Shmuel Butman, descendant of the founder of the Chabad faith, and a prominent Chabad-Lubavitch leader for many years, died last month, thirty years after the death of his second cousin, the last Rebbe of the sect, whom he promoted as Messiah for many years. Butman was very well connected in the contemporary group, as the leader's close relative, and brother in law of leading Lubavitch teacher Reb Yoel Kahn, among other ties.
In the wake of his passing it was interesting to see some of the coverage and discussion that ensued. The establishment of Chabad Inc. (directed by senior Chabad leader, and spinmeister in chief Yudel Krinsky) which toils mightily to hide, play down, and obfuscate the messianism of the movement and its enduring pervasive belief that their late leader is the Messiah even today, crafted an obituary which totally omitted Butman's and the sect's messianism for its website. That astonishing, gaping, blatant, giant act of revisionism, led even a major Modern Orthodox promoter of Chabad to call them out for their massive manipulation.
On the other hand, the New York Times had a fairly good obituary of him, which, rightfully and accurately prominently covered Butman's messianic activism (a video of which we featured here a while back). An important and very relevant comment at the end of the piece by Professor Samuel Heilman about Butman and Chabad-Lubavitch messianism, aroused the ire of some Chabad tweeters, as Heilman failed to kowtow to the sect and go along with their PR spin, as they would have liked.
Modern Chabad-Lubavitch is giving us better understanding of Messianic movements of the past, like the Sabbateans, who continued to follow their leader for many years after his death. So too, Chabad-Lubavitch persists in its belief that their last Rebbe is the messiah, more than thirty years after his passing. Fittingly, even on Butman's very recently installed tombstone (as seen at his Chabadpedia page), his late cousin, the Rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch is referred to as מה"מ, a Hebrew abbreviation for מלך המשיח (King Messiah).
May Hashem give us the wisdom, discernment, and courage to resist the temptation of spurious, false messiahs, and their promoters, and in the merit of that, send us our true redeemer soon.
