Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994), known to many simply as “the Rebbe,” was one of the most remarkable personalities of the 20th century. In 1994 he was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in recognition of his “extraordinary life and work.” Despite the Rebbe’s fame as the inspiring leader of a global movement, Social Vision is the first book to seriously explore his  social ideas and activism, persuasively demonstrating that he was a keen social analyst whose ideas are as original as they are practical. Schneerson’s engagement with the American counterculture of the 1960s, his vocal and controversial championship of a cabinet-level Department of Education, his advocacy for criminal justice reform, and his ecological philosophy, all bear directly on current policy debates in the 21st century.

Social Vision is a breakthrough work of scholarship by Professor Philip Wexler, a leading sociologist and expert on education. Wexler distills Schneerson’s voluminous public teachings, letters, and private conversations to make his ideas accessible to the general reader, and demonstrates the enduring relevance of Schneerson’s teachings to the manifold crises of modern life, politics, and culture. Wexler delves deeply into the ways that religious ideas seminally shape society. Juxtaposed with what Max Weber called “the spirit of capitalism,” Schneerson’s Hasidic worldview is compellingly framed as a practical path that can help us create a better future for all humanity. Schneerson was not simply a religious figure, but also a great philosopher who boldly upended conventional polarizations between tradition and progress, religion and science, mysticism and society. Social Vision tells the story of how Schneerson not only channeled his ideas into a global Jewish renaissance in the aftermath of the Holocaust, but also articulated a universal vision whose influence continues to shape better policymaking for a better world.