Rso,
“Avira wrote that there was a great decline in the acceptance of Torah and Mitzvos during the L rebbe’s lifetime. It seems to me that some may have understood that to mean that the L rebbe was the cause, but that is not – at least not the way I understand it – what Avira is saying.”
I should maybe also clarify what im saying, because i didnt mean to imply that avira was saying this. What i wanted to do was point out for the room two things which were being mixed together. 1. The direct results of his actions 2. Things in the world irrespective of what he has done. There is a navka mina i think between the two. If you judge moshiach by number 1, then it doesnt matter what numbers are going up at the moment if he has not yet reached those people. We can only judge him for whether his affects have worked on the people he has reached. By and large i consider it obvious that those whom have been subjected to repeated lubavitch efforts have born fruit in the way of increased torah observance or complete baalei teshuva. if however you take number two as ur starting point then the rebbe must also be blamed for the actions of jews who have had little to no dealings with chabad since the REALITY has changed even if he has yet to reach them. At the present moment I’m not convinced we should be going for the second. However, Avira was talking as though we should. But i thought it would be helpful to point out that there is a difference between the two and they make all the difference.
“If I am indeed wrong – and I may be – why does the Rambam write בתחילה”
I agree with you. Zera dovid is different as its passed down. But Bar Kochba wasnt a full flegged king as king david was either(sefer torah by his side always etc etc and all the halachos mentioned in hilchos melachim). Nor was he a reish galusa which rambam says takes the place of a melech in our days(but again itself isnt a full fledged king). My point wasnt to say there are no answers to these questions but only to explain that not everything is necessarily as it seems from just reading the literal words. Id argue this applies to much of what is written there. Another example is if we take “force all the jews” if we take it as it sounds he is mamash forcing them from the outset to do torah. But what happens with cities, states, and countries worth of tinokim shenishbu? The rambam himself writes that it is proper to speak with them peacefully and draw them to torah with love. So whats moshiach meant to do? Unless you say AT FIRST he does with love and then he forces if needed, or convincing someone to do it with love even if they dont exactly want to is considered “force” either way something has to give. Add to this a further quesiton that the ways of torah are noam and shalom, we even give the goyim around our nations a chance at peace before we slaughter them, and here we force jews whether they just found out they are jewish or not? These arent questions that come from not reading rambam, they come from reading more rambam and more gemaras and more mefarshim. This is a standard way of learning. People make chiddushim and bring up questions on rishonim all the time. The one time we cant is rambam on this sugya? The amount of chiddushim on if the beis hamikdash will come from shamayim or not for example is well known. This isnt a reasonable claim imo.
“There is no repetition at all in the Rambam”
I said this to a poster who said that “if he does this and succeeds and defeats the enemies that surround him” only goes on wars and does not include his actions on jews. Your response is to agree with me that some of these words are a reference to his actions on jews. The difference between you and I though is that i think these are in order and not summaries. so “if he does this and succeeds” means at chezkas he has not made everyone frum but he has intention to and is taking steps in that direction. Where he sees a problem he attempts to fix it. The reason why its phrased that way is because u can separate fighting and winning. There is no great way of separating the act of compelling/forcing with having been compelled/forced. In fact u only ever say someone is “forcing me” if he is at the same time succeeding in forcing you in actuality. But as i already pointed out from pirkei geulah the intention is as i said that he is involved. Likewise rav keduri z”l says:
אנו כבר נמצאים בתקופה הראשונה של משיח בן דוד. בתקופה זו עסוק המשיח בקירוב רחוקים אל עולם התורה. הרב הסביר כי “התהוותה התאחדות של שני המשיחים” (משיח בן יוסף ומשיח בן דוד) ושניהם הינם שתי דרגות בהתגלות המנהיג המשיחי
“שני שלבים בולטים וברורים בהתגלותו: הראשון, הוא מתחיל בפעולות המבססות וקובעות את מעמדו כ”בחזקת משיח”
“One other obvious point that hasn’t yet been stated explicitly. As far as I know, and I’m not a total ignoramus in these matters, the Lubavicher rebbe didn’t force EVEN ONE PERSON or tell anyone to FORCE someone to keep Torah and Mitzvos. So how is he bechezkas Mashiach?”
This gets into the issue of our day with tinukim shenishbu and darkei noam which i mentioned before. It seems rather obvious to me that sending 11 thousand emissaries across the world searching for jews and getting them to do mitzvos even when they prefer not to and are trying to get out of it falls well within the range of forcing. Sometimes they come to u and ask u for it instead, but if all jews WANTED to become frum that, in ur mind would constitute a failure of forcing jews? No guys he made everyone frum without forcing them, cant be moshiach(?)! That cant be pshat. As the rebbe says the ways of torah are peaceful and at first one must approach tinokim shenishbu with love. If you find ur efforts arent working then you increase the intensity. Moshiach likewise with waging wars and being hogeh btorah doesnt have time to go door to door and spend the proper time forcing people to do anything. He obviously has shulchim and shulchim of shluchim. Its recorded that the rebbe once told a rav from australia R Chaim Gutnick, that if shluchim would tell jews they need to do mitzvos, this would already bring about force in the simplest since.
“I think it’s quite sad that someone as lucid and intelligent as you, has been so influenced by Lubavich propaganda that you don’t see the obvious inconsistencies in the claims that you (I assume) have been told over and over and have therefore taken on board.”
I appreciate the compliment as far as it goes. But to correct you, just because two people have arrived at the same destination does not mean one followed the other. I have many disagreements with fellow lubavitchers on a variety of issues. But I have a Rebbe, and he has teachings. Im convinced he is brilliant and has a profound system of torah thought many nodes connected to each other in various ways. We see quotes and pshatim and decide whats more likely to say or less, a gaon sees how if one says like rashi on this or this pasuk this is a result of a deeper narrative about torah in that section of topics which fits well with that statement from rashi and this narrative on that section of torah fits well with a meta narrative about all the sections, but if you go like ramban on that verse then it doesnt work for that narrative or metanarrative etc. And yet all we see is “eh idk i think that word sounds more like this”. Its funny actually. If only we knew the binyan being built by taking that one line that way we would have less issue if it isnt exactly what i thought it meant or that it could have various meanings(obviously there are limits). Two things here are relevant but it would help to compare this argument to other things that have been said by holy people 1. The uri vtumim says that when a sefer is written with ruach hakodesh the authors intent isnt the only relevant factor. 2. The baal shem tov says all the sefarim until a certain part of the achronim era were written with ruach hakodesh and shiva panim btorah applies to them. In that case there are at least 70 ways to interpret rambam. 3. The kutzker rebbe said that when rambam wrote the whole idea of demons is nonsense this is because he believed in demons but didnt want them to harm anyone so he paskined against their existence. Now if I SAID that u would call me a fool, but a holy person wrote that. Point being there is quiet a lot of wiggle room for all kinds of strange nonintuitive pshatim. I dont think what im saying is nearly as nonintutive as the kutzker. There are other things people say about rambam paskining certain ways because he saw things later with ruach hakodesh etc. Again, im not even going there, but people do.