After numerous explanations about how the Lubavitcher Rebbe, the King Moshiach, is alive and well in a physical body in our world, and that all questions arising about this cannot negate this fact, it’s worth trying to understand: why is this so important? Why must the Rebbe be alive specifically in a physical body?
Suppose someone comes and says they live with the Rebbe in a spiritual sense. They understand that the Rebbe continues to guide us and hasn’t “abandoned his flock”, even if they struggle to comprehend life in a physical body. But does this contradict Jewish faith? Does it lack one of Judaism’s fundamental principles?
At first glance, one might think a person can live a proper Jewish and Chasidic life even when believing the Rebbe is alive only in a spiritual sense. Moreover, some intellectuals might argue that those insisting on the Rebbe’s physical existence actually lack faith: they don’t understand that spiritual reality is no less true than physical reality...
But upon thorough examination of this topic, it becomes clear that such an approach is entirely mistaken. It contradicts everything the Rebbe taught us: a Chasid’s life should be reflected in physicality as well. When things remain only in spirituality and don’t descend into physicality, it means we’re not truly living. When the Rebbe clearly established in his talk on Parshat Bo 5752 that in our generation, its leader lives an eternal life in the reality of our world — it means we’re talking about physicality. If we uproot this from physicality and leave it only in spirituality, why are we here in this physical world working at all?
When a person cannot or does not want to accept the true reality of Torah, they doubt not just one thing, but the entirety of Torah, God forbid. We need to understand where the boundary lies. Can my intellect decide which parts of Torah relate to physicality and which to spirituality? Where should one stop? Maybe tefillin is just a spiritual idea? Then what’s left for practical observance?
When Maimonides wrote “The Guide for the Perplexed,” many Jewish sages opposed its distribution among those without extensive knowledge. They feared such people might misunderstand many things Maimonides wrote in abstract form and stop practicing them under the guise that these were only spiritual concepts...
Rashba then prohibited the study of philosophy and spoke out against those who explained Torah ideas only in a spiritual sense: “Can one say about Abraham and Sarah that they are matter and its properties? Are the 12 tribes merely constellations?... And that everything will return to chaos? In fact, they show that they have no faith in the simple commandments.” Therefore, it’s better for a person to think that everything should be understood literally, even the most incomprehensible things.
When we speak about the Rebbe’s existence, it’s utterly impossible to explain this in a spiritual sense alone. The world cannot exist without a living Rebbe — the leader of the generation!