In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we talk to Eli Rubin—a scholar, Lubavitcher Hasid, and author of the forthcoming book Kabbalah and the Rupture of Modernity: An Existential History of Chabad Hasidism—about life’s big cosmic questions.

Chabad and the Rebbe are so ubiquitous in Jewish life that we tend to overlook Chabad’s underlying philosophy. Here, we take the time to look under the hood of the Mitzvah Tank. In this episode we discuss:

• At its core, what is Hasidism about, and how did the Rebbe implement these essentials in a new time and a new land? 
• What should we picture when we imagine moshiach? 
• Has Chabad splintered off from mainstream Judaism the way some have feared?

Tune in to hear a conversation about what it means to want moshiach now. 

Interview begins at 11:27. 

Eli Rubin, a contributing editor at Chabad.org, is the author of Kabbalah and the Rupture of Modernity: An Existential History of Chabad Hasidism (forthcoming from Stanford University Press). He was a co-author of Social Vision: The Lubavitcher Rebbe's Transformative Paradigm for the World (Herder and Herder, 2019). He studied Chassidic literature and Jewish Law at the Rabbinical College of America and at Yeshivot in the UK, the US and Australia, and received his PhD from the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University College London.

References:

Kabbalah and the Rupture of Modernity: An Existential History of Chabad Hasidism by Eli Rubin

Social Vision: The Lubavitcher Rebbe's Transformative Paradigm for the World by Philip Wexler, Eli Rubin, and Michael Wexler

18Forty Podcast: “Eli Rubin: How Do Mysticism and Social Action Intersect”

Tanya, Part I; Likkutei Amarim 32

Tanya, Part I; Likkutei Amarim 36

Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menahem Mendel Schneerson by Elliot R. Wolfson

Mishneh Torah, Kings and Wars 12

Eruvin 13b

The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference by David Berger

The Messiah Problem by Chaim Rapoport

Iggeret HaKodesh: Epistle 27

Engaging the Essence: The Philosophy of the Lubavitcher Rebbe by Rabbi Dr. Yosef Bronstein