the oracle of crown heights - the new york times magazine

By Michael Specter

THEY ARRIVED WITH the rain, early on a winter Sunday, while
most of Brooklyn slept. First hundreds, then thousands appeared.
Pale men with grizzled beards and black fedoras, trailed by wives
and surrounded by children.

As always, the line moved silently along the broad pavements
of Eastern Parkway and into the cavernous synagogue at the corner
of Kingston Avenue. A brilliant red-and-yellow banner snapped
in the gusting winds outside the World Lubavitcher Headquarters:
"Messiah Is on the Way," it proclaimed in Hebrew and
English. "We Want Messiah Now."

For the trembling faithful, here to receive a crisp dollar bill and
a blessing from a regal old man in a double-breasted waistcoat, the
savior already has a name: Menachem Mendel Schneerson, seventh
Rebbe of Lubavitch, the Hasidic oracle of Crown Heights.