Tunnels have been on our minds ever since the devastating attack by Hamas on October 7. How can Israel destroy the network of underground passages in Gaza colloquially know as “the Metro” while minimizing civilian casualties? Will the world condemn the use of tunnels for terrorist purposes under hospitals, schools, and mosques? This week, however, a new tunnel with significance for the Jewish world was discovered in Crown Heights, Brooklyn of all places. It wasn’t dug by Hamas, but rather by members of Chabad.
Many were puzzled at the fracas caused when police were called to 770 Easter Parkway, world headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. A tunnel had been discovered underneath the building and a cement truck was called in to fill the passageway which threatened the integrity of the structure. Chabad students tried to block the workers and police arrested nine people.
It’s not entirely clear yet what is going on. There has long been a split inside the movement between those who believe the last Chabad Rebbe was the messiah and those who do not. It seems the tunnel diggers are part of the messianic wing, but so are the ones who called in the cement truck. The conflict between the messianic and non-messianic groups has played out in a legal battle for the headquarters. The non-messianists control the building, but the messianists control the basement synagogue.
Apparently the messianists wanted to expand their basement synagogue, whose cornerstone was laid by the Rebbe over thirty years ago, and the tunnel was used to excavate the added space. They feel that they are continuing the mission their messiah laid out.
While many in traditional and social media have made the connection between the Gazan and Brooklyn tunnels, a better antecedent is in Jerusalem. Afterall, the reason yeshiva buchers are digging in Crown Heights is not (only) to avoid the eyes of the authorities; it is to get closer to holiness. The Rabbe himself made the connection to the foundation stone of the Temple in his cornerstone-laying speech. 770 Eastern Parkway has become a pilgrimage site, and it has been replicated at various locations around the world.
These Chabad “extremist students” (in the words of the official Chabad spokesperson) are seeking to pray in a contested place of great spiritual value to them. In that sense, the situation mirrors the Western Wall in Jerusalem, where battles between Jews and Muslims and Jews and Jews threaten to turn a sacred location into one of strife. At the Wall there is also a controversial tunnel that takes Jewish worshippers to the places closest to ancient Holy of Holies. In 1996, an exit from the tunnel was created into the Muslim Quarter that caused deadly rioting.
In all of these examples, tunnels have exacerbated conflict. While they might sometimes be necessary, we would all much rather get to where we are going above ground with the sun and the air on our faces. But the above ground path requires us to meet and respect the other, something too many of us are sadly not willing to do today. May the light at the end of the tunnel lead us, eventually, to peace.
Rabbi Adler's Study 