Reply To: Moshiach is coming this year!

“No less a person than the Alter Rebbe said that Moshiach will have to be a misnaged, because if he’s a chossid the misnagdim won’t accept him,”

To shed light on that particular dialogue, I would refer you to the Stump the Rabbi program entitled “How Can We Say That The Rebbe Is Moshiach If The Alter Rebbe Said Moshiach Is A Veltisher?” where rabbi Noam Wagner gives a very reasonable interpretation of that exchange. It is important to note that many of the Rebbeim’s cryptic exchanges were subsequently explained by later Rebbeim. We cannot understand the co-conversations of holy tzaddikim like Chazal say “The mundane talk of the sages contain the deepest secrets” (Sukkah 20b)

There is also a famous story of how the mezritcher maggid once said that Moshiach will come from one of his talmidim but he’s not sure if he will come from his oldest (Alter Rebbe) or his oldest (R’ Nochum of Chernobyl), so the Alter Rebbe made A shidduch beteween his grandson and R’Nochum’s so that Moshiach can come from both of them. Later, when someone else wanted marry this grandson, R’Mottel, who had succeeded his father since then, disagreed and said that the child was already reserved for “The Litvak” as the Alter Rebbe was called at the time.

We can’t understand the Alter Rebbe’s discussions; we could only guess. And these guesses could be quite varying – and conflicting – sometimes.