The emphasis on simcha (joy) and devekut (cleaving to God) marked Hasidism's original character against a piety centred on learning, and though the movement was fiercely opposed at first, it became a major and rigorously observant stream of Orthodoxy. Today Haredi Hasidic communities combine strict observance of the law with the movement's distinctive warmth, music, storytelling, and loyalty to their dynastic Rebbes. The belief thus names both a devotional temper and a form of community organised around the figure of the holy master.
Among the dozens of Hasidic dynasties today, Chabad-Lubavitch is distinctive for its outward-facing model of emissaries (shluchim) sent worldwide to serve Jews wherever they live, rather than the more insular communal life of most other Hasidic groups. Its seventh and, to date, final Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who led the movement from 1951 until his death in 1994 without a named successor, is regarded by a vocal faction within Chabad, sometimes called Meshichists, as still potentially or actually the Messiah, a position most other Hasidic groups and mainstream Orthodox authorities reject as bordering on or crossing into heterodoxy; the dispute over Schneerson's messianic status remains unresolved within Chabad itself.