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Now you get a glimpse into Shmei’s duplicity. He claims not to have read the book yet he accuses me of distorting what the author wrote.
You have the book. Why not quote it directly?
RABBI POSNER’S BOOK Part #1
Now you get a glimpse into Shmei’s duplicity. He claims not to have read the book yet he accuses me of distorting what the author wrote.
Okay Qwerty, I found the book.
Zalman Posner was a prolific Chabad writer . One of his books is called “Why Be Jewish?”
If you can’t even remember the NAME of the book “Think Jewish,” how do you expect to remember the content accurately?
This chapter is called “,Why Be Chabad?”
The chapter is actually called “How Does Chabad View Other Jews — How does Chabad view Reform and Conservative Jews?”
Posner begins as follows, “There are 2 types of Orthodox Jews. The first are careful with Kashrus, Shabbos etc however they have no interest in any Jew outside of their immediate circle. We call such Jews insulated. In contrast we have Chabad who are the only Jews who understand and practice the concept of Kol Yisrael Areivim Zeh Lozeh.”
Qwerty, why was it necessary for you to pretend that Rabbi Posner wrote “Chabad who are the ONLY Jews…”? This is a lie.
This is some of what Rabbi Posner actually wrote (I am putting what I want to highlight in bold):
“One camp in the Torah community consists of the inward-looking, modern “shtetl-type” community. The other is represented by Chabad-Lubavitch and others who share their view on the relations between observant and non-observant Jews. We might call the first community the enclave and the second, the activist.
The enclave community is inward-directed, concerned only with its own perpetuation, with preserving and developing itself, with transmitting Torah and Yiddishkeit to their children and their own adherents. They have achieved remarkable levels of Torah scholarship and mitzvah observance, and have been enviably successful in perpetuating their communities. In these circles assimilation is virtually unknown. On the other hand, their influence, at least their direct impact on the rest of the Jewish world, is small. They are fearful lest involvement with the non-committed may somehow dilute the commitment of their own people…
Not so the activists, particularly Chabad-Lubavitch. Chabad-Lubavitch stresses an ancient Torah concept, namely, that all Jews are responsible for one another, in more than a material sense. The founder of Chabad went so far as to say that a Jew who helps another Jew to regain his virtuousness by means of the Jewish mind and purified and refined “a thousandfold.”…”
All Rabbi Posner wrote is that some frum communities are more insular while others are more outreach oriented, and the Chabad derech is the latter.
A. What could be wrong with that statement?
B. Qwerty, why did you have to change what Rabbi Posner wrote to fit your angry narrative?RABBI POSNER’S BOOK Part #2
Qwerty: [Posner] said that Abraham’s first nine tests weren’t tests.Rashi and Rambam and others have lists of the ten tests, but Posner disagrees with them. He holds that Avrohom was just being a nice guy.
Rabbi Posner actually just brought a famous vort, written by the Vilna Gaon and others. Rabbi Posner was quoting it from a maamar Rebbe Rayatz.
First, here is what the Vilna Gaon wrote: “By the Akeida Hashem said “Now I I know that you fear Hashem,” because until then Avraham was only a great rachman (merciful) for he would invite guests and do acts of kindness. However, the middah of Achzariyus (cruelty/severity) and forcing himself to fulfill Hashem’s mitzvos was not yet apparent in him, and people could have said that Avraham is not a tzaddik gamur ch”v.
However, at the Akeida, when he also acted with the middah of Achzariyus, for he had a complete desire to fulfill Hashem’s command and slaughter his only son, then he was complete, and it was clear that he was a tzaddik gamur.”
See it here, in his sefer Kol Eliyahu: https://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=14227&st=&pgnum=7Rabbi Posner echos this idea in his chapter on the concept of Avodah. He begins by bringing the holy words of Tanya, based on Gemara, that the true meaning of Avodah is not “serving Hashem,” rather, serving Hashem beyond one’s personal nature, through struggle. If one is accustomed to learning each inyan 100 times, avodah means learning it 101 times (this is from Gemara).
Rabbi Posner goes on to bring an example from a maamar of the Rebbe Rayatz: “After Abraham had passed his supreme test of faith, having bound his own son Isaac to the altar as a sacrifice, G-d said to him, “Now I know that you are G-d-fearing.” Now Abraham’s characteristic way of serving G-d had always been based on love. Is not that kind of service, the Rebbe asks, superior to a service founded on fear? He then proceeds to answer his own question. Without a doubt, Abraham’s love of G-d was sublime, and his love of man, too, was all-encompassing, extending even to the stranger and the undeserving. But Abraham did not acquire this quality through personal struggle; he had been born with it. … In fact, Abraham never considered himself to be an adequate servant of G-d, for he felt that all his service had been accomplished through gifts with which G-d had endowed him, and not through his personal endeavors. It would not be blasphemous to suggest that perhaps G-d, too, was not “sure” whether Abraham’s service was purely one of love because this was Abraham’s very nature, or whether Abraham consciously felt that this was the proper way of serving G-d. Abraham was, after all, a free agent with a free will. Is the kindly person hospitable because he is kindly, or because G-d wills him to be so?
When Abraham, the epitome of kindliness, is prepared to act so cruelly toward his son, “his only son whom he loves,” then he is acting contrary to his habit; he is suppressing his natural mercies, performing an act diametrically opposed to his innate nature. His motivation could only have been “fear of G-d,” a new mode of Divine service, not usual or natural to him, but the result of deep personal conviction and hard personal struggle. Whether the service born of love is superior to the service based on awe or “fear” is irrelevant for our present purposes. Our concern is only whether the service is “natural” or whether it represents the fruit of effort, of avodah. This is the test of effort that Abraham had to pass when he readied his son for sacrifice.
Abraham added a new dimension to his service of G-d, for now, in addition to utilizing his natural trait of love in his relationship with G-d, he had succeeded in serving G-d also through the acquired quality of awe….”
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