Macabbi Tel Aviv’s victory a few night’s ago for the Euroleague basketball title – the second in a row – may not just herald a period of domination for the boy’s in blue and gold. You see, according to a Chabad Rabbi, it might just herald the coming of the Messiah!
“Maccabi’s victory is another sign that any second now Moshiach will come – just like the Rebbe taught us,” Rabbi Yaakov Gloiberman, the personal rabbi of Maccabi Tel Aviv coach Pini Gershon, said Monday. “And God willing, Moshiach will be the rebbe himself,” he added, referring to the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson.Gloiberman, a Chabad emissary in Lod, provided spiritual support to Gershon, who coached Maccabi to a win against Tau Vitoria in the Euroleague final Sunday in Moscow.“What else has to happen before Moshiach comes?” asked Gloiberman. “Image thousands of fans, religious and secular, marching through the streets of Moscow after the victory shouting, ‘There is a God and Moshiach.’ ”Gloiberman said thousands of Israelis openly expressed pride and adulation for their team in Moscow, a city with a long history of anti-Semitism.“Right now I am speaking to you from in front of KGB headquarters,” he said. “Just a few decades ago a Jew with a beard would be afraid to show his face anywhere in Moscow. Now I am standing in front of the most infamous place in Russia, celebrating Israel’s victory without fear.”
A nice thought, but he lost me when he said that it could be the late Lubavitcher Rebbe himself (whose death, I would have thought, would disqualify him from being the Messiah).
