98 ETHOS We Want To See Our King Apparit PDF

98 ETHOS
“We Want to See Our King”: Apparitions

in Messianic Habad
Yoram Bilu
Abstract Reports of apparitions of the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the last leader of the
Habad Hasidic movement, have been spreading among the radically messianic Hasidim (meshichistim) in
Israel, who maintain that the Rabbi, the designated Messiah, has not died. Expanding on the cognitive model
of source misattribution, I seek to account for the apparitions by unpacking the messianic ecology cultivated by
the meshichistim to make the absent Rabbi present. Habad’s dialectical mysticism and anguish over the Rabbi’s
disappearance are likely to provide the mindset and motivation for sightings, but it is the rich array of icons
and traces of the Rabbi, and mimetic practices in which they are embedded, that constitute the perceptual
field where he can be seen. This cultural décor is particularly evident for apparitions in ritual arenas, while
apparitions in mundane settings are often triggered by acute distress. Comparing the apparitions to visions in
Christianity, I account for the lingering ambivalence toward apparitions in messianic Habad by highlighting the
epistemological constraints imposed on them by the denial of the Rabbi’s death. [apparitions, Habad Hasidism,
signal detection theory, messianic ecology, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneeerson]
In terms of magnitude and acuteness, the messianic fervor that swept the Habad Hasidic
movement under the leadership of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson has not been
observed in Judaism since the heydays of the Sabbatian movement in the second half of
the 17th century (Dahan 2006; Dan 1999; Dein 2010; Ehrlich 2000; Elior 1993; Friedman
1994; Heilman 2001; Heilman and Friedman 2010; Kraus 2007; Loewentahl 1994; Ravitzky
1991; Shaffir 1993).1 Although the charismatic Rabbi promoted the notion of imminent
redemption without explicitly referring to himself as the designated Messiah,2 most of
the Hasidim came to the conclusion that he had to be the chosen one. His success in
transforming Habad into a transnational movement and a leading force in the Jewish world,
and his accuracy in forecasting various historical events, such as Israel’s victory in the 1967
War, the collapse of the Soviet union and the exodus of its Jews, viewed as signs of the
forthcoming redemption, have bolstered this identification.
The messianic conviction was corroded but not shattered by the death of the childless Rabbi
on June 12, 1994.3 Habad today is as popular as ever despite the apparent oxymoron of
a Hasidic community without a zaddik (Hasidic master).4 But the headless movement has
been seized by a growing friction entailing, among other matters, the ontological status
of the absent Rabbi. Most Hasidim have acquiesced to his death while still hoping for his
resurrection as the Messiah. But a significant minority of radical Hasidim called meshichistim
(“messianists”) flatly denies the Rabbi’s demise claiming that he continues to live, invisible
ETHOS, Vol. 41, Issue 1, pp. 98–126, ISSN 0091-2131 online ISSN 1548-1352.
C 2013 by the American Anthropological
Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/etho.12004

APPARITIONS IN MESSIANIC HABAD 99
but intact, in “770,” his abode and the movement’s epicenter, located at 770 Eastern Parkway,
Crown Heights, Brooklyn.5 The meshichistim maintain that the Rabbi will reveal himself
as the redeemer tekhef u-miyad mamash (“immediately and without delay in actuality”).6 But
until this imminent yet ever-stretchable future is realized (see Kravel-Tovi and Bilu 2008),
they, too, have to handle the painful void engendered by the Rabbi’s disappearance. This
they endeavor to do by cultivating a rich messianic ecology, replete with signs and prompts of
the absent Rabbi and punctuated by ritual practices designed to “enliven” him (Kravel-Tovi
2009; Kravel-Tovi and Bilu 2008). The messianic ambiance thus constructed serves as the
backdrop for the phenomenon I highlight here: reports of apparitions or sightings of the
Rabbi among the Hasidim since 1994.
I have been studying the messianic surge in the Israeli communities of Habad since 2003.
Starting almost a decade after the Rabbi passed away, my focus has been the array of means
used by the Hasidim to render the absent Rabbi palpably close (cf. Luhrmann 2004, 2012).
I culled most of the testimonies of apparitions from the weekly messianic publication, Si’hat
Ha-Geulah (Discourse on Redemption), that commenced publication July 1994, three weeks af-
ter the Rabbi’s death. The textual material is augmented by interviews conducted in 2008–10
with 21 meshichistim, ten of whom reported sightings of the Rabbi. Most of the interviewees
are males of Ashkenazi (Euro-American) background roughly equally divided between born
Habadniks and religious returnees. The first interviews were conducted with activists on
the board of Si’hat Ha-Geulah in the town of Bat-Yam, and then spread, using a “snowball”
method, to other Habad communities in Israel. All in all, interviewees were willing subjects,
ready to share their experiences and pleased that they were granted scholarly attention. After
being promised full confidentiality all consented to recording of the interviews. All inter-
views were conducted in Hebrew. The messianic publications from which the apparition
reports were collected were all in Hebrew too. The excerpts used for this study were trans-
lated into English by the author. The various sources yielded a total sum of 76 testimonies
of apparitions. Fifty-seven of the published reports were put together in a special volume,
titled Lifko’ah et Ha-Einayim [To Open the Eyes (2007)].
Of all the offshoots of Habad’s messianic ecology, apparitions test most defiantly the limits of
the painful void of Schneerson’s disappearance, making the Rabbi temporarily visible for the
seers. For the social scientist intrigued by apparitions’ challenge to sense-based reality, the
elaborate messianic ecology cultivated by the meshichistim provides a golden opportunity
for tracking processes through which apparitions are achieved. Accounts of visual encounters
with the Rabbi in 770, where setting and schedule are highly structured, offer a particularly
unobstructed view of these processes. Capitalizing on the richness of the testimonies and
the density of the messianic ambiance in which they germinated, my aim here is to make
sense of the apparitions, to outline how they come about in the current historical moment,
using a framework that is experience-near yet theoretically informed. I seek to unpack
the “cultural invitation” (Luhrmann 2011, 2012) that shapes the visual experiences under
discussion and situate them in a comparative framework against the rich ethnographic and
historical material on visions and revelations in Christianity.7
100 ETHOS
In terms of settings and circumstances, the reported experiences coalesce into two clusters
that differ significantly and capture a bifurcation in the phenomenology of seeing the Rabbi,
and perhaps of visions at large. Whereas a minority of the apparitions took place in mundane
settings, where they were often triggered by imminent danger, most of them were reported
from 770 or other Habad centers where the presence of the Rabbi is taken for granted
in meshichistic discourse. This ontological presumption molds the apparitions in Habad’s
ritual settings in a peculiarly realistic cast, the theoretical import of which I seek to highlight
by comparing these apparitions with similar phenomena in Christianity. I argue that even
though apparitions dramatically defy the predicament of invisibility, or perhaps just because
of it, they play an ambiguous role in the “trial of faith” with which Habadniks have been
preoccupied since 1994. This ambiguity I link to the hyperrealism of the apparitions in 770
and other ritual settings, which curtails their imaginative horizons and impoverishes their
redemptive vision.
To grasp the full epistemological consequences of Habad’s ritual apparitions, it is essential

to distinguish them from other related phenomena. Without ignoring the risk of obscuring
their malleability (Taves 2009b:149), I elucidate below the way I am using the category of
apparitions in reference to related terms such as vision, hallucination, and visualization.
Vision is a fuzzy category, encompassing a wide variety of experiences ranging “from ‘en-
counters’ that exhibit the tenuous and fleeting features of dreams to experiences that are
virtually indistinguishable from those that mark the ordinary perception of public events”
(Wiebe 1997:213). Although Wiebe does not posit a clear line between visions and appari-
tions, he refers to New Testament scholars who use “apparitions” (or “appearances”) for
visual encounters grounded in physical reality as against the more ephemeral and spiritual
nature of visions (Wiebe 1997:142). In this sense, apparitions belong to the more “objective”
pole, entailing ordinary perception of public events. As I show, this meaning fits well with
experiences of seeing the Rabbi in Habad. All beholders reported that they saw the Rabbi
“out there,” while fully awake, with their eyes open. The Rabbi was seen clearly and trans-
parently, just as he was in his lifetime, and his appearance did not entail any change in the
physical environment. This characterization of apparition draws it closer to hallucination,
“the apparent perception (usu. by sight or by hearing) of an external object when no such
object is actually present” (Wiebe 1997:195), but the two categories should not be conflated.
The differences between apparition and hallucination are spelled out below. Implications of
the more ephemeral and spiritual character of visions are discussed in the conclusions.
Visualization refers to a set of practices designed to elicit vivid images in the mind (Luhrmann
2012; Newman 2005; Noll 1985; Taves 2009a). Note that the lines among visualization,
vision, and apparition are porous. Because mystics, shamans, and gurus seek to dissolve
boundaries between mind and reality, a meditative exercise starting with the eyes shut, in
which visual imagery is deliberately invoked and enhanced, may collapse into a full-fledged
apparition, as the image “seen” in the mind’s eye turns into an experienced palpable object
in physical reality. The fact that visualization training is likely to involve absorption—
narrowing of attention by focusing on the mind’s object while ignoring background stimuli
(Luhrmann 2012:200)—might be conducive to this process. However, the introduction of

absorption further confounds attempts at demarcation because it involves some aspect of
altered consciousness, blurring the distinction between wakeful awareness and a trancelike,
dissociative state. Because Habadniks are encouraged to elicit vivid images of the Rabbi in
time of need—often with the Rabbi’s picture as a prompt—visualization can be a mediating
link on the way to apparitions. For analytic purposes, I limit my use of visualization to the
practice of eliciting visual images in one’s consciousness, viewing it as a procedure while
bearing in mind that the outcome of the mental processes it evokes can be full-fledged
apparitions.
General Attributes of the Apparitions

Visual encounters with the Rabbi increase over the years. Of the 76 apparitions reported
throughout 1994–2010, yielding an annual average of 4–5 cases, 75 percent occurred in the
second half of that period. The background characteristics of the seers vary. Women and
children, overrepresented in modern Marian apparitions (Christian 1981, 1996; Zimdars-
Swartz 1991:54), are a minority here. Only one-third of the adults were women, while
children compose just 13 percent of all seers. Unlike the typical Marian apparition pat-
tern, in which girls are overrepresented, almost all young seers are boys. Although most
reports come from rank and file Hasidim, some are also from well-known rabbinical fig-
ures. New Hasidim, recent immigrants to Habad, are strongly represented among the seers.
Non-Habadniks, including a few who are entirely nonobservant, are also among the seers.
Over two-thirds of the reports come from Israelis, equally divided between Ashkenazi and
Mizrahi Jews.8 The relative salience of newcomers and Mizrahim among the seers is con-
gruent with the contention that messianic enthusiasm is more evident in the movement’s
periphery and among new Habadniks (Bilu 2009; Szubin 2000). Most seers reported a single
apparition, but in some cases the Rabbi is seen twice or more on different occasions by
one individual.9 A few simultaneous apparitions, usually involving a dyad, were reported
too.
In terms of location, a substantial majority of apparitions occurred in religious arenas associ-

ated with Habad. No fewer than 39 cases—more than half of the entire corpus—took place
in 770, the Rabbi’s house, and another 15—in Habad Houses, synagogues, and religious
academies. Apparitions in nonreligious locations compose just over a quarter of the reports.
Still, these locations are quite varied, lending support to the notion that the Rabbi can reveal
himself anywhere, at home (even “between the refrigerator and the kitchen sink,” as one
female seer put it), in schools, hospitals and buses, and outdoors, even in the depths of the
ocean or forest. Globally, the Rabbi is seen primarily in the United States (almost exclusively
in 770) and a bit less so in Israel (but all over the country), with a few apparitions reported
from Australia, India, Vietnam, and Egypt (Sinai).
In terms of timing, about half of the apparitions are sighted on festive days, and the rate
rose to 75 percent for those occurring in 770. No less than one-third of the apparitions in
102 ETHOS
770 occurred on High Holidays dotting the month of Tishrei, mostly in Sukkoth (Feast of
Tabernacles). In Habad, as in other Hasidic sects, Tishrei is the preferred time for visiting
the Rabbi; and this custom does not subside following the Rabbi’s disappearance (Kravel-
Tovi and Bilu 2008). Sim’hat Torah at the end of Sukkoth, in which the completion of the
annual cycle of Torah reading is celebrated by dancing with the Torah in “encirclements”
(ha’ka’fot), was imbued with special spiritual power by previous Habad presidents. The Rabbi
followed suit, linking Sim’hat Torah with the redemption, and actively participating in the
dances. Thus mystically charged, the last days of Sukkoth are explicitly deemed by messianic
activists “auspicious days for seeing the face of the Rabbi” (Lifko’ah et Ha-Einayim 2007:78).
Indeed, most revelations during the week of Sukkoth occurred on Sim’hat Torah. Other
auspicious days for seeing the Rabbi were the Sabbath, the festivals of Passover and Purim,
and the dates of his birthday and disappearance according to the Jewish calendar (11 Nissan
and 3 Tammuz, respectively). The spatial and temporal dimensions of the apparitions are
interconnected. Eighty percent of the sightings on festive days took place in 770. The
majority of revelations on mundane days occurred in ritually unmarked settings.
Most apparition sightings are brief, ranging from a few seconds to a minute or two; just
long enough to afford eye contact with the Rabbi, followed by a nonverbal gesture of
encouragement on his part. Reports of verbal messages from the Rabbi are usually limited to
laconic statements—a short blessing or command or a few words of encouragement. In two
cases the Rabbi’s messages evolve into an elaborate discourse. The polyglot Rabbi addressed
percipients in their native languages: Hebrew, Yiddish, English, or French.
How to Account for the Apparitions?

Although apparitions bear formal resemblance to visual hallucinations, reducing seers’ ex-
periences to psychiatric symptoms is category fallacy. To support this view, one does not
even have to turn to the rich ethnographic data on culturally enjoined hallucinatory expe-
riences across the globe (al-Issa 1995; Bourguignon 1970; Menezes and Moreira-Almeida
2010).10 The notion that hallucinations are not exclusive to schizophrenia and appear in
normal populations in rates well over 10 percent has been established in surveys spanning
a century-long period (Boksa 2009; Luhrmann 2011; Sidgwick et al. 1894; Tien 1991).11
Recurring studies indicate that in the context of grief after death of a spouse, one-third to
one-half of the bereaved report hallucinations involving the deceased (Carlsson and Nilsson
2007; Grimby 1993). All this should not grant a sweeping immunity from mental problems
to every one claiming to have seen the Rabbi. However, the varied backgrounds of the seers
and the fact that most were functioning quite adequately in their communities, without
a known psychiatric history, render an indiscriminate adoption of the psychopathological
model inadequate. Because apparitions in Habad are rare, brief, and gratifying, they may
be categorized as “sensory overrides” (Luhrmann 2011, 2012:230–232) to avoid the clinical
connotations of hallucinations.
I argue that the Rabbi’s sightings can be cogently apprehended as a contextual accom-
plishment (cf. Berryman 2001:597) evolving in Habad’s elaborate messianic ecology. In
accounting for the cognitive processes that give rise to the apparitions, signal detection
theory lends itself as a promising orientation point. In terms of the model it provides, hal-
lucinations are the outcome of misattribution in source monitoring otherwise achieved by
the cognitive procedure designed to sort out external events from internal ones and cat-
egorize them accordingly (Bentall 2002, 2003). Misattributions leading to hallucinations
occur with interference in source monitoring, blurring the otherwise easily available dis-
tinction between external and internal stimulation. Bentall (2002:103) identifies three sets of
interfering factors: beliefs and expectations, stress (emotional arousal), and environmental
noise.
However, despite its elegance, the source misattribution model is too experience-distant
to capture the richness and dialectical complexity of Habad’s messianic lifeworld in which
reported experiences of seeing the Rabbi germinate. I embark here on the triad of factors
suggested by Bentall, seeking to thicken and enrich their role in charting the course of
the apparitions, while problematizing the model’s clear-cut distinctions. In accounting for
the apparitions, it is likely that Habad’s mystical doctrine and the Hasidim’s enduring
anguish over the Rabbi’s absence resonate with cognitive expectations and emotional arousal,
respectively, as predisposing factors. But it is the rich array of cultural artifacts and practices
that plays the decisive role in shaping and “inviting” the majority of apparitions occurring
in the ritual arenas of 770 and secondary centers. What the cognitive model portrays as
ambiguous stimulation or “noise,” an ethnographic experience-near perspective reframes as
“context”: the cultural framework and social circumstances constituting and constituted by
the messianic ecology. Let me elaborate.
In terms of beliefs and expectations, Habad’s mystical theosophy, promulgated by the move-
ment’s founder, Schneur Zalman (1745–1812), and further cultivated by his successors,
promotes a hermeneutic of suspicion toward empirical reality (Elior 1993; Ravitzky 1991;
Schwartz 2010). Scholars who view it as acosmic, maintain that such mysticism “denies
the substantiality of the manifest world and attributes sole substance, vitality, and spiritual
essence to the hidden God” (Elior 1993:220). Others maintain that Habad’s theosophy
contains both acosmic and panentheistic elements, without seeking to resolve the tension
between them (Schwartz 2010; Wolfson 2009).12
It is an open question whether rank and file Hasidim are thoroughly acquainted with ex-
egetical nuances highlighted by scholars.13 Still, that the “doctrine of the unity of opposites”
(as dubbed in Habad) blurs boundaries between being and nothingness, material and spir-
itual, manifest and latent is not lost on the Hasidim. The challenge to binary oppositions,
amplified by the conviction that human perception of the world is shortsighted and illusory,
may facilitate the acceptance of sensory experiences without material source. At the same
time, the fact that a mystical movement with an acosmic accent such as Habad is so strongly
involved with the real world, invested as it is in Jewish and world affairs, is no less than
intriguing. To resolve this tension, one should take into account that Schneur Zalman’s
104 ETHOS
mystical doctrine was designed for the wide Jewish masses, the “mediocre” (bei’nonim) in his
language, and therefore underwent a massive process of systematization and routinization
(Pedaya 2011). A clear-cut bifurcation allotted bounded prayer time for mystical absorption
and self-effacement (but even then under the control of reflective awareness) while the rest
of the day was viewed as a profane time in which engagement with the real was approved
and, by sheer contrast, even enhanced. I argue that the attempt to domesticate and routinize
mystical experiences and intensive involvement with the real have a bearing on the nature
of Habad’s apparitions today.
The general reluctance to acquiesce with the painful absence of the Rabbi fits the slot of
emotional arousal or stress factors in the model. “We want to see our King,” is a common
cri de coeur among Habadniks since June 12, 1994. Two-tier talk of the meshicistim is note-
worthy. Although openly conveying the optimistic conviction that the Rabbi’s disappearance
is just an ordeal comparable with Moses’ 40 days of concealment on Mount Sinai before
receiving the Torah, they bemoan his absence and constantly beseech him to reveal him-
self at once (Kravel-Tovi and Bilu 2008:74). Aside from general anguish over the Rabbi’s
absence, some of the experiences of seeing him are precipitated by acute and situation-
specific stress as I elaborate in comparing apparitions encountered in ritual and mundane
settings.
Cognitive expectation and emotional arousal are likely to supply the mindset and motivation
for the proclivity to see the Rabbi in moments of perceptual “breaks” (Luhrmann 2011:73).
But it is the constellation of concrete signs and markers of the Rabbi, and the practices in
which they are embedded that structure the perceptual field in which the Rabbi can be seen.
For the sake of analysis, I divide this array into three groupings: icons, traces, and mimetic
practices of embodiment.
Icons
Widespread circulation of the Rabbi’s pictures in messianic Habad and beyond is unprece-
dented in the Jewish world. Impressive portraits of the Rabbi, with his long flowing white
beard and piercing blue eyes, adorn posters, signposts, books, magazines, charity boxes,
clocks and watches, ritual cups, key-binders, visa cards, medallions, and much more. It
should be noted that aniconism in Judaism has been gradually eroded in the modern period,
as pictures of rabbis and sages became a popular means for aggrandizing and disseminat-
ing their charisma.14 Still, as Balakirsky-Katz (2007, 2010) shows, Habad was ahead of any
other orthodox group in using pictures; and this culminated in an elaborate visual culture
amounting to iconophilia during the Rabbi’s long reign. The Rabbi’s personality cult and
his image as a religious and political leader far beyond the movement’s circles were bolstered
by his wide visual exposure. After 1994, this visual repertory became a major resource for
making the absent Rabbi present and visible. For many contemporary Hasidim—particularly
newcomers and younger followers who have never seen the Rabbi in vivo—the photographs
supplant rather than supplement the traditional master–disciple relationship.15
The ubiquity of the Rabbi’s portraits in messianic publications constitutes visual bom-
bardment in hagiographies, in which text is dotted with numerous pictures of him.16 This
redundancy assures that readers find it difficult to avert their gaze from the Rabbi. Visual
omnipresence governs the messianic ecology at large, given the multiplicity and magni-
tude of the Rabbi’s portraits in the homes of meshichistim—an abundance and volume that
generate an eerie sensation of intimate attendance (Dein 2010:91–92, 113–121).
The vividness and vitality of the Rabbi’s visual images are augmented with moving pictures.
Video clips of the Rabbi’s Hasidic gatherings, shown incessantly in 770 and in various
Habad Houses, can produce an uncanny sense of real presence (Shandler 2009:252).17 This
presence is not sustained only by the video’s “liveliness” in comparison with still pictures but
also by the temporal equivalence that often exists between actual events commemorated in
the videos and their screening. In 770, this congruence is spatial too, because, for example, a
video shown there on Sim’hat Torah was not only taken on the same festive occasion but also
in the same location as that of the original celebration. Two audiences are involved in the
screening of these videos, one virtual, projected with the Rabbi on the screen, and the other
actual, watching the video. When these two crowds, similar in appearance and posture, cry
out “Amen” in unison following the Rabbi’s sermon, the virtual and the actual are difficult
to disentangle.18
I do not wish to claim that Habadniks suffer from “epistemological vertigo” as a result
of their exposure to the Rabbi’s videos. Yet the sense of lively presence engendered by
the movies affords all Hasidim, moderate as well as radical, the possibility of retaining a
vivid image of the Rabbi in their memory. In highlighting the salience and pervasiveness
of the Rabbi’s portraits, I am also not arguing that they are a necessary or even a sufficient
condition for seeing him. Vivid encounters with otherworldly figures preceded the invention
of photography and, as archaic layers of religious experience, had probably existed long
before elaborate iconography was in use. Still, I argue that icons facilitate apparitions;
and photographs—as an unvarnished emanation of the referent, constitute a “certificate
of presence” (Barthes 1981:80). The association between Habad’s visual culture and the
experiences of seeing the Rabbi is likely mediated by a strong cognitive schema generated
by wide exposure to the Rabbi’s pictures.
In processing the Rabbi’s portraits into enduring and accessible visual imagery, visualization
techniques play an important role. The widespread Hasidic practice of portraying the face of
a tsaddiq in one’s mind was enthusiastically embraced by the Rabbi. He urged his followers
to visualize the face of his predecessor and father-in-law, Rabbi Yosef Yitzhak (RaYaTZ),
whenever asking for his intercession, explicitly instructing those who had never seen RaYaTZ
to use his picture as a visual aid. The Rabbi urged his Hasidim to bond with RaYaTZ on his
tomb in the Old Montefiore Cemetery in Queens by visualizing his presence there, and in
all probability followed this practice himself during his regular visits there.19 The Rabbi also
encouraged the Hasidim to invoke the image of the Messiah (without explicitly identifying
him) on various festive occasions, primarily on the last day of Passover, during the “Messiah’s
dance” the Rabbi himself had initiated. Many Hasidim followed his suggestive instructions
106 ETHOS
by visualizing the Rabbi-cum-Messiah dancing with them. Apparitions in which the Rabbi
was dancing amid the Hasidim were reported by meshichistim following his disappearance.
The Hasidim have incorporated the Rabbi’s encouragement to use visualization, as indicated
by the many stories in which they remark on eliciting his image in their mind when facing
a problem. Habadniks resort to visualization particularly in emergency situations, when
the Rabbi’s intercession is required at once. As indicated before, visualization differs from
apparition as it is premeditated, enacted with eyes shut, and involves a mental object (in
the mind’s eye).20 Still, it may serve as an important prompt on the way to the apparitions.
Moreover, while visualization-as-technique is conscious and intended, the Rabbi’s image
often surfaces spontaneously and effortlessly in the Hasid’s mind.
Spontaneous elicitations of the Rabbi’s image are an essential component of the psychic
life of many meshichistim, who are likely to process scenarios of the imminent redemption
cinematographically, as a narrative sequence of visual images (cf. Kracke 1987). Although
spontaneously elicited visual scripts might be ubiquitous in the Hasidim’s inner lives, my
focus here is on visualization-cum-technique. Although none of the interviewees explicitly
related an experiential sequence in which visualizing the Rabbi’s image (in the mind) evolved
into an apparition (seeing him “out there”), visualization likely serves as a mediating link on
the way to seeing the Rabbi. Moreover, the elaborate cultic practices in which the Rabbi’s
portraits are used as panacea shed light on the importance of the pictures in precipitating
apparitions despite the absence of visualization from the reports. In many miraculous stories,
the curative power of the pictures is displayed in the course of an elaborate ritual based on
the notion of visual reciprocity between the supplicant and the Rabbi.21
This is how the core of this ritual was conveyed to a woman suffering from a problem-
ridden pregnancy: “Stand by the holy picture of the Rabbi, the King-Messiah, and utter a
chapter from Psalms with great absorption. Then declare that you subscribe to the Rabbi’s
kingdom—(say) ‘Long live forever our master, teacher and Rabbi the King-Messiah’—
and ask for an easy birth and a healthy baby” (Si’hat Ha-Geulah 181, January 16, 1998: 3).
Although in many cases it was the supplicant who initiated an interaction, in others it was the
Rabbi’s mesmerizing gaze, coming from the picture, that ensnared onlookers, compelling
them to stare back at him (cf. Christian 1992). Because the Rabbi’s eyes are described
as no less expressive than penetrating, this visual reciprocity often ends with a nonverbal
message of assurance and succor. In three cases, these messages evolved into full-fledged
auditory hallucination (or sensory override) as the Rabbi’s voice was heard by the percipient
as emanating from the picture.
The fact that the Rabbi’s postures in many reported apparitions follow his stance and position
in popular pictures indicates the salience of the pictures in shaping the Rabbi’s sightings.
This salience is evident in the messianic volume To Open the Eyes (Lifko’ah et Ha-Einayim
2007) in which reports are illustrated by no less than 29 pictures of the Rabbi in 770. The
accompanying captions accurately depict the Rabbi’s postures and gestures in the pictures;
for example, “he looked at me with his piercing eyes and raised his holy hand encouragingly,”
or, “he was leaning with his face turned right.” Yet all these captions are taken verbatim
from the reports. It is likely the pictures served as visual guidelines for the apparitions.
Another presumed link between pictures and apparitions appeared in the report of a pregnant
woman with serious medical problems, who was urged by the doctors to undergo abortion.
During the preparations for an ultrasound examination she suddenly had a revelation: “On
the wall facing my bed I suddenly see the Rabbi, with his fedora and blue eyes, assuring me
with a broad smile: ‘Don’t you worry, everything will turn out all right’” (Si’hat Ha-Geulah
533, February 4, 2005: 3). Indeed, the ultrasound was normal and the abortion cancelled.
The sighting of the Rabbi’s image “on the wall” was likely triggered by the patient’s angst
and his actual picture there. If indeed this was the case, then the woman’s phrasing of her
experience captures the transformative moment in which a flat portrait turns into a live
figure in the apparition. This possibility is lent credence by a female Habadnik I interviewed
who reported that once, when she turned to the Rabbi for help, glancing at his big picture
in her living room, she was amazed to see him coming out of the picture and approaching
her. In this unique testimony the move from picture to apparition is entirely explicit.
The Rabbi’s pictures can precipitate apparitions then. Still, even in messianic Habad the
experiences of seeing the Rabbi cannot be entirely extricated from their ontologically pre-
carious status, as private and subjective events. As genuine and real as these experiences have
been to the seers, they could not be publicly validated. Indeed, some seers admitted that
they were reluctant at first to share their experiences with others as they feared mocking and
denigrating responses to apparitions that they suspected stemmed from their own “imagina-
tion,” “dreaming,” or even “madness.” Aside from their role as triggers, pictures were used
to grapple with this predicament too. Just like miraculous photographs in contemporary
Marian settings (Berryman 2006; Bitel 2009; Davis and Boles 2003:381–382, 390; Matter
2001:134; Wojcik 1996), pictures served as objectifying signs for the meshichistim. Their
role became evident on two separate occasions that drew attention in messianic Habad. In
the first incident, a boy from Jerusalem, who spent the High Holidays of 2003 in Crown
Heights with his family, was photographed in front of the Rabbi’s Bimah (platform) in 770.
It was claimed that no one else was around when the picture was taken; but after the film was
developed the parents were shocked to discover in the picture an elderly Hasid standing near
the child with his back to the camera. Although the identification of the elderly figure as the
Rabbi was hotly debated in Habad, for many meshichistim it provided the missing link for
corroborating the Rabbi’s enduring presence in 770 (Lifko’ah et Ha-Einayim 2007:176–179).
The other incident occurred on October 14, 2006, in 770. A visitor used the video camera
in his mobile phone to document activities in the main hall. Amid the dancing and chanting
crowd, the camera captured a figure resembling the Rabbi walking vigorously toward the
arc. Even though the video’s acuity was not satisfactory and the episode lasted one or two
seconds only, it had enormous impact on the meshichistim who claimed that on that day
“the (Rabbi’s) revelation has started” (Si’hat Ha-Geulah 623, November 24, 2006: 1). As one
of the activists put it: “During the years following his disappearance, the Rabbi revealed
himself to people in private only . . . The novelty this time was that he revealed himself
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to hundreds of thousands” (Si’hat Ha-Geulah 625, December 8, 2006: 3). The video keeps
running in messianic Internet sites and pictures gleaned from it are used as screen savers
among meshichistim.
Traces
Habad’s messianic ecology is replete with traces of the Rabbi. The Rabbi’s house, his red
armchair and Torah Scroll, the dollar bills he used to deliver on Sundays, the water in which
he immersed himself in his mikveh (ritual bath), and the sukkah (tabernacle) built for him
for the Sukkoth Festival—all these are examples of indexical signs because their association
with their referent, the Rabbi, is based on spatial proximity or contiguity. These signifiers
are conducive to making the absent Rabbi palpably felt because “indexical signs participate,
in one way or another, in what they signify. They have a ‘real connection’ with their objects”
(Innis 2004:201).
Note that until the rise of digital technology, photographs were no less indexical than
iconic. From Pierce on, scholars have highlighted the fact that beyond sheer iconicity—
photographs resemble the objects they denote—they are products of the physical state
of the objects (Batchen 2004:40). This makes them “something directly stenciled off the
real” (Sontag 1977:154), “a kind of deposit of the real itself” (Krauss 1984:112). Following
Barthes’s assertion that the reality offered by the photograph is not of truth-to-appearance
but that of truth-to-presence (Barthes 1981), Batchen claims that “the indexicality of the
photograph allows it to transcend mere resemblance and conjure a ‘subject,’ a presence that
lingers” (Batchen 2004:40).
The Hasidim are meticulous about keeping the Rabbi’s abode as well as his paraphernalia
and possessions intact, just as they were before; and they strive to make them even more
accessible and widely dispersed than before. Thus, replicas of 770 were built in various places
in Israel and other countries (Balakirsky-Katz 2010:144–173; Dein 2010:89; Weingrod 1993)
and some Hasidim boast bookcases and drawers shaped as a tiny 770. A few Habadniks went
so far as to shape the facade of their houses in the design of the Rabbi’s abode. In addition,
various artifacts, from charity boxes to candle packs and mezuzah cases, were designed as
miniature 770s.
The extent to which the Hasidim respect these traces of the Rabbi can be demonstrated by
an ad praising a certain brand of Calabria citrons (ethrogim) for ritual use in Sukkoth. The
reputation of these citrons stems from the fact that they came from trees grown from the
seeds of one of the original citrons the Rabbi had been using for Sukkoth. In addition, the
jam made from the Rabbi’s citrons has become known for its curative power, primarily for
problems in pregnancy and birth (Si’hat Ha-Geulah 682, January 25, 2012: 4).
The move from singularity to multiplicity, evident in the reproduction of 770, is present
here too: out of one citron that once belonged to the Rabbi many can be grown. In principle,
this chain of citrons can go on forever. This move, counterposed to the notion of the
living Rabbi’s singleness and irreplaceability, stands also in ironic contrast with the Rabbi’s
whereabouts in his lifetime. Not only was the actual Rabbi, ensconced in his offices for
most of the day, a scarce resource to his Hasidim, but during his long reign his accessibility
gradually diminished. In the 1980s and 1990s, when the messianic tension reached new
summits, individual meetings (yehidut) with the Rabbi were replaced by collective gatherings
and these attenuated as the Rabbi aged. Aside from his regular visits to the tomb of his
predecessor, he seldom left 770. As against this growing withdrawal, the Rabbi’s iconic and
indexical signs are multiple, and most of them can be further reproduced. His photographs
can be distributed in endless copies; and this redundancy applies to many items in the Rabbi’s
holy paraphernalia. Even his mikveh water can be used open-endedly as a panacea, because
the water can be diluted presumably forever without losing healing power.22
In addition, an individual Hasid may be exposed to a wide variety of the Rabbi’s traces
simultaneously. This is certainly true when he or she is coming “to be with the Rabbi”
in 770; but for most meshichistim the Rabbi looms high in the domestic sphere too: his
pictures decorate their apartments’ walls and books’ covers and are imprinted on various
objects from ritual cups to clocks; a dollar bill delivered by the Rabbi, laminated and framed,
is likely to be put on display; and a bottle of water from his mikveh might be in sight too.
This multiple indexicality saturates the messianic landscape but does not stop there, as it
generates a distinct messianic habitus. It is easy to identify male meshichistim by their kippa
(head covering) with the mantra, “Long live the King Messiah for ever,” the Messiah flag
emblem on their coat flap, the pocket-sized portrait of the Rabbi in their wallet, the design
of his abode embroidered on their prayer shawl bags, and the sequence 7–7–0 included
in the combination of their mobile phone, Internet passwords, and bank codes. Thus, on
top of becoming hypervisible because of his pictures, the virtual Rabbi is also portable
and embodied. His followers feel intimately connected to him (cf. Luhrmann 2004, 2012),
deeming themselves his emissaries and “children” (Fishkoff 2003; Heilman and Friedman
2010:248–278; Kraus 2007). Many of them confer his name on one of their male children.
Viewing the Rabbi as an exemplary model for Hasidic behavior, they seek to emulate him,
not merely by “being with the Rabbi” but also by “living (the) Rabbi.” They repeat his
famous phrases and imitate his gestures. More profoundly, they seek to identify with him,
to comprehend the depth of his thinking and to follow his instructions as best they can. In
this sense meshichistim become living icons (Berryman 2001:603) of the Rabbi. Many of
the Rabbi’s traces, particularly those in 770, participate in structuring the perceptual field in
which his sightings might occur.
Mimetic Practices of Embodiment

Beyond the array of iconic and indexical signs that dot the messianic landscape, the Rabbi’s
presence is felt in an elaborate set of ritual practices through which he is “embodied.” These
practices are mimetic: involving the Rabbi as an active participant, they seek to replicate the
past “just as it was” (Kravel-Tovi and Bilu 2008:69). Mimetic practices of embodiment are
enacted primarily in 770, as part of the daily routine in the Rabbi’s abode. The Hasidim
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who come to be with the Rabbi there are drawn into a special ecology in which the Rabbi is
deemed the prime mover (Dein 2010:87–100).
To convey the assertion that the Rabbi is still among the community, the structured daily
routine that dominated the site until 1994 is meticulously reproduced. Most vivid in this
system are rituals that act as sensory prompts “placing” the Rabbi in the same times and
places where his past presence was most strongly felt. This is most evident in the three daily
prayers conducted in the big study hall (Zal Ha-Gaddol) serving as synagogue. Just as the
prayer is about to begin, a young yeshiva student reaches the podium on which the Rabbi used
to pray in front of the congregants. He rolls the carpet over the podium and then exposes
the covered armchair of the Rabbi and his “stander” (pulpit). On Sabbath and holydays,
one of the elderly Hasidim is honored with this task. Ready to accept the King–Messiah,
the congregants lift their eyes and gaze at the stairs descending from the Rabbi’s office
on the second floor. Then they split to create a clear path (shvil) leading to the podium.
On Mondays, Thursdays, and the Sabbath, when passages from the Torah are read during
prayer, one of the veteran Hasidim is given the honor to lay the Rabbi’s Torah scroll open
on the stander. The same Hasidic song that welcomed the approaching Rabbi in the past
is excitedly reiterated today. Following the prayer, the carpet is unrolled, the armchair and
stander covered, and the congregants accompany with song and dance the Rabbi’s presumed
exit.
Following the Sabbath and Holidays, a ceremonial gathering takes place in the major study
hall. Once, under the presidency of the Rabbi, these public meetings were joyful and ecstatic
events, in which the Rabbi endorsed Hasidic values and inculcated his vision of the impending
redemption. The setting of the gathering is kept intact today including the Rabbi’s table,
covered with a white tablecloth and adorned with halla (Sabbath loaf), a knife, and a bottle
of wine and wine glass for kiddush (ritual of sanctification). The Rabbi’s armchair is brought
to the table and the Hasidim are seated in front of it. When the meeting ends, after various
rabbinical figures address the audience, a veteran Hasid approaches the Rabbi’s table and,
facing his armchair, cuts the halla into small pieces. The halla pieces, and later the “wine-glass
of blessing,” are distributed among the Hasidim. These ritual activities are done on behalf
of the Rabbi and reproduce his own renowned acts of distribution during his lifetime.23
Other embodied practices are enacted on the High Holidays that punctuate the month of
Tishrei. At the end of the closing prayer on Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), a mobile
staircase is put on the podium as in previous years, for the Rabbi to watch from above and
direct the traditional singing of the Hasidim. On Sukkoth, a tabernacle is built for the Rabbi as
before, with the “four species” waiting for him inside. The Hasidim are encouraged to make
the appropriate blessing over the “four species.” Some of the passers-by extend their hands
to receive the Rabbi’s lekah (piece of cake) as before. On these occasions, in which devotion,
embarrassment, and playfulness converge, the mimetic becomes pantomimetic. On special
occasions the Rabbi is accorded the honor to lead the public prayer. The gaze of all present
is focused on the Rabbi’s armchair as long as he is supposed to utter his part. Then the crowd
ecstatically responds in impressive synchronization, chanting in unison the complementary
verse.24 On Sundays, a line of visitors stretches at the entrance to 770, where the practice
of distributing dollars for charity continues as before, even though human shortsightedness
renders the Rabbi invisible. The dollar bills currently distributed on Sundays are capable of
performing miracles just as the original ones. These mimetic embodied practices were an
integral part of the scene in most of the apparitions in 770.
Apparitions in Ritual and Mundane Settings

The reports in the messianic volume, To Open the Eyes (Lifko’ah et Ha-Einayim 2007) are
divided into two clusters, separating apparitions that took place in the Rabbi’s “royal palace”
from those occurring elsewhere in “all the places under his rule.” This spatial division
captures an essential phenomenological distinction between two types of revelations. Most
of the apparitions I discuss took place in a ritual context, in which the Rabbi’s presence was
strongly felt through the rich web of icons, traces, and mimetic practices of embodiment,
but also sorely missed because of his enduring invisibility. The messianic ecology structures
a perceptual field functioning as inviting ground for seeing the Rabbi. Given the density and
redundancy of this ecology, it is not surprising that the majority of the apparitions take place
in the “right place,” the Rabbi’s abode, and in the “right time,” during festive occasions in
the daily and annual ritual cycle (prayers and holidays, respectively), in which the Rabbi is
supposed to be among the community. Note that even in this inviting milieu, where the
craving to see the Rabbi is often translated into an explicit request that he reveal himself,
accompanied presumably by visualizing his figure, apparitions still constitute an uncommon
phenomenon, a contextual accomplishment experienced by seers as startling and electrifying.
These situations are different experientially from those in which the Rabbi appears out of
the blue, outside the suggestion-saturated domain of 770. I outline the major differences
between the two types of apparitions using illustrations from the reports.
Apparitions in 770 are fueled emotionally by the excruciating gap between the dense mes-
sianic ecology there and the Rabbi’s intolerable invisibility. The dialectical nature of this
process should be noted. The icons, traces, and practices of embodiment, designed to fill the
painful vacuum generated by the Rabbi’s disappearance, are likely to magnify the loss no less
than soften it, particularly for veteran Hasidim who retain vivid memories of the Rabbi in his
lifetime (Kravel-Tovi and Bilu 2008). But the same messianic ecology that might accentuate
the void is also constitutive of the perceptual gestalt in which the common wish to see the
Rabbi “immediately and without delay in actuality” is occasionally fulfilled. A few examples
of apparitions in 770 will suffice to illustrate this dynamic.
A Hasid joins the Morning Prayer in 770, “in the miniyan [ritual quorum] of the Rabbi,
the King-Messiah,” for the last time before going back to Israel. From his seat, close to the
Rabbi’s bimah, he responds to the public announcement, “long lives our King Messiah,”
with a cry of his own, ‘Until when?’ which he repeats three times sealing it with the messianic
rallying call: “Rabbi, we want Messiah now.” The revelation follows suit: “Suddenly I saw the
Rabbi standing on the bimah in front of me, wrapped in his prayer shawl and phylacteries.
112 ETHOS
He leaned over the stander with his face toward the congregants” (Lifko’ah et Ha-Einayim
2007: 50–52). The excitement of the seer was immense, yet the revelation was not entirely
unexpected. Urged by the protagonist, it occurred where the Rabbi was supposed to reveal
himself.
The implicit expectation to see the Rabbi in 770 might be extended into a most explicit
attempt to summon him. A yeshiva student turns nostalgic following the Day of Atonement’s
evening prayer, when “the Rabbi . . . stays over to recite Psalms with all the congregants.”
Recalling “the previous years in which I was privileged to be here, on the same special
occasion, and see the Rabbi dressed in white like an angel . . . I was overcome by the desire
to see him as before.” The wish is translated into an explicit request: “Rabbi, I know with
absolute certainty that you are here, alive and well without any change! Please let me see you
with my material eyes.” In the beginning the plea remains unanswered. “When I continued
to look toward his holy place, I could not see anything aside from the red armchair and the
stander covered with a white map.” But then, after the student elicits the memory of his
eminent grandfather, known for his Hasidic devotion, he takes a look at the bimah again and
his heart “misses a beat” as he sees the Rabbi “standing in his usual place, adorned with his
kittel” (Lifko’ah et Ha-Einayim 2007: 19–20).25
The tension between the rich messianic ecology and the painful void is evident in both cases.
The Rabbi’s traces—his bimah, armchair, and stander—and the ritual practices in which he
is supposed to participate—the Morning Prayer and the public recital of Psalms on Yom
Kippur, respectively—made both protagonists acutely aware of his absence and pushed them
to demand that he reveal himself. At the same time, these artifacts and practices serve as
sensory prompts on the way to the apparitions.
Common ritual practices in which the Rabbi has revealed himself in 770 include the daily
prayers, the distribution of dollar bills on Sundays, the Sim’hat Torah dances, and Hasidic
gatherings following the Sabbath and holidays. Most often the Rabbi appeared on the bimah,
making the same gestures with which he had become identified before 1994 (and which were
popularized by his pictures): he was seen leaning on the stander, touching the arc’s curtain
on his way to and from the synagogue, and waving his hand for encouragement. In three
cases he was seen in the “path” (shvil) opened for him by the Hasidim before and after
prayers. The “path” is the scene for the famous video from 2006 mentioned before, which
arguably captured the Rabbi on his way to the podium. The details of the Rabbi’s dress and
appearance noted in the reports are compatible with the occasions in which he was seen.
Thus, during the prayers he is always seen wrapped in his prayer shawl and on the Day
of Atonement—with his white kittel. He is seen delivering dollar bills on Sundays, making
blessings over the “four species” in Sukkoth, and circulating glasses of wine and pieces of
cake following Hasidic gatherings. Note that the dollar bills, the four species, and the wine
and cake continue to be incorporated into present-day practices of embodiment conducted
in 770. Apparitions in Habad Houses, viewed as “satellite branches of 770” (Balakirsky-Katz
2010:152), follow the same dynamic as in 770, but in a diluted form, germinating in a milieu
less populated with the Rabbi’s signs and practices.
Apparitions in ritually unmarked settings compose a bit more than one quarter of the
entire corpus. Many of these experiences were precipitated by distress, which in some cases
amounted to a life-risking situation. None of the nonritual cases were explicitly triggered
by the Rabbi’s painful absence per se. Contradistinctively, none of the apparitions in 770 or
its derivatives were related to a problem-in-living other than the Rabbi’s absence. The rich
messianic ecology that presumably provides the cognitive-perceptual framework for ritual
apparitions is less evident in mundane appearances, particularly outdoors. Apparently, in
most of these cases the acute distress and the mystical theosophy were potent enough to
“invite” the apparition—without the multiple cognitive cues that dominate the landscape of
ritual apparitions.
The following examples involve serious trauma as a trigger. A 14-year-old girl, attacked by a
snake in the field, cries out in panic, “Rabbi, save me,” and is privileged to see him. The Rabbi
commands her to strangle the snake and she, invigorated by his presence, finds the power to
do so (Lifko’ah et Ha-Einayim 2007:170–2). A bus on its way to Jerusalem from a West Bank
settlement is attacked by Palestinians. Amid the fire, a teenager “sees the Rabbi in front of
her. He pulls her down to the bus floor, thus saving her from the bullets.” The girl in the
adjacent seat is killed in the attack (Lifko’ah et Ha-Einayim 2007:137). A diver suffering from
a rapture of the deep is rescued by another diver. When he regains consciousness, he dimly
recalls two figures pulling him out, even though his friend insists that he had acted alone. A
few days later, after seeing the Rabbi’s portrait, he identifies him as the mysterious second
rescuer (Lifko’ah et Ha-Einayim 2007:133–135). There is a range here from summoning the
Rabbi in the first case, through an unsolicited but recognizable appearance in the second,
to a more enigmatic appearance, only retrospectively confirmed, in the third case. In most
of the mundane cases the Rabbi’s appearance is not intentionally invited. It is clear that
even in the snake episode, the Rabbi’s name emerges spontaneously and abruptly, out of the
traumatic experience. It is not surprising that the two girls were Habadniks while the diver
was not.
Other stressful situations that precipitated apparitions were related to acute medical prob-
lems, loss of a significant other, and pressing economic predicaments. Only three mundane
cases were entirely devoid of stress as a precipitating factor. The centrality of stress factors in
mundane apparitions made them more akin to the Rabbi’s revelations in dreams and special
states of consciousness (such as near-death experience). There, too, the Rabbi’s intercession
was often precipitated by acute distress. My focus on sightings occurring in wakeful states led
me to exclude these types of experiences from this work. But for some mundane apparitions,
such as the one experienced by the diver who suffered from a rapture of the deep, the line
between ordinary and nonordinary states of consciousness could not be clearly delineated.
The divergence between the two types of apparitions in setting and experience is reflected
also in the gender composition of the seers. Although in the public ritual space of 770
men outnumbered women in a rate of 3:1, the genders were more or less on a par in rit-
ually unmarked spaces. Similarly, whereas most of the seers in 770 were Hasidim, seers
in other locations came from more diverse backgrounds, encompassing Hasidic, orthodox,
114 ETHOS
traditional, and even nonobservant men and women. Just as with the rescued diver, in some
other mundane cases recognition was retrospective, too, usually after stumbling on the
Rabbi’s picture (although the reporters were acquainted with his name). Interestingly, the
Rabbi’s miraculous power is more strongly experienced in mundane settings, because only
there did his intercession relieve the seers from serious trouble. In most ritual cases the very
appearance of the Rabbi is a miraculous climax. Finally, most of the Rabbi’s apparitions in
mundane settings are classic examples of deus ex machina, though they could be preceded
by a visual elicitation of his image (common in emergency situations). Most of his sightings
in 770 were abrupt and brief, too, but they appeared as the tip of the iceberg of his endur-
ing presence, latent but strongly felt. Clues to this underground humming of the Rabbi’s
perennial existence in 770 came from various reports.
A representative example entails a Hasid coming to pray “in the Rabbi’s miniyan” on the
first night of Sukkoth. On entering the hall, he notices a hand extended “above the Rabbi’s
holy bimah,” signaling to him to draw closer. He tries to push forward but cannot reach the
Rabbi’s stander. Following the prayer he finds himself wavering between two options: either
to stay attentive near the Rabbi’s other stander, from which he used to give a special homily
on each night of the holiday, following the evening prayer, or to join the dances on the other
side of the hall. The protagonist cannot make up his mind: “On the one hand, one cannot
disregard the conviction that the Rabbi is here in materiality and delivers a talk as before.
On the other hand, one cannot hear anything, so perhaps the Rabbi would like us to rejoice
(dancing) in the holiday instead.” Stuck between the two options, the Hasid turns his gaze
to the bimah and suddenly spots the Rabbi standing there, leaning over the stander. “The
Rabbi smiled and pointed with his holy finger at the Hasidim in front of him, as if to say:
‘you see them, these are my guys.’” Following the sighting, the Hasid decides that he, too,
“would like to be counted among the Hasidim who ‘belong’ to the Rabbi,” and he stays with
them. Later on, when he relates the exciting experience to another Hasid, he manages to
capture a brief movement on the bimah. Raising his eyes, he sees the Rabbi again, now near
the first stander reserved for prayers. “The Rabbi smiled at me and waved his holy hand as
if to say: ‘I have finished, now you may go dancing’” (Lifko’ah et Ha-Einayim 2007:90–92).
Note that the Hasid saw the Rabbi (or part of him) in a sequence of three different positions,
in perfect equivalence with the ritual pattern the Rabbi had kept on Sukkoth before 1994.
These brief sightings appear as scattered fragments of the Rabbi’s hidden routine in 770,
as “eruptions” or “flashes” in which the virtual Rabbi is sporadically actualized (cf. Deleuze
2004:260). Such multiple flashes in one episode recurred in other reports of apparitions in
770 but were almost nonexistent in mundane settings.
The enduring but latent presence of the Rabbi in 770 was more easily exposed by young
seers. As a rule, children’s apparitions were of longer duration than those of adults, making
overt more fragments and wider sequences of the Rabbi’s hidden presence. The gap was
attributed to the purity and innocence of the very young (Bilu 1982:275–276; Davis and
Boles 2003:386). Just how far this infantile innocence could go is demonstrated by a report
involving one of the youngest children to see the Rabbi. A 3.5-year-old boy came from
Jerusalem with his family to spend the Passover “with the Rabbi.” The father’s account
highlights how he inculcated the messianic reality in his children: “In our home, the children
are trained that the Rabbi . . . is alive in actuality, without any change. Even the youngest
children grow with the straightforward belief in [the Rabbi as] the president of the generation
and are unconditionally attached to him. Many times I show my children video clips of the
Rabbi and give them his pictures to keep.” Against this background, it was not surprising
that when the father came with his youngest boy to a “gathering with the Rabbi,” on the
Sabbath preceding Passover (Shabbat Ha-Gaddol), the child asked at once to see the Rabbi.
The father pointed at the Rabbi’s red armchair, but the child complained that he was too
small to see anything. The two climbed on an elevated platform, and when they reached the
upper step the child burst with joy: “Here is the Rabbi, I can see him now.” He demanded
to stay longer so he could spend more time looking at him. Following this revelation, the
Rabbi was reportedly seen by the child in all of the prayers and gatherings throughout the
week of Passover. The association between pictures and sightings was illustrated by a casual
remark the child made following one of the prayers: “Dad! The Rabbi waved at me just as
he did in the video!” For the father, the child’s experience of unobstructed sighting of the
Rabbi was the embodiment of the messianic ideal: “As I understood it, for Shalom-Baer [the
child’s name] there was no disappearance [of the Rabbi] at all” (Lifko’ah et Ha-Einayim 2007:
39–41). The uniqueness of this case, providing a full glimpse into the Rabbi’s hidden life
through multiple apparitions, situates it at the contrasting pole of the unexpected, deus ex
machina type of apparitions in mundane settings.
Apparition and its Discontents

The reported apparitions have endowed the meshichistim with invaluable ammunition in
their struggle to establish the notion of imminent redemption. Just as in other apocalyptic
movements that urge members to adopt new ways of seeing, the Rabbi amply used visual
idioms and metaphors to mark the transformation from ordinary days to the end of days.
If indeed the ultimate goal of the Hasidic activity is to generate the enchanted moment in
which the Rabbi will reveal himself “to the eyes of all” (le-eynei kol), reported experiences
of seeing the Rabbi appear as a glimpse into, and a metonym of the desired messianic time.
Still, despite their apparent importance, apparitions stirred ambivalent feelings in Habad,
even among the meshichistim.
First, even though accounts of seeing the Rabbi could easily go public through an elaborate
web of messianic media, the experiences of seeing him could not be publicly validated.
This predicament was mitigated by a wide array of objectifying signs (cf. Davis and Boles
2003:398–394): the aforementioned photograph and video which made the Rabbi present
“to the eyes of all;” the presence of artifacts presumably delivered by the Rabbi during
apparitions, such as a dollar bill and a ten cent coin, in the hands of seers after their
encounters with him (cf. Bitel 2009; Christian 1996:146); the reporting of specific gestures
made by the Rabbi during apparitions, which perfectly matched his past behavior even
though these gestures could not have been known to the seers; the perfect compatibility
between events “within” the apparition and “without” it;26 the occurrence of simultaneous
116 ETHOS
apparitions which deployed the sightings on the intersubjective level and rendered them
sharable; and the “confessional” accounts of skeptics, who used to mock at the credulous
belief in the Rabbi’s immortality, until they themselves were startled to see him.27
Despite this arsenal of objectifying signs, a subdued air of uneasiness persists in the Hasidic
discourse over the apparitions. A second cause of discontent is related to the dialectics of
presence and absence in messianic Habad. While seers’ experiences challenged the Rabbi’s
disappearance, for ardent meshichistim they emerge too erratically and piecemeal to mitigate
it altogether. Inadvertently, they could even accentuate it. The apparitions draw seers and
vicarious participants closer to the watershed of the ultimate revelation; but as scattered
fragments of the Rabbi’s eternal presence they are unable to quench the eschatological thirst
for redemption. Dialectically, the presence of absence is transformed into the absence of
presence (Handelman and Shamgar-Handelman 1997). As I note in my concluding remarks,
the problem is exacerbated by the peculiar nature of apparitions in 770.
Concern over the paucity of apparitions is articulated lucidly in one of the apparition reports
in response to puzzlement over the special merit of a certain boy who was entitled to see the
Rabbi: “The Rabbi chooses to reveal himself without a special reason. The revelation is the
normal state, which should exist all the time. We don’t have to search for reasons. The only
reason we need to look for is the incomprehensible fact—why we have not been privileged
yet to experience the perfect and long-lasting revelation . . . ” (Lifko’ah et Ha-Einayim 2007:
74). A newcomer to the movement, who saw the Rabbi on his first visit to 770, overcame his
excitement by saying: “it was only natural for me to see the Rabbi in his own abode” (Lifko’ah
et Ha-Einayim 2007: 96). Yet, “normal” and “natural” as these experiences were rhetorically
presented, they have been quite uncommon, the exception, rather than the rule.
If apparitions were too scarce for many meshichistim, for the more spiritually oriented Ha-
sidim, loyal to Habad’s reputation as the bastion of “wisdom, intellect, and understanding,”28
apparitions were too plentiful. For them the incessant search for tangible proof of the Rabbi’s
eternal existence is entirely redundant—a moral failure vis-à-vis the ordeal of the Rabbi’s
invisibility. I am not sure that the holders of this elitist view would go so far as to accept
Wolfson’s claim (2009) that the Rabbi had never viewed himself as a potential messiah,
seeking instead to generate a collective messianic consciousness in the Jewish people where
absence and presence, God and world, would be integrated. But their ambivalence regarding
the apparitions might resonate with Wolfson’s criticism of the meshichistim: “What is seem-
ingly lost to those who follow this path is the realization that true vision consists of seeing
the invisible in the visible, and not of seeing the nonvisible as visible” (Wolfson 2009:276).
For Wolfson, as for some Hasidim, “postmortem apparitions of the seventh Rabbi . . . are
indicative of a profound spiritual blindness” (Wolfson 2009:276).
A diluted version of this criticism is noted among meshichisim too. As Kravel-Tovi (2009)
shows, Habadniks subscribe to two incongruent systems of logic in constructing their (mes-
sianic) reality: one pragmatic and sense based, with special emphasis on sight in discerning
what is “real”; the other mystical and dialectical, informed by Habad’s acosmic accent and
cultivating a hermeneutic of suspicion toward sense-based reality. The two systems comin-
gle in a strained way. Thus, the same messianic publications that praise the apparitions as
a proof that “the Rabbi is with us more than ever” resort on other occasions to an inter-
nal and spiritual mode of seeing, in line with the Hasidism’s accent on the interior (hidden)
meaning of the Torah. One activist articulated this supremacy of spiritual seeing by claiming
that “to open the eyes seems quite easy . . . but lifting the eyelids does not mean opening
the eyes. What the Rabbi taught was ‘to open the eyes of the intellect, of awareness and
comprehension’” (Si’hat Ha-Geulah 206, July 17, 1998: 1).
The same inconsistency was evident in the introduction to the apparitions’ collection. The
anonymous editors noted apologetically that “this volume does not aim to provide proof that
the Rabbi is alive in actuality in his abode 770. This belief is a reality determined by our Holy
Torah” (Lifko’ah et Ha-Einayim 2007:3). They explained that just as pilots suffering from
vertigo know that they have to rely only on the objective data from the control panel even
though it contradicts their sense-based impression, so the Hasidim adhere to the Torah
as the true guide to overcome confusion and disorientation in this trying time. But in a
subsequent passage the editors justify the publication of the reports by saying that “although
we believe whole-heartedly . . . that the Rabbi is alive exactly as before, clear-cut knowledge
can only come from eyesight” (Lifko’ah et Ha-Einayim 2007:14).
Conclusions
What insights can be gleaned from the apparitions in messianic Habad for advancing un-
derstanding of these and related phenomena from a social science perspective? First, the
accounts provide lucid testimony to the power of culture in setting into motion the pro-
cesses through which the imperceptible may become perceptible. Although the notion that
culture can affect fundamental mental experiences is far from novel, the detailed reports
enable one to appreciate the scope of the molding of the perceptual field of the Hasidim in
terms of décor, paraphernalia, and ritual. Given that the messianic ecology is densely dotted
with visible signs of the invisible Rabbi, his occasional sightings there are “in place,” just
as—by way of perceptual closure—a figure in a puzzle can be vividly seen, even though one
or more of the puzzle’s pieces is missing.
The massive structuration of the environment in messianic Habad may call for the oppo-
site question: why have apparitions not been more widespread among meshichistim? The
question is particularly pertinent for 770, transformed by cultural expectations, cues, and
practices into an inviting, suggestion-saturated milieu for the Rabbi’s presence. To account
for the differential capacity to see the Rabbi, one should probably resort to mental skills
or dispositions not equally distributed among believers. Absorption, “the capacity to treat
what the mind imagines as more real than . . . what the eyes and ears perceive” (Luhrmann
2012:201), might be the critical variable separating seers from nonseers. Training can im-
prove this skill, but it cannot entirely eliminate individual differences as measured by the
Tellegen Absorption Scale (Tellegen and Atkinson 1974; cf. Luhrmann 2012:195–196).
118 ETHOS
Second, overt differences between apparitions in ritual and nonritual settings enable one
to distill two distinct trajectories for perceiving visual stimuli without a material source.
The major inviting factor in the first track is the rich cultural ecology that structures a
perceptual field conducive to seeing the Rabbi. In a comparative vein, apparitions in ritual
venues across the world, from visual encounters with the Virgin in Marian pilgrimage sites
to Elvis sightings in Graceland, are likely to be associated with this first track, where setting,
expectations, training, and ritual may combine to produce extraordinary visual experiences.29
In monasteries and churches in late Medieval Europe, to take one well-documented example,
a similar combination of inducing factors was at work. A changed understanding of the
Eucharist, resulting in a shift from “receiving” Christ in communion to “seeing” him in
the host at the moment of consecration was linked to the dissemination of new practices of
meditation and visualization, leading to an outpouring of lay visions (Bynum 1987:53–56;
Newman 2005; Taves 2009a:151–2). “It should not be surprising,” Newman notes, “that a
gaze fixed lovingly and habitually on the host, understood as the visible, edible body of God
in the world, should sometime see it transformed into the infant Christ (Newman 2005:16).
The proliferation of religious art in all media in the late medieval period made “holy seeing”
more accessible to lay believers. From the vantage point of present-day visual technologies,
actual painted or sculpted images and religious theater are but pale, innocuous antecedents
of photographs and videos, respectively, but they probably played a similar role in inducing
sightings. “A nun who daily wept before the pieta or kissed the feet of the crucified would find
it increasingly easy to visualize these figures in a prayer and the line between ‘visualization’
and ‘vision’ is a fine one” (Newman 2005:17).
The major inviting factor in the second track is serious distress and the emotional upheaval
it entails. The threat to one’s well-being in a context of Hasidic belief is sufficiently potent to
engender a sighting even outdoors, without the suggestive décor that governs the landscape
of ritual apparitions.30 The two trajectories are not entirely exclusive. Distress may play a
role among visionaries in Marian or Hindu shrines, as it does among Hasidim in 770, and
environmental cues appear in mundane settings too. Still, the gap between the two types of
experiences is sufficiently clear to render the typology worth pursuing.
Third, in reviewing the reported experiences of seeing the Rabbi against the Christian mate-
rial, and in light of the distinction between visions and apparitions, a major epistemological
disparity between the experiences subsumed under these two categories comes to the fore.
Visions in medieval and early modern Christianity were viewed as “unusual sensory experi-
ences” (Taves 2009a:126), by definition discontinuous with ordinary reality. Their spiritual
nature was highlighted insofar as the things “seen” were not viewed as actual bodies but,
rather, as their images. Visions required that “the pathways of normal perception . . . are
blocked in such a way that the eye does not focus on physical reality but instead turns in-
ward toward images that exist within the mind” (Newman 2005:11). Visionaries such as St.
Theresa of Jesus (San Juan 2008) or Hildegard of Bingen (Newman 1985), believing that
a true vision resides in the soul, sought to dissociate their mystical experiences from the
physical act of seeing. Given the emphasis on alternative ways of seeing, it is not surprising
that “altered states of consciousness have been the sin qua non of visions” (Newman 2005:8).
Visionaries in modern Marian shrines, although often too plebeian to frame their experiences
in a coherent religious doctrine, still betray in their accounts and behavior the hiatus between
their visions and ordinary visual experiences. In many a case Mary hovers above, in space,
and the eyes of seers and followers are lifted toward her. She may take peculiar shapes—
appearing “like a cloud,” or “a big ray of light coming from the sky very slowly” (Bitel
2009:81).
Contemporary Evangelicals, as presented in Luhrmann’s seminal study of the Vineyard

Church (Luhrmann 2012), share with Habadniks the passion for rendering their idolized
Other palpably close and “democratized” (i.e., accessible to all). They differ from Habadniks
and Catholics alike in that their preferred sensory mode for mystical contact is aural, rather
than visual. Yet cutting across these different sensory modalities, the spiritual essence of
visions noted in earlier Christian revelations is firmly maintained. God here “is more like a
state of mind” (Luhrmann 2012:83). His voice “normally sounds like a flow of spontaneous
thoughts rather than an audible voice” (Luhrmann 2012:46); and newcomers have to learn to
recognize God’s thoughts in theirs. Notwithstanding the mentalistic accent in the discourse
of these modern, psychologically sophisticated believers, they, too, seem to draw a clear line
between experiences of hearing God and ordinary auditory perception. As stated before, this
line is permeable, given that sensory overrides occasionally occur; but even then the line is
not obliterated conceptually and epistemologically.
Note the following account: “About four feet high. Absolutely external. Absolutely visible.
This white, glowing messanger” (Luhrmann 2012:285). Even though the account uncharac-
teristically articulates a visual (rather than aural) experience that is situated out there (rather
than in the mind), it cannot be confounded with reported experiences of ordinary visual per-
ception. What makes Habad apparitions in 770 and other ritual zones so distinct from the
array of visionary experiences in Christianity past and present is their hyperreal nature. The
denial of the Rabbi’s death by the meshichistim is a blatant ontological statement that in-
evitably limits the epistemological horizons of the seers and, consequently, the soteriological
implications of their experiences.
Committed to the notion that the Rabbi resides in “flesh and spirit” in 770, the Hasidim
see him there, “just as before,” in image and gestures perfectly matching his appearance
and conduct in his lifetime. It is tempting to suggest that Habad’s highly structured and
systematized mysticism as well as its strong involvement with the real world both find
expression in the “orderly” apparitions. In the visual encounters with the Rabbi the basic
dimensions of ordinary reality are usually maintained—the Rabbi is seen in the right place
and the right time—and the experiences of seeing him subscribe to the principles of veridical
perception. I suggest that the discontent inherent in the apparitions is amplified by the
bothering gap between the future-oriented picture of the hyperenchanted world-on-the-
verge-of-redemption that the Rabbi promoted and the past-oriented and hyperreal nature
of the experiences of seeing him. In these experiences awareness is not dramatically altered,
the gaze remains horizontal, rather than turned upward, the scenery terrestrial, not celestial,
and the physical environment remains the same. In the end, the apparitions, like other
120 ETHOS
reproductions of the Rabbi’s icons and traces, are but replicas through which a lost past is
temporarily restored.
Risking another comparison with Christianity, I return to the distinction between appari-
tions and visions and situate it historically (or rather metahistorically). In Jesus’s appearances
following his crucifixion and resurrection his body was portrayed as having physical reality.
Following the ascension, the visual encounters with him have become less “real,” assum-
ing a more spiritual nature (Wiebe 1997:142). As a postascension phenomenon, visions in
Christianity thus partake of this creative spirituality, appearing as the product of mental pro-
cesses captured by concepts such as “the mythopoetic function” (Price-Williams 1999) and
“autonomous imagination” (Stephen 1989:41–64). The epistemological openness that these
processes allow engenders experiences that are “light, fanciful, not-real-but-more-than-real”
(Luhrmann 2012:83). Stephen argues that although such experiences are not deemed exter-
nal reality, “they become more real than external reality,” and have much greater freedom
and richness of imaginative inventiveness (Stephen 1989:56). The meshichistim in Habad
appear to be stuck in a “pre-ascenstion era,” waiting, to use an analogy more palatable to
their convictions, for “Moses in our generation” to come out of his occlusion.31
YORAM BILU is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and the
Department of Psychology, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Notes
1. Habad is acronym for “wisdom, intellect, knowledge” in Hebrew. The movement is also known as Lubavitch,
after the town in Byelorussia, which had been its center until the early 20th century.
2. The Rabbi consistently referred to his predecessor and father-in-law, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersen (RaY-
aTZ), as “the Messiah of the generation” (Heilman and Friedman 2010); yet some of the references he made toward
the end of his life could be interpreted as indicating a messianic self-awareness. Scholars sharply differ on this issue.
Dan (1999) and Dahan (2008) claim that the Rabbi did view himself as the Messiah and that his childlessness might
have been deliberate, accommodating to the messianic model of the end of history. Others argue that the Rabbi’s
messianic vision was entirely devoid of personal dimension (e.g., Wolfson 2009).
3. The classic analysis of failed prophecy in terms of dissonance theory (Festinger et al. 1956) was employed,
with various adaptations, to make sense of Habad in the aftermath of the Rabbi’s death (Dein and Dawson 2008;
Dein 2010; Shaffir 1993, 1994, 1995). For critical views of dissonance as adequate conception for understanding
post-Schneerson Habad see Dein (2010:139–146), Kravel-Tovi (2009), and Kravel-Tovi and Bilu (2008).
4. Intriguingly, the Breslav Hasidic sect, without a living zaddik since the beginning of the 19th century, is also
popular today. For a comparative analysis of Habad and Breslav see Bilu and Mark (2012).
5. In the Jewish mystical system, Gematria, based on assigning numerical values to alphabetical letters, 770 is
tantamount to “The Abode of the Messiah” (Beit Mashiach).
6. To emphasize the immediacy of the coming of the Messiah, the Rabbi used to end many talks with the phrase,
tekhef u-miyad mamash, often repeating the last word, mamash, two or three times. The Hasidim hastened to read
the word, composed of the Hebrew letters mem, mem, shin, as acronym for Menachem Mendel Schneerson, or,
no less pertinent, for moshiach Menachem shmo (A Messiah named Menachem). In one of his talks, the Rabbi said:
“mamash, with all the interpretations of mamash,” thus possibly alluding to himself as the chosen one.
7. Luhrmann’s seminal work dealt primarily with experiences of hearing God’s voice among Evangelicals
(Luhrmann 2004, 2005, 2011, 2012) reflecting Protestantism’s tendency toward the aural mode (see also Dein
and Littlewood 2007). The visual mode is dominant in encounters in Catholicism with Jesus (Bynum 1987;
Newman 1985, 2005; Taves 2009a; Wiebe 1997) and with Mary (Bitel 2009; Christian 1981, 1992, 1996; Matter
2001; Zimdars-Swartz 1989, 1991).
8. Hasidism emerged and spread in East Europe, among Ashkenazi Jews; yet Habad, unlike most other Hasidic
groups, accepts Mizrahim (Jews of Mid-Eastern or North African background) without reservation.
9. A single apparition may sometimes include more than one sighting: the Rabbi seen intermittently, in brief
exposures, in the same location. Episodes are described in the text.
10. In her comprehensive study of 488 societies, Bourguignon (1970) found that in 62 percent of them subjects
experienced “hallucinations” in their ritual practices.
11. More recent studies confirm this finding. For example, 7–30 percent of children and adolescents in six com-
munity survey studies in various countries reported experiencing hallucinations (Scott et al. 2009).
12. “Panentheism understands God and the world to be inter-related with the world being in God and God being
in the world” (Culp 2009).
13. Wolfson (2009) claims that the messianic project cultivated by the meshichistim, with the Rabbi as the
designated redeemer, is based on gross misunderstanding of the Rabbi’s messianic teachings.
14. On the uses of rabbis’ and sages’ portraits in traditional and orthodox society, including Habad, see Cohen
(1998), Heilman (2001), and Shandler (2009).
15. This process had started when the Rabbi was alive: “Broadcasts and videotapes have allowed followers around
the world to engage the Rabbi’s presence, and the spiritually transformative properties this encounter entails,
without leaving their homes” (Shandler 2009:250).
16. How far this visual exposure can go is demonstrated by a 675-page-long messianic exegesis, Now I Know (Ata
Yada’ati), where the Rabbi’s iconic portrait decorates the upper left corner of each and every twofold page (Sasson
1998).
17. David Berger maintains “the availability of a vast library of videotapes which can preserve a sense of the
departed Messiah’s physical presence” (2001:29) sets Habad’s messianism apart from older messianic movements,
such as Christianity and Sabbatianism.
18. I am indebted to Michal Kravel-Tovi for sharing with me this episode. Jeffery Shandler reached similar
conclusions: “Those who watch this video can rise up from profane life into another world, a spiritual world,
and experience the numinous awakening in matters of divine worship and the holy illumination felt by those who
participated in the farbrengen itself” (Shandler 2009:249 n. 41).
19. Even at the zenith of his fame, the Rabbi was adamant to present himself as a deputy and medium of his
predecessor. His proclaimed bonding with RaYaTZ might have helped him to win the battle of succession after
RaYaTZ passed away in 1950 (Heilman and Friedman 2010:29–64).
20. The tension between seeing the Rabbi in one’s mind and seeing him “out there” (in apparition) was dramatically
articulated by a young female visitor to 770, after a frustrating attempt to “see” the Rabbi there: “I am opening my
eyes! . . . well, I still can’t see. It’s precisely when I open my eyes that I can see that the (Rabbi’s) chair is empty.
When I close them, the Rebbe is with me” (Kravel-Tovi 2009:254).
122 ETHOS
21. This visual reciprocity brings to mind the Hindu practice of darshan (Babb 1981).
22. This endless multiplication stands in stark contrast with the Rabbi’s childlessness.
23. The description of the practices is based on the fieldwork Michal Kravel-Tovi conducted in 770 in 1999–2000
(see Kravel-Tovi 2009; Kravel-Tovi and Bilu 2008). She dubbed the practices “ritual practices of re-presenting.”
24. This is how the Rabbi’s participation in the prayers was depicted by a visitor: “Even though our eyes are still
shut, and we cannot see the Rabbi in materiality (be-gashmiut) after Tammuz 3rd (the Jewish date of the Rabbi’s
death in 1994), there, in his study hall, it seems that he is the only one who guides the work . . . On Sim’hat Torah,
it is customary to honor the Rabbi with the verses of ata hereytah (‘you have shown’). The Gabbai cries out: ‘Mr.
so and so bought the verse and he honors the Rabbi . . . with it. The huge crowd keeps silent—now the Rabbi is
reciting (the verse)—and then repeats the verse together’” (Si’hat Ha-Geulah 267, October 15, 1999: 3).
25. Kittel is a white robe that serves as a burial shroud for male Jews. It is also worn by Ashkenazi Jews on festive
occasions, such as the Day of Atonement.
26. For example, the Rabbi revealed himself to a Hasid in Melbourne, Australia, and promised him that the
economic problems that burdened his family would be relieved. At exactly the same time, the Hasid’s parents were
discussing their economic difficulties (Lifko’ah et Ha-Einayim 2007:109–110).
27. Christian (1996) describes a similar phenomenon in Ezkioga, Spain, in the early 1930s, where anarchist workers
underwent conversion and had visions of Mary.
28. See N. 1.
29. The role of expectations is tricky because “an apparition may be understood as the appearance within the
physical environment to one or more individuals of a person they would not expect to be within the immediate
perceptual range” (Zimdars-Swartz 1989:125). While many meshichistim visiting 770 would concur that the Rabbi
is not within their “immediate perceptual range” they still expect to see him, as, for example, do pilgrims to the
Marian apparition site at Conyers, Georgia, who are told that “the Rosary is at 12:00 and the Virgin Mary appears at
12:20 . . . ” (Davis and Boles 2003:385). This type of structured expectation does not exist in mundane apparitions.
30. Apparitions in which the Rabbi saved the seer from a life-risking situation share much in common with “the
third man factor” (Geiger 2009), an uncanny sensation of a mysterious presence that gives protection and guidance
under grueling physical conditions. “The third man factor” appears as a subset of the more comprehensive “sense
of presence” phenomenon (Luhrmann 2012:378).
31. Apparitions in Habad share intriguing similarities with Elvis sightings in U.S. popular culture (Doss 2005;
Marcus 1991; Reese 2006). Although the comparison between Habad and “the Presleytarian Church” (Plasketes
1997) may seem strained, note that Habad, too, was reshaped in the United States, which some scholars view as
“the most ocularly oriented or hypervisualized of all cultures in recorded civilizations” (Meyert 1997:67). Harold
Bloom (1992) deemed Habad a U.S. religion despite its Eastern European origin.
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98 ETHOS

“We Want to See Our King”: Apparitions

Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/etho.12004

To grasp the full epistemological consequences of Habad’s ritual apparitions, it is essential

(Luhrmann 2012:200)—might be conducive to this process. However, the introduction of

General Attributes of the Apparitions

In terms of location, a substantial majority of apparitions occurred in religious arenas associ-

How to Account for the Apparitions?

Mimetic Practices of Embodiment

Apparitions in Ritual and Mundane Settings

Apparition and its Discontents

Contemporary Evangelicals, as presented in Luhrmann’s seminal study of the Vineyard

2010 The Visual Culture of Chabad. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Dein, Morris, and Lorne L. Dawson

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