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Hi All...

Below is some background on the "Lubavitcher Rebbe" - Menachem
Mendel Schneerson, the man honored in the various US Education
Day proclamations, from Wikipedia.

Some things of note are his reaching out to non-Jewish government
leaders, honoring his birthday as Education Day in the USA, launching
of a campaign to promote observance of the Noahide Laws among gentiles,
and his study of the Kabbalah.

He sought to usher in the Messianic age, and a number of his followers
believed that he was the Messiah (some followers still do). AFAIK, he
never claimed to be the Messiah.

My "Kabbalah" (An Introduction and Illumination for the World Toady),
by Charles Ponce' - Quest Books - states in its introduction that:

   "1. The creator God of the Bible is a limited God & that he is
    subordinate to yet a higher, limitless & unknowable God, the En-Sof."
   "2. The universe is not the result of creation ex nihilo, but the
    result of a complex operation performed by the emanated attributes
    of the En-Sof, the Sefiroth."
   "3. The Sefiroth are a bridge connecting the finite universe with
    the infinite God."

That is blasphemy against the God of the Bible, which warns that false
Christs and false prophets will arise, and show great signs and wonders,
to deceive even the very elect, if it were possible ( eg Matthew 24:24,
and Mark 13:22).

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Menachem Mendel Schneerson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Rabbi M.M. Schneerson

Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (April 18, 1902-June 12, 1994) was
the last Rebbe of the Haredi Jewish movement of Chabad Lubavitch. He
was fifth in a direct paternal line to the third Chabad Lubavitch
Rebbe Rabbi Menachem Mendel (known as the Tzemach Tzedek), his
namesake.

(snip / snip)

Vision

Part of his vision was the training of thousands of young Chabad
rabbis and their wives, who were sent all over the world by him as
shluchim (Hebrew: "emissaries") to further Jewish observance.

He oversaw the building of schools, community centers, youth camps,
college campus centers (known as "Chabad houses"), and reached out to
the most powerful Jewish lay leaders and non-Jewish government leaders
wherever they found themselves. The United States Congress and
President issue annual proclamations declaring that the Rebbe's
birthday, usually a day in March or April that co-incides with his
Hebrew calendar birth-date of 11 Nisan (a Hebrew month), be observed
as Education Day in the United States.

Rabbi Schneerson instituted a system of "mitzvah campaigns" called
mivtzoim; these encouraged Jews to be keep kosher, observe Shabbat,
learn more Torah, help in writing a Torah scroll, taught women to
observe the niddah laws of Jewish family purity (laws pertaining to
menstruation and ritual immersion afterwards in a pool of water known
as a mikveh), accepting a belief in Moshiach (the Jewish Messiah).
They went out to street-corners, and rode in "mitzva tanks", mobile
outreach centers, encouraging Jews to increase their religious
observance. He also launched a campaign to promote observance of the
Noahide Laws among gentiles.

(snip / snip)

Meshichist representation

(snip)

Some Hasidim openly declared that Rabbi Schneerson had not, in fact,
"died" at all; some saying that he had "shed his mortal
body" or that
he was "in hiding", waiting for an appropriate time to "reveal
himself", in keeping with some of Schneerson's interpretations of
Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) that he articulated after the passing of
Rabbi Joseph Isaac Schneersohn.

(snip / snip)

Full article at Wikipedia ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menachem_Mendel_Schneerson

Cheers, Steve..

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