire world.

This relatively short chapter presents a richly concentrated discussion that encompasses the entire span of history, from the moment of creation to the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai, to the messianic era, termed “the end of time” (ketz hayamim) by the rabbinic sages. For the purposes of this article I will simply quote the first and last sentences, both of which cite classical Jewish texts:

The statement of the sages is well known that the ultimate purpose of the creation of this world is that the Holy One, blessed be He, desired that He should have a dwelling in the lower realms3 … as we say [in the High Holiday prayers], ‘and may You be manifest in the majestic splendor of Your might upon all the inhabitants of the world,’ etc.

This chapter leaps from the particular to the universal in a way that strikingly echoes the visionary promise made in 1746 by the Messiah himself to Chassidism’s founding figure, Rabbi Yisroel Baal Shem Tov (1698-1760): “The end of days” will arrive “when your teaching becomes famous and revealed in the world, and your wellsprings—which I taught you and you grasped—will be disseminated outside, and they too will be able to practice unifications and ascents like you.”4

Describing this vision in a letter to his brother-in-law, the Baal Shem Tov expressed something like despair: “I was amazed by this, and I was much pained over the immense length of time that it would take for this to be accomplished.”

The imperative to disseminate the contemplative and spiritual teachings of Chassidism “outside,” to the point that “all the inhabitants of the world” will be receptive to the splendorous manifestation of G‑d, may have been one of the elements that brought a question about the inhabitants of America to the fore of Rabbi Shneur Zalman’s preoccupation in the spring of 1802.

In an oral discourse delivered in the presence of his sons, which is extant in several manuscript transcripts, Rabbi Shneur Zalman presented a kabbalistic answer to a scientific question:

Since the world is a globe, round like an apple, why is it that the people who dwell on its other side, in America, don’t fall? … Are their heads not pointing downward, and their feet upward?5

Chronologically situated seventy years after the death of Newton and seventy years before the birth of Einstein, Rabbi Shneur Zalman’s explanation is redolent of the latter’s novel theory of gravity. But it is rooted in a distinction made by the 16th century kabbalist, Rabbi Isaac Luria (known as the “Arizal”), between two co-existent cosmic systems. The normative system, termed yosher (“straight”), is linear and hierarchical; up is up, higher is higher, down is down, lower is lower. But there is also a system of igulim (“circles”) according to which the cosmos operates on a circular and non-hierarchical basis.

Fundamentally, Rabbi Schneur Zalman explains, G‑d encompasses the cosmos curvaceously:

He encircles all realms with a single equivalence, and there is no up and down at all … For this reason those people who are opposite us below don’t fall … and the earth there is below relative to the sky above it.6

The form of cosmic space is curved, conforming to the all-encompassing and non-hierarchical presence of G‑d (igulim), rather than to the linear hierarchy assumed by our intuitions (yosher).

Rabbi Shneur Zalman’s concept of the circularity of space seems strikingly analogous to the curvature of spacetime later described by Einstein. But perhaps even more revolutionary than the scientific concept is the theological concept:

Fundamentally, holiness bears no hierarchies. America, the “New World,” is just as close to G‑d, just as integral to the divine plan, as is the Holy Land of Israel. The more intuitive perspective, according to which the “Old World,” termed the “upper half of the globe,” is on a higher spiritual plane, is dismissed as “superficial” (shitchi).7

And yet.

It is precisely in that superficial realm of human intuition and perception (i.e. yosher) that the ultimate purpose of all existence lies. The netherside of the globe needs to become cognizant of the divine splendor that envelops it, G‑d’s majesty needs to be made manifest to all the inhabitants of the world. Indeed, while most of Rabbi Shneur Zalman’s discourse is devoted to explaining the concept of igulim, in the final lines he reminds us that this by no means displaces the system of yosher:

However, according to the scheme of yosher, which accords to the hierarchy of up and down, beginning and end, our side of the globe is higher, for on our side of the globe divinity is more revealed: in the building of the Holy Temple [in Jerusalem], the reception of the Torah [at Mt. Sinai], and in the Land of Israel … Our land is upper and theirs is below, according to the scheme of yosher. And this is sufficient for one who understands. Think about it well.8

This rather enigmatic conclusion uses rabbinic terms intended to signal that the implications of what has been said deserves further contemplation and unpacking.

In the original form of this discourse the specification of “America” almost seems like an incidental curiosity, and in one transcript it doesn’t appear at all. But the truth is that this curiosity highlights Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s awareness of, and interest in, the global context in which his own life and teachings were embedded. Back then, America would have seemed as far away and peripheral as it is possible to be. Nevertheless, Rabbi Shneur Zalman insisted that on some very important level “the lower half of the globe” should be regarded as a center in its own right, with the earth below it and the heavens above.

Retrospectively, this is revealed to be extraordinarily prescient. While Eastern Europe would remain the center of Jewish life for another one hundred and fifty years, by the end of the nineteenth century a series of migrationary waves were already underway. Between 1880 and 1924 some two million Eastern European Jews settled in the United States, and in the aftermath of the Holocaust it would emerge as the world’s largest center of Jewish life.

The Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, helps his father-in-law during the latter's United States citizenship ceremony at 770 Eastern Parkway, in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York

In 1893 Chabad’s Fifth Rebbe, Rabbi Shalom DovBer Schneersohn (“the Rashab,” 1860-1920), wrote in a private letter that he had consulted four different manuscript versions of this discourse, and discussed its significance with his older brother, Rabbi Zalman Aharon.9 By this point the first phase of America’s Jewish future was already underway, and it is clear from other sources that the Rashab—like many other Chassidic leaders—was somewhat ambivalent about it.10 This discourse by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi provided him with a conceptual paradigm through which to explain this ambivalence. “The giving of the Torah,” he wrote, “was on our half of the globe, and not in America.”11

Nearly four decades later, the Rashab’s son and successor—Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn (“the Rayatz,” 1880-1950)—would spend ten months visiting Jewish communities in the United States, from September 1929 to July 1930, during which he also met with President Herbert Hoover at the White House.12 In a letter written shortly after his return to Europe, he summed up his father’s explanation of America’s status as follows:

The giving of the Torah was on this half of the globe, and the revelation of the Torah in the second half of the globe will come about through a different manner of service, requiring a greater degree of potency, specifically. The general concept is that the giving of the Torah [on the upper half of the globe] was in the form of a revelation from Above, whereas the manifestation of Torah within the second half of the globe is specifically through service of utter soul-dedication (mesirat nefesh).13

This reflects a central theme in Chabad thought that would increasingly be developed and sharpened over the course of the twentieth century: This physical world holds a unique purpose that cannot be realized in any of the loftier spiritual realms that precede it. Even to reveal G‑d’s unworldly infinitude within the finite realm does not define the unique purpose of this world. Our purpose, rather, is to build a new form of divine manifestation from within this world, from within ourselves. To accomplish this we must bring the deepest essence of our souls to the fore of our consciousness, and pour that essence forth as a wholehearted gift to G‑d.

In more practical terms, mesirat nefesh means to commit your entire self to the perpetuation of Jewish life, Torah study and mitzvah observance, on the most intimate personal level and on the largest global scale.

Excerpts of Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s discourse on the status of America were first published in the form of a letter addressed by the Rayatz to his son-in-law—and eventual successor as Chabad’s leader—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson (“the Rebbe,” 1902-1994).14 By now, however, several manuscript versions of the discourse have been published in full.15

Significantly, Rayatz comments that the distinction between the systems of igulim and yosher is similar to the distinction made in Tanya, Chapter 36, between this physical world and the supernal realms: Although the latter “are immeasurably more spiritual in comparison to this physical earth of ours, nevertheless the ultimate purpose lies specifically in this lowly world.” Accordingly, the demarcation of America as “the lower half of the globe” implies not that it is of lesser importance, but, on the contrary, that it is of ultimate importance.

Rayatz presents his son-in-law with a profound, necessary, and fruitful tension. Two opposing concepts of “the lower half of the globe” are to be held together: On the manifest plane America is generally bereft of Torah, bereft of holiness. At the very same time, the curvature of spacetime indicates that G‑d’s all-encompassing presence does not distinguish between higher and lower, holy and profane. The distinction between “upper” and “lower,” Rayatz emphasized, relates “only to the manner of the revelation alone.”16

Again, this seems extraordinarily prescient.

At the time that he received this letter from his father-in-law, the Rebbe was living in Berlin. Just a few months prior, Germany had elected Adolf Hitler as chancellor; the first in a series of events that rapidly led to World War Two and the Holocaust. At this early stage, however, this violent and murderous end was by no means a foregone conclusion.

Although Rayatz considered settling in America, in the end he decided to make his new home in Poland, and it was from there that he set about strengthening and expanding the network of Chabad institutions.17 Yet, at the very same time, he was preparing his successor for the “different manner of service, requiring a greater degree of potency,” which would turn America into a new center of international Torah dissemination.18

Many years later, on the 50th anniversary of his arrival on American soil, the Rebbe applied his unique attentiveness to the nuances of the Hebrew calendar to contemplate the meaning of this date—the 28th of Sivan—and its relevance to the larger question of America’s relationship to “the giving of the Torah.”19 Sivan, the Rebbe pointed out, is the month in which the Torah was given. When written in Hebrew letters, the number 28 (כח) spells the word koach, meaning strength or potency. Accordingly, this day signifies “the potency of the giving of the Torah.”20

This is also manifest numerologically: Sivan is the third month, and in Jewish law thrice establishes a “strong” precedent. The number 28, likewise, represents the completion and supersession of 3 times 3 times 3, which equals 27.21

“The potency and might of divinity,” the Rebbe explained, “is most recognizably revealed in the physicality of this [lowest] realm.” The open manifestation of the Torah in the place where it was initially not revealed is the ultimate testimony to the unbounded potency of its manifestation. It is specifically through the work of those who inhabit the “lower half of the globe” that “the elicitation of the essence of G‑d is achieved” and “the entire edifice, including the highest spheres of the cosmos, is elevated.” 22

Moreover, it is precisely through this sort of unbounded manifestation that the inner dimension of the Torah is unprecedentedly disseminated:

It was specifically in “the lower half of the globe,” where the giving of the Torah did not occur (in a revealed manner), that chassidic teachings were revealed and the wellsprings were disseminated to the outside with much greater reach and much greater potency, more than in the preceding eras … 23

We are often inclined to look back on earlier eras nostalgically, as times of greater spiritual attainment, and there is certainly truth to that perception. Yet—unpacking the visionary insight taught by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, as preserved and developed by the seven successive leaders of Chabad—the Rebbe insisted that “the completion of the revelation of the Torah, and of the innerness of the Torah,” is to be achieved in this era, the American era; the era in which we reveal that there is no place that is not central to Torah’s vision, that—in truth—there is nothing “outside” of the singular being of G‑d; the era in which the “outside” too becomes a beacon of divine luminosity.24

The crucial thing to remember though, is this: This sort of transformation isn’t gifted by G‑d as was the initial revelation of the Torah at Mt. Sinai. This sort of transformation is left for us to gift from the divine essence of our own selves. Back in 1941, just prior to departing Lisbon, Portugal, on his way to New York, these were the final words the Rebbe inscribed in his personal journal: “Soul-dedication (mesirat nefesh) and acceptance of responsibility (kabbalat ol) reach higher and higher to the pinnacle of all stations.”25