Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, the Brooklyn-based Lubavitcher rebbe, delivered a strong if indirect rebuke last weekend to Rabbi Eliezer Schach for disparaging non-religious Jews in a March 26 speech in Tel Aviv.
Addressing his followers in Yiddish here Saturday afternoon, the Chabad leader in effect said Schach should repent for having denigrated a part of the Jewish people.
The two venerated leaders of opposing camps of strictly Orthodox Judaism have long been foes. The Lithuanian-born Schach, 92, is an implacable foe of Chabad Hasidism, which he considers pagan. He has denounced the Lubavitcher rebbe as a heretic and false messiah.
But their feud has been one-sided. At least until now, the Chabad leader has not deigned to reply to Schach’s attacks.
On Saturday, however, Schneerson’s weekly Sabbath commentary was peppered with oblique references to Schach’s now infamous speech, in which he denounced non-religious Jews in general and kibbutz members specifically for spurning religious practices.
Excerpts of the rebbe’s remarks, provided by his spokesman, Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, included assertions that “every Jew is part of God” and that “anyone who berates any Jew is touching the apple of God’s eye.”
The rebbe also was quoted as saying, “Every Jew, regardless of differences and levels of observances, is part of Am Echad,” the unified Jewish people.
While the rebbe spoke in general terms, his words seemed very much an answer to Schach, who told an audience of some 10,000 male followers at the convention of the ultra-Orthodox Degel HaTorah party that kibbutz members forfeited their right to be called Jews because they failed to observe the Sabbath, Yom Kippur and the kashrut laws.
REJECTS TERRITORIAL COMPROMISE
Schneerson also disagreed sharply, albeit indirectly, with Schach’s dovish position on the peace process and territorial compromise.
While the rabbi from Bnei Brak is prepared to trade land for peace because halachah upholds the primacy of saving lives, the Chabad leader said that the “Land of Israel” belongs to all of the Jewish people and that “no one has any permission to relinquish any part of it to anyone.”
Schach founded Degel HaTorah shortly before the 1988 Knesset elections and the larger Sephardic Shas party before the 1984 elections. Both were offshoots of the ultra-Orthodox Agudat Yisrael party, which Schach charged was taken over by the Chabad movement, though the Lubavitcher rebbe claims no involvement.
The three so-called haredi parties were part of the Likud-Labor unity coalition government that collapsed under a Labor-sponsored no-confidence motion in the Knesset on March 15.
Labor Party leader Shimon Peres is courting them in his efforts to put together a government. So far Labor has an agreement with the Agudah, but has made no headway with Degel or Shas.
Schach’s polemic against the kibbutzim seemed to shut the door to such an arrangement, since the kibbutzim are a Labor stronghold.
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