Reply To: Question of an ignorant, closed-minded Lubavitcher

Yserbius,

>>>I’ve been to maybe seven in my life. I know of one that has a picture of their Rebbe front and center. By simple logic it’s highly unlikely that this is the only one and I happen to have stumbled on to it.

I’ve been to hundreds of Chabad shuls and NEVER seen such a thing.
Either one of us is lying, or you saw the yotzei min haklal.
This is מילתא דעבידא לגלויי – walk around, I’m sure you can find dozens of Chabad shuls near you. Check them out. I challenge you to find one.

>>>There are people in authority in Chabad (you know their names) who have gone on record saying things like…

See, this was my point. People like you and David Breger love to claim that all Chabad shuls practice outright AZ and the children our taught to daven to a picture of the Rebbe ch”v.
As soon as its shown that this is nonsense, they revert to endless arguments about ambiguous statements that they decided to twist as sounding avoda zoradik.
These arguments will never end, because they are nuanced arguments on interpreting deep philosophical ideas.

For example, you bring “telling people to ask bakoshois of a dead man at his kever” as some sort of terrible sin of avoda zorah, while this is a widely accepted minhag yisroel with many great poskim to rely on.

All I ask is that you continue attacking chabad for the nuanced philosophical problems you have with them, and stop falsely accusing them behavior that every Yid agrees is sinful.

As a matter of fact, this was exactly my point in the original post, and I post it again for emphasis.

You asked that on one hand Lubavitchers claim that there aren’t really any Elokistim, at the same time, we find many Lubavitchers making these extreme statements.

This was my response:

Lots of terms can be understood differently by different people, and that’s where most arguments happen (i.e. both sides usually agree, but don’t understand each other).
The idea of “עצמות ומהות ווי ער האט זיך אריינגעשטעלט אין א גוף” – whatever it means – is a direct quote from the Rebbe, so I don’t think any Lubavitcher would deny this. The idea of asking brochos from the Rebbe is also accepted in all circles of Chabad.
What these ideas mean is up for lots of discussion and have indeed been topics of endless debate in the CR.

What I think a Lubavitcher means when he denies that there is such a thing as Elokist is, in simple, unambiguous words:
I have never met a Lubavitcher who has the Rebbe in mind when davening shmoneh esrei, or says “Yechi Boreinu” (I’ve met plenty who say Yechi adoneinu moreinu v’rabeinu melech hamoshiach leolam vaed, but I’ve never ever heard or seen “boreinu” ch”v).
I mentioned once in the CR that I’ve only heard of one yungerman (baal teshuva) who espouses these views, and he’s shunned by all (including by extreme, flag waving, yechi yarmulka wearing bochurim).