The Complexity of Successorship in Hassidism
By Dario Sulzman
The ongoing conflict between Aron Teitelbaum and his younger brother, Zalman, over who will succeed their father, the recently deceased Moses Teitelbaum as Grand Rebbe, reveals how difficult it can be to choose a new leader.
Since 1999, when Moses Teitelbaum announced to Aron of his intention to have Zalman take control of the Williamsburg community while Aron ran Kiryas Joel in Monroe, NY, conflict has erupted between the two brothers and their respective supporters. The conflict has been fought in the secular appellate courts of New York State, in the rabbinical court of the Satmar community, and in the streets of Williamsburg - where very real violence has broken out among opposing factions on a number of occasions. Both parties have announced separate wills claiming themselves the rightful successor to the Grand Rebbe. While a public reading of the Grand Rebbe’s latest will stated that the title of Grand Rebbe would be passed to Zalman, Rabbi Hertzke Zweibel, the Rosh Kollel [head scholar] of Satmar, claimed to have a separate will which designated power to Aron.
In 2001, supporters of both parties held separate elections in Williamsburg, each party declaring itself the winner of the election, which it sponsored. This has led to fierce battles in a number of different secular courts, and the judges themselves seem as divided as the Satmar community. In 2004, Judge Barasch threw the case out, claiming that it was not a matter to be decided by secular courts, but by the decision of the Grand Rebbe. Counter to Barasch’s decision, Judge Rosenwasser stated a year later that, “This Court is of the view that this property dispute can be resolved through neutral principles of law without resort to judicial intrusion into matters of religious doctrine or succession."
After the Grand Rebbe’s death, his latest will naming Zalman to take over the position of Grand Rebbe, merely sparked more controversy. The will was written in 2002, during the last years of the Grand Rebbe’s life, in which he was delicately cited as having “a touch of Alzheimer’s” (Yankel Scheider, Hasidic News).
Since Grand Rebbe’s death and the subsequent discovery of the 2002 will, the conflict became increasingly centered on which social forum was a legitimate means of deciding a new Grand Rebbe. Spokesmen for Zalman insist that the last will of the Grand Rebbe is a valid practice for passing the mantle of leadership. They further cite the decisions of both a secular court and a rabbinical court, which upheld the last will of the Grand Rebbe.
However, spokesmen for Aron point out that none of these practices are historically conventional means for choosing a successor in Hasidism.
“This is not a court issue,” said Rabbi Moshe Indig, a Satmar community leader. “The courts have nothing to do with succession.”
Richard J. Schwartz, a lawyer for Aaron’s side, insisted that successorship should not be decided by a last will or a rabbinical court, but by the Satmar board of directors. However, a vote by the board of directors is no more conventional than one made by a rabbinical court.
While it is clear that both sides are attempting to legitimate methods of deciding successorship that will favor them, and subsequently disregarding methods which will not, this is only a surface understanding of a far more complex issue—that, historically, there has never been any hard and fast criteria by which a new Rebbe is chosen in Hasidism once an old Rebbe passes away.
“There’s no definite rule,” Says Samuel Heilman, Professor of Sociology and Judaic Studies at Queens College
The process of choosing a new leader is probably one of the oldest and most complex problems of human civilization. One need only look back six years to the 2000 Election quagmire to see how the United States found itself in a position similar to that of the Satmar Hasidim.
Furthermore, the Satmar are not the only Hasidic sect to have found their community divided over who will replace an old Rebbe. The Bobover Hasidim of Boro Park currently have two Rebbes, each claiming to be the rightful successor of the late Rebbe Naftali Halberstam, who died in 2005. The Viznitz dynasty split between the late Chaim Meir Hager’s two sons Moshe and Mordechai Hager following WWII, and as far back as 1813, Rabbi Dov Baer’s succession to his father’s place was contested by his father’s star disciple, Aaron Ben Moses Halevi.
The historical criteria for successorship in Hasidim, and how that criteria has changed over time, reveals a great deal about the present conflict between Aron and Zalman Teitelbaum. While choosing a new leader of any community is rarely easy, in Hasidism it is not only a question of socio-political leadership, but of spiritual leadership as well.
The Role of Grand Rebbe
“If he had lived in the time of prophets he would have been a prophet.” Leib Sarah, a disciple of the Baal Shem Tov, speaking of his master.
The role of Grand Rebbe in Hasidism is extensive and multifaceted.
“He is something between a religious leader, a father-confessor, an intermediary between the believers and god [and] the head of a kind of extended family,” said Heilman.
Indeed, it does not go unnoticed by the Hasidim themselves that it is almost unfair to put such a heavy burden of responsibility upon a single human being.
“The great spiritual leaders [of the Hasidic movement] have always had a sense of how inadequate they are in the face of such enormous responsibility,” Rabbi Eli Silberstein stated, a Lubavitsch rabbi from Ithaca, NY.
Heredity has tended historically to play a large role in successorship. Outstanding scholarship is also a strong necessity, although, Heilman says, “more so in later years.”
The very nature of Hasidism demands that a spiritual leader possess more than just scholarship and the right blood. The belief in the supernatural is present in Hasidic belief not as a legacy of ancient times but as an integral aspect in present reality. The legacy of great Hasidic masters is carried on to a large extent by tales of real miracles that they inspired during their lifetime.
The founder of Hasidism, the Baal Shem Tov, was the son of “common” parents. While he grew to have an impressive knowledge of Torah and Talmudic law, there is some debate as to whether he was ever actually ordained as a rabbi. What cannot be denied is that the Baal Shem Tov built up an impressive following through his unique methods of teaching. He communicated his wisdom through anecdotes, parables and metaphors - techniques that have long since fallen into disuse among the rabbinate. He explained his dreams of speaking to God. But there was also something about him that was special in a way that defied analysis. Tzvi Rabinowicz, in his book, Hasidism: The Movement and its Masters, writes that “no one could meet him without falling under the spell of his unique personality.”
From its inception up to the present day, the great leaders of the Hasidic movement have all possessed the power of charisma. Whether it was the Baal Shem Tov, who amazed followers by telling them of dreams in which he spoke to God, or Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the recently deceased Lubavitsch Rebbe of Crown Heights who had a reputation for an uncanny knack for personal details about people in his congregation, the greatest Hasidic masters have always exuded energy, indefinable and unique, seen by followers as nothing less then a definitive indicator of close communication with the divine.
Heredity
Although the Baal Shem Tov had a son, Rabbi Tzvi, he did not succeed the deceased. Instead, it was one of his disciples, the Maggid of Mezirech.
“Originally, the people who became Rebbes were disciples of previous Rebbes,” Heilmann asserts. “But very soon after the beginning of the Hasidic dynasty each of these Rebbes, who established themselves in a village or town with a number of followers, began to have a kind of charisma of his own and these followers came to believe that this charisma was somehow ‘in the blood,’ that some way or another it could be passed on to a son.”
Rabbi Silberstein points out that in Jewish tradition, the laws of inheritance do not merely apply to property but to positions of power as well.
“If there was a child who was qualified [to lead], even if there’s somebody else who’s a little more qualified, the leadership should go first to the child.”
While traditionally the oldest son assumes leadership, this does not always happen. Furthermore, there are a number of provisions in Judaism for successorship through extended family if no son exists to take control.
Historically, heredity has not been an unconditional prerequisite in Hasidism. Perhaps the most important factor in the successful transfer of leadership is the unequivocal endorsement of a particular individual as successor by the elder Rebbe while he is still alive and healthy.
The Modern World
In the 18th and 19th centuries, many rabbis wrote about this very conflict: hereditary successorship versus someone who was a true inspiration to his followers. However, what they could not have predicted was how the world would change in the 20th Century. While Hasidism was still centrally located in Europe, disputed leadership between two rabbis was usually settled by the smaller following-rabbi’s leaving to another town to start a new congregation - a practice Heilman deftly refers to as “voting with your feet.”
Following the Holocaust, the Hasidic movement in Europe was devastated. Most of the rabbis who managed to survive moved to New York and rebuilt their communities there, which is where the central leadership of most Hasidic sects is located today. No longer are Hasidic communities primarily located in isolated townships, but are condensed urban neighborhoods.
“They’re all within a few blocks of each other in Brooklyn,” Heilman said. “They don’t take on new names because they’re too close, so there’s a competition over the name.”
Another problem of the modern world for Hasidic successorship is old age. Because of modern medicine, Rabbis today are living longer. Old age often comes with dementia and other illnesses. Subsequently, an older Rebbe’s endorsement of his successor becomes more confusing for his community to process.
“When they do get ill,” Heilman says, “they might say things which are not consistent with what they said at their mental peak.”
“In the last number of generations [succession] is not something Hasidim have handled very well,” Heilman said frankly. Rabbi Silberstein, to some extent agrees.
“Its no secret,” he said, “it’s not how it used to be. The Rebbes today are not how they used to be.”
Yet there have been two Hasidim sects that after the death of one of their leaders have done what other sects consider unthinkable: they have refused to appoint a new Grand Rebbe. The first Hasidic sect to do this was the Breslov Hasidim after the death of the great Reb Nahman in the early 19th century in the Ukraine. The second time was in the Lubavitsch sect of Crown Heights after the death of Menachem Mendel Schneerson in 1994. There are certain disadvantages to this.
“[The Hasidic community] lacks the ability to have a face-to-face relationship with [their Rebbe],” Heilman said.
Rabbi Silberstein, who belongs to the Lubavitcher Hasidim himself, maintains that a leader, although not physically present, can still be connected with spiritually.
“In the absence of a physical person, we will continue to connect with him and we believe and trust that he connects with us.”
