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(from Haaretz)…In his new book, "Open Secret," Wolfson is interested in the rebbe's messianic doctrine as formulated in his hundreds of discourses available in written form, which Wolfson examines within the context of earlier kabbalistic and Chabad teachings, parallels from other mystical traditions - especially Buddhism - and postmodern thought. But even these most recondite of theories have real-world implications.Wolfson shows that intense messianic anticipation, far from being a quirk of Schneerson's in his old age, has been central to Chabad from its late-18th-century origins. Its founding premise was that spreading Chabad teachings would hasten the End Time, a doctrine that assumed accelerating urgency when traditional Judaism came under attack from secularism during the next century, and even more so when the Nazi assault on the Jewish people forced the sixth rebbe, Schneerson's father-in-law, to flee Europe and resettle in the United States.In succeeding his father-in-law, Schneerson became the seventh, a number whose sabbatical identification suggested he was also the last (some even say that this theory motivated him to remain childless by choice). Schneerson sought new audiences for Chabad's message - women and non-Jews. While this was in line with the original plan of continually spreading the doctrine, it also indicated awareness that modernity (he had attended European universities before the war) and the American environment necessitated some rapprochement with feminism and universalism.He developed earlier teachings about the mystical role of God's feminine side and the ultimate breakdown of barriers between Jew and non-Jew in the messianic era, and championed teaching Chabad texts to women and urging gentiles to practice the universal laws of ethical conduct traditionally associated with the biblical Noah.The discussion of Chabad messianic thought in "Open Secret" is tough reading for people used to linear thinking and clear writing. The problem is not just Wolfson, but also the subject matter. Simply put, language is inadequate to convey how an infinite power - called ein sof (literally, without boundary) in Kabbalah - can generate our finite and bounded reality and, in reverse, how the messianic experience can enable us to break through to the infinite. Our logical faculties paralyzed by the human inability to comprehend the divine, we must make do with the metaphors, paradoxes and contradictions that abound in this book. Wolfson writes that "language is stretched to the limit of the inarticulate."The author himself is the biggest contradiction. An exemplary objective scholar, Wolfson is at the same time heavily invested, in a deeply personal way, in the mystical teachings he analyzes. The book begins with the announcement that he was born on Friday night, November 23. Years later, he would learn that at the moment of his birth in 1956, Rabbi Schneerson was delivering a learned discourse on kabbalistic themes to mark the 19th day of the Hebrew month of Kislev. This was the Lubavitch "Day of Redemption," the date in 1798 when Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the first rebbe of the sect, was freed from prison. The Lubavitcher who apprised Wolfson of the significance of this coincidence told him, "Pay attention, this day bears your destiny." Whether personal or scholarly, Wolfson's spiritual quest is contagious, and the intrepid reader will brave the many difficult passages in order to follow him in search of the rebbe's deepest feelings about the messiah, the surprising "encrypted message" that is the "open secret" of the title. I will not divulge it, but if Wolfson is right, the rebbe's messianic vision will comfort neither his followers, who completely misunderstood their leader, nor his detractors, who fail to appreciate his genius. Even as he calls "postmortem apparitions of the seventh Rebbe" indications of "a profound spiritual blindness," Wolfson apparently agrees with Schneerson that the messiah has come "and all that is necessary is for people to open their eyes in order to greet him" - but he also acknowledges that to grasp the meaning of this "involves cultivating a modification in consciousness." People like me, who find such modification difficult, have no choice but to wait