The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference

The Rebbe the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference is a book by Rabbi Dr. David Berger on the topic of Chabad messianism and the mainstream orthodox Jewish reaction to that trend. Rabbi Berger addresses the Chabad-Messianic question, regarding a dead Messiah, from a halachic perspective. The book is written as a historical narrative of Berger's encounter with Chabad messianism from the time of the death of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson in 1994 through the book's publication in 2001. The narrative is interlaced with Dr. Berger's published articles, written correspondences, and transcribed public lectures, in which he passionately appeals to both the leadership of the Orthodox and Chabad communities for an appropriate response to Chabad-Lubavitch messianism.

Criticism of Chabad-Lubavitch messianism

Berger, an academic expert on Jewish responses to Christianity, particularly claims of Jesus's messiahship and divinity, criticized what he viewed as similar assertions made by some religious leaders of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement about Schneerson shortly after Schneerson's death in 1994 and even in 2014. Berger argues that the assertion a person could begin a messianic mission, die, and posthumously return to complete his mission has been unanimously rejected by the Sages and Jewish polemicists for nearly 2,000 years. An example of Berger's proof-texts is the passage in the Talmud which shows that Rabbi Akiva set aside his previous assertions of Simon Bar Kokhba's presumed messiahship after Bar Kokhba was put to death. To Berger, the Messianists' viewpoint on this issue is outside the pale of accepted Orthodox Jewish belief.