“Non-Jews Have Satanic Souls”: The Spiritual Mentor of Ben Shapiro

You may have come across a recent article of mine, which discussed how, according to Kabbalah—the mystical approach to religion that has shaped much of modern Judaism—, the soul of a Jew is significantly more superior and more valuable than the soul of a non-Jew. In fact, the former is deemed to be divine in some sense, while the latter is considered plainly to be animalistic in nature.

Within this context, one figure who came up was Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994), also known simply as “the Rebbe.” In the precise context of Hasidic Judaism (Hasidism being a “popularization” of Kabbalah for the masses), Rebbe is a unique term used for an almost deified spiritual leader.

The My Jewish Learning site notes:

Among the most unique features of Hasidic Judaism is the centrality of the Rebbe. Every Hasidic sect has one, and their succession over time is typically dynastic. When a rebbe dies, his successor is usually a son or other close relative. (The best-known Hasidic rebbe in modern times, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson of Chabad, was the son-in-law of the previous Chabad rebbe; Schneerson, who died childless in 1994, has not been succeeded.) Occasionally, succession can be contested and even split a sect, as happened in 2006 following the death of the Satmar Rebbe Moshe Teitelbaum. In Hasidic communities, the rebbe functions not merely as a communal leader and spiritual authority, but often holds an almost mythical status among his followers. Rebbes are commonly petitioned for help in situations of ill health or financial distress, their advice is sought on various personal matters, and they are often seen as something akin to a conduit to God.

Schneerson was the Rebbe of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement within Hasidic Judaism. As we had mentioned in our earlier article:

The Chabad itself is also the most important Jewish mass movement (if you have already read the articles mentioned earlier, it’d be fair to assume that most of the rabbis that you’ll ever come across are Chabad).

The movement itself focuses on “outreach” (bringing Jews back to their religion) through community-building, educational institutions, and so on. The Muslim Brotherhood in (some of) the Arab world could be considered a close comparison in terms of the amount of influence it has.

Chabad.org mentions:

Following its inception 250 years ago, the Chabad-Lubavitch movement—a branch of Hasidism—swept through Russia and spread in surrounding countries as well. It provided scholars with answers that eluded them, and simple farmers with a love that had been denied them. Eventually the philosophy of Chabad-Lubavitch and its adherents reached almost every corner of the world and affected almost every facet of Jewish life.

[…]

 

Today over 5,000 full-time emissary families (2,000 in the United States) apply 250-year-old principles and philosophy to direct more than 3,500 institutions (and a workforce that numbers in the tens of thousands) dedicated to the welfare of the Jewish people worldwide.

The Chabad-Lubavitch hasn’t found a successor to the Rebbe because many, if not most, consider him to be the Jewish Messiah. And since this would mean he’s not really dead, it is plausible that he could return at any given moment.

Also in our earlier article, we had shown that both Benjamin Netanyahu (Prime Minister of Israel) and Ben Shapiro (the most prominent American conservative influencer and most famous Jewish ethnonationalist in the country) are unapologetic admirers of the Rebbe.

But, being a Chabad-Lubavitch leader (and thus a Hasidic and Kabbalist), it was inevitable that the Rebbe too would subscribe to the idea of non-Jews being inferior. However, in his worldview, this is actually to the extent that non-Jews are in fact deemed to be Satanic.

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We can read, for example, the book, Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, originally published in 1999. It was authored by Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky, both Jews. The former was a Holocaust survivor (present in the Warsaw ghetto) who eventually became a professor of chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, while the latter, who passed away just last September (2022), was an American academic.

It is also worth noting that this was Shahak’s last major book before his death in 2001. His most famous work was Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years (1994).

They highlight the hypocrisy of the scholars of Kabbalah, such as Gershom Scholem, who give the impression that Kabbalah promises salvation for all, including non-Jews, while also distorting the terminology in the process.

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They then mention how Lurianic Kabbalah, the most influential subgroup of Kabbalah, considers non-Jewish souls to be Satanic in nature and how it influenced Hasidism.

We read, on p.58:

Tishbi cited Rabbi Hayim Vital, the chief interpreter of Rabbi Luria, who wrote in his book, Gates of Holiness: “The Emanating Power, blessed be his name, wanted there to be some people on this low earth that would embody the four divine emanations. These people are the Jews, chosen to join together the four divine worlds here below.” Tishbi further cited Vital’s writings in emphasizing the Lurianic doctrine that non-Jews have satanic souls: “Souls of non-Jews come entirely from the female part of the satanic sphere. For this reason souls of non-Jews are called evil, not good, and are created without [divine] knowledge.” In his illuminating Hebrew-language book, Rabbinate, Hassidism, Enlightenment: The History of Jewish Culture Between the End of the Sixteenth and the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century (1956), BenZion Katz explained convincingly that the above doctrines became part of Hassidism. Accurate descriptions of Lurianic doctrines and their wide influence upon religious Jews can be found in numerous other studies, written in Hebrew. In books and articles written in other languages, and thus read by most interested nonIsraeli Jews and non-Jews, such descriptions and analyses are most often absent. The role of Satan, whose earthly embodiment according to the Cabbala is every non-Jew, has been minimized or not mentioned by authors who have not written about the Cabbala in Hebrew. Such authors, therefore, have not conveyed to readers accurate accounts of general NRP or its hard-core, Gush Emunim politics.

And who do you think is mentioned as a relevant example of someone who personified this Kabbalistic and Hasidic idea of non-Jewish souls being Satanic?

You guessed it:

The beloved spiritual mentor of Benjamin Netanyahu and Ben Shapiro, the Rebbe!

They thus continue:

A modern and influential expression of the attitudes derived above is evident in the teachings and writings of the late “Lubovitcher Rebbe,” Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who headed the Chabad movement and wielded great influence among many religious Jews in Israel as well as in the United States. Schneerson and his Lubovitch followers are Haredim; nevertheless, they involved themselves in Israel’s political life and shared many concepts with Gush Emunim and the NRP. The ideas of Rabbi Schneerson that appear below are taken from a book of his recorded messages to followers in Israel, titled Gatherings of Conversations and published in the Holy Land in 1965.

[…]

The Lubovitcher Rebbe continued:

 

The difference between a Jewish and a non-Jewish person stems from the common expression: “Let us differentiate.” Thus, we do not have a case of profound change in which a person is merely on a superior level. Rather, we have a case of “let us differentiate” between totally different species. This is what needs to be said about the body: the body of a Jewish person is of a totally different quality from the body of [members] of all nations of the world … The Old Rabbi [a pseudonym for one of the holy Lubovitch rabbis] explained that the passage in Chapter 49 of Hatanya [the basic book of Chabad]: “And you have chosen us” [the Jews] means specifically that the Jewish body was chosen [by God], because a choice is thus made between outwardly similar things. The Jewish body “looks as if it were in substance similar to bodies of non-Jews,” but the meaning … is that the bodies only seem to be similar in material substance, outward look and superficial quality. The difference of the inner quality, however, is so great that the bodies should be considered as completely different species. This is the reason why the Talmud states that there is an halachic difference in attitude about the bodies of non-Jews [as opposed to the bodies of Jews]” “their bodies are in vain.” … An even greater difference exists in regard to the soul. Two contrary types of soul exist, a non-Jewish soul comes from three satanic spheres, while the Jewish soul stems from holiness.

 

As has been explained, an embryo is called a human being, because it has both body and soul. Thus, the difference between a Jewish and a non-Jewish embryo can be understood. There is also a difference in bodies. The body of a Jewish embryo is on a higher level than is the body of a non-Jew. This is expressed in the phrase “let us differentiate” about the body of a non-Jew, which is a totally different kind. The same difference exists in regard to the soul: the soul of a Jewish embryo is different than the soul of a non-Jewish embryo. We therefore ask: Why should a non-Jew be punished if he kills even a non-Jewish embryo while a Jew should not be punished even if he kills a Jewish embryo? The answer can be understood by [considering] the general difference between Jews and non-Jews: A Jew was not created as a means for some [other] purpose; he himself is the purpose, since the substance of all [divine] emanations was created only to serve the Jews. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” [Genesis 1:1] means that [the heavens and the earth] were created for the sake of the Jews, who are called the “beginning.” This means everything, all developments, all discoveries, the creation, including the “heavens and the earth – are vanity compared to the Jews. The important things are the Jews, because they do not exist for any [other] aim; they themselves are [the divine] aim.

This is spiritual narcissism taken to some truly cosmic levels, and we really wonder how many quotes of this nature are simply not accessible to us because we don’t have access to the original Hebrew language and are thus only exposed to the pop Kabbalah (all about meditation and peacefulness) of a few Hollywood actors and singers.

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But all of this also explains the Rebbe’s political stances surrounding the issue of Palestine. For example, the Rebbe was bullish on Jewish settlements, arguing that Jews were completely justified in stealing lands in what he called “Judea and Samaria,” religious terminology used by them to refer to the West Bank (where there is no Hamas by the way). The reasoning behind this is that, according to them, these lands are not being stolen at all. Rather, they are Jewish lands. He also makes it very clear that he believes any concessions made for the sake of peace are almost blasphemous.

Thus, he stated in a talk:

The shocking reality is that the people who have been given the power of decision in Eretz Yisroel are chasing after murderers and terrorists, trying to find favor in their eyes, to convince them to take away tracts of Yehudah and Shomron! Not only is this actually happening — but it is being pursued in a shameful and denigrating manner, openly and with much fanfare.

 

This attitude of shameful fawning and obsequiousness to the gentiles never before existed, even in the lands of the diaspora. In Eretz Yisroel itself so disgraceful an approach was certainly never previously followed. To deal with terrorists!?

 

Day and night the political leaders of Eretz Yisroel proclaim that they are ready for “joint rule” and “trusteeship,” or even “autonomy.” It appears that their sole intention is just to be able to sit down at a round table together with the terrorists!

 

What will result is common knowledge. When dealing with murderers and terrorists, even after the agreements are signed they will be of no value — just a “scrap of paper.” When you sit down to negotiations with a murderer who holds a dagger in his hand it does not take long before you are stabbed in the back.

What makes this even worse (if it weren’t bad enough already) is that there are still those who argue that we stand now in the Messianic period!

In another talk, the Rebbe, who has openly endorsed the IDF, would seem to be in favor of the sort of collective punishment we see enacted today in Gaza:

Israel must broadcast a clear message: Terrorism will be met with strength; when caught, terrorists and their families will be punished severely; and by no means will terrorism be rewarded by concessions.

This not only helps us to make sense of the geopolitical views of the late (or living, according to some) Rebbe but also those of Benjamin Netanyahu, who, as per Max Blumenthal in his 2019 book, The Management of Savagery, is the true father of the modern “Clash of Civilization” narrative, having been propagating such views as far back as in the ’80s. He writes:

The anxiety over Iran’s revolution was also palpable in Israel, where the right-wing Likud Party had wrested power for the first time from the Zionist movement’s Labor wing. In Jerusalem, just months after Khomeini swept to power, a young Likud Party upstart named Benjamin Netanyahu organized a conference under the auspices of the Jonathan Institute, a think tank he named after his brother, who had been killed while leading the legendary 1976 Israeli raid at the Entebbe airport in Uganda.

 

In attendance was George H.W. Bush, neoconservative standard bearers like Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson, staff from newfangled conservative think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and sympathetic policymakers and journalists from across the West. Netanyahu’s goal was to internationalize the Israeli understanding of terrorism. In short, he sought to deny rational motives to the Arabs, who had been militarily occupied for decades or had seen their nations ravaged by Western colonialism, casting their violence instead as the product of the most primitive impulses—“part of a much larger struggle, one between the forces of civilization and the forces of barbarism,” as he wrote in his 1986 tract on terrorism and “how the West can win.”

 

Netanyahu had cleverly reimagined right-wing scholar Richard Pipes’ vision of a global struggle between communist and “anti-communist” nations as a battle over “values” waged between the civilized “JudeoChristian” West and the barbaric Eastern hordes. When Washington embarked on a “war on terror” two decades later, the clash of civilizations narrative Netanyahu helped construct provided the George W. Bush administration with the language it needed to market its unilateral military doctrine to a discombobulated American public. The crude mantra of the post-9/11 era in America, “They hate us because we’re free,” seemed to have flowed directly from Netanyahu’s world-view and into George W. Bush’s teleprompter. History had been erased and the West was cast as a blameless victim of stateless totalitarians driven by nothing more than a pathological urge to dismantle democracy. Anyone who attempted to place Al Qaeda in context, particularly by explaining how its early antecedents emerged thanks to semi-covert US warfare, was likely to be accused of “blaming America first.” Either you were “with us, or you’re with the terrorists,” Bush and his supporters often said, putting a distinctly Texan spin on Netanyahu’s Manichean discourse.

We can now also make sense of the genocidal hatred exhibited by America’s most famous Israeli nationalist, Ben Shapiro. For example:

Will we ever see Ben Shapiro denounce the Rebbe?

In fact, will he denounce most of Judaism (all that is influenced by Kabbalah)?

As for their spiritual slaves who possess animalistic or Satanic souls, such as Jordan Peterson, Robert Spencer, and their ilk, will they urge their Jewish masters to reconsider their most beloved religious authorities and sacred scriptures?

Or would that be just far too antisemitic of them?

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