Reviews

While not the first, Rubin’s book is among the very few that aim to address the his­to­ry of the Chabad move­ment as a whole, plac­ing its major fig­ures in dia­logue with one anoth­er. Kab­bal­ah and the Rup­ture of Moder­ni­ty does so not in a devo­tion­al or ahis­tor­i­cal man­ner, but by explor­ing the rebbes’ writ­ings as con­scious and strate­gic efforts to forge a dis­tinct Lubav­itch tra­di­tion, con­struct the legit­i­ma­cy of their lead­er­ship, and respond to the com­plex chal­lenges of mod­ern times.

May 23, 2025