Chasidus Without Context

So you learnt chassidus yourself and believe that its a good thing for people to learn but disagree with the amount of chassidus that chabad encourages. Fine. But your “proof” is simply preposterous. You have taanos against certain Chabad beliefs, but to, but to blame that on chassidus is ridiculous. Can you find any direct or indirect link between the teachings of chassidus that explain the spiritual makeup of the world, man, the Torah, Hashem, and the relation between one another, to any of your complaints listed in your post? Chabad may have its seemingly peculiar beliefs, but there are thousands who share none of those beliefs and do not identify with Chabad, yet learn the same amount and type of chassidus that we do.

By the way, chabad yeshivos learn 3 hours chassidus, and 7 hours nigla. So no need to worry chassidus “eating up” our nigla. We view chassidus as equally important b’eichus but we also learn it secondary b’kamus.

By the way, chabad yeshivos learn 3 hours chassidus, and 7 hours nigla. So no need to worry chassidus “eating up” our nigla. We view chassidus as equally important b’eichus but we also learn it secondary b’kamus.

Sounds like nice apologetics, but the Seder Hayom posted in Lubavitcher Yeshivos that I have seen show a different story.

Missionary Bachurim is a 770 phenomenon. The Chabad yeshivos outside the tri-state area, are much more level headed. I’ve hung around a few. They learn shas and poskim on a high level. If not for the cultural barrier, they could easily excell in BMG. Which isn’t saying much.

youall should realize that nobody will value your group by the seforim you say you learned, but by your behavior.

Haleivi,
Lol no, 3 hours a day is what all yeshivos do nowadays. Yeshiva ketanas do 2 hours.
The Seder hayom you saw must have been the original tomchei temimims in warsaw and Lubavitch.

Nunu, yeridas hadoros….

Since chasidus is, yechi agrees, toras hanistar manifested in avodas Hashem, many would hold that you’re not mekayam talmud torah with it, the same as by mussar. This would apply heavily to the last half of the tanya, known as the “polisher perakim” because gerrer and others avoided the conceptual first half, and focused on the latter, which was more avodah centered.

If that’s so, it shouldn’t be something you spend 3 hours on everyday. If you hold that it’s a limud of torahs hanistar leshem limud, then it’s a different story, because then it would have the halachik equivalent of learning kabalah – which only counts as talmud torah if you’re holding by really being masig what it is. Something almost no one today can do; you need a high level of kedushah, a rebbe muvhak, and you need to “see” things in it, like the zohar famously changes from the gemara’s “tah shma” to “tah chazi”

Chasidim often said that they’re not learning kabalah in the sense of kisvei ari and limud lishem limud, to avoid this issue; they said they’re learning it because our generations need the fire of nistar to wake us up for avodas Hashem, and I couldn’t agree more – but that makes it a form of mussar, and not talmud torah.

Let me just point out the term “missionary bochurim” is hyperbolic. The Rebbe instructed bochurim to go out and spread chassidus in other shuls. The fact that bochurim came to your yeshiva and acted improper should not be conflated with the general idea of tahalucha which is widely considered acceptable

Dear Avira,

Your post is baffling. How is limud Torah not Limud HaTorah? Your trying to construct a system where one study is limud HaTorah and other study is not. Being that all the topics under discussion are using the same classical (Tanach, Mishna, Gemara, Etc.) Torah sources, how could it be different just because it’s officially being studied during Mussar Seder? To quote Rabbi Yochanon, Limud enables Activity.

It should be the same across the board. The level of study is only relevant to the level of understanding. Be it Mikrah, Mishna, Chassidus, the Kabbalah, or Birchas Shmuel. You would be better off learning Nefesh Hachaim correctly off-line, instead off using as a cover for on-line debate.

nom – whether learning mussar is a kiyum of talmud torah or not is an old machlokes. I can find the sources if you’d like, but many hold that if you’re not working on understanding the maamarei chazal that are mentioned, and are learning the words to fix your middos, then you’re mekayam es Hashem elokecha tirah, i.e. yiras shomayim, and ve’halachta be’drachav if you’re learning about middos bein odom lechavero.

Some, however, especially many baalei mussar, held that you’re mekayam talmud torah, because you’re learning “halachos” of yiras shomayim and bein odom lechavero.

For torah she’baal peh, understanding is necessary to be mekayam the mitzvah, according to the gaoin and many others. For mikroh, this isn’t the case.

kabalah, which is definitely torah she baal peh, if learned on the level of understanding that one has for other parts thereof, i.e. gemara, mishnah…one is definitely mekayam talmud torah with it.

But chasidus says that it’s not kabalah study, rather it’s using kabalah for mussar, giving sifrei chasidus the same status as sifrei mussar, which as noted, is a machlokes if one is mekayam talmud torah when learned.

And if someone thinks that they’re studying the zohars and kisvei ari that are quoted in sifrei chasidus on a level of mekubalim….he’s just as delusional as a messianic man who doesn’t sleep in a sukkah because he imagines feelings of discomfort over not being uncomfortable, and who thinks that a deceased rebbe hears his thoughts and grants his wishes..

oh, wait..

Avira,

I struggle to understand why, in your mind, “Toras hanistar manifested in avodas Hashem” and “Toras hanistar l’shem limud” are in conflict with each other. If you view your avodas hashem as independent of your limud hatorah, then perhaps that’s the reason you should learn chassidus….

Avira > we don’t see MO people going into yeshivos

It may be nitpicking, but this is not a good expression if you stop to think about it.

Yechi, i differentiate between the two because if we look at learning nistar as we look at gemara, then almost no one is yotzei learning it, because it’s way above the hasagos of non-mekubualim. For everyone else, it’s as the taz lists it together with science and math, as chochmos.

If it’s learned as a tool for avodas Hashem, which was the hisnatzlus of many early chasidishe seforim(since it was forbidden to learn kabalah under 40, etc..), then it’s no different than sifrei mussar.

Avira
I am not sure who is being hateful now.

You are so sure of yourself that everything you say is the ultimate Torah Min Shomayim and everyone else is hateful/misguided/does’t understand/apikoires/dillusional…..just to name a few.

For the record I agree with many things you say, but who gives you the right to declare are you are “The Only Ultimate Truth”. It smells from real arrogance.

“as the taz lists it together with science and math, as chochmos.”

Resorting to trickery again? That was in reference to those topics that should wait until a person is ready (according to some, that includes having learned Kaballa). You are trying to fool people into thinking that he is saying what you are. That surely isn’t Limud Hatorah.

American; I don’t see anything hateful about discussing modern day wackiness in chabad.

I think it’s hateful to disparage chasidim or any other group in klal yisroel which is following a mesorah. The last rebbe changed chabads mssorah drastically, and was criticized, even discounted ny many gedolim; that isn’t the case for other chasidim 50 years past the original hisnagdus. Everyone else pretty much made peace at that point.

I was only disparaging the ones who are only “cultruly chasidim” but have no shaychus to chasidus per say besides their Shabbos dress. And I was lamenting the fact that they are concidered the norm for chasidim today.

American; i reread what i called hateful in your post and I should revise – i thought you were saying that “the chasidim” are not spiritual or medakdek etc….and rationalize it with the externals.

Some do, and it’s not hateful to point that out – my apologies.

There are some litvishe who rationalize not being careful about some things because they’re learning, so they’re definitely tzadikim; I’ve heard shmuzen about this from rav avrohom schorr, so I think it’s a universal problem with people rationalizing bad behavior by saying that they’re keeping whatever the “main thing” is in their eyes.

Avira,
Not sure if you meant to walk back your words, but your newly revised post mentioned ‘nistar’, whereas your previous post was specifically about chassidus being learnt “L’shem avodas hashem”, which you said wouldn’t be correct to spend 3 hours a day on, as you’re not mekayem Limud Hatorah with it.
I may agree that spending 3 hours learning pure kabbalistic concepts is not right, but if we’re talking about Chassidus, and the individual genuinely feels that his Avodas Hashem, and, as a byproduct, his Limud Hatorah, is positively impacted, then why do you have a problem with that? It may not be your Derech, but there is nothing halachically wrong with spending ‘only’ 7 hours learning niglah, and the rest chassidus or musar.

Yechi, if we’re looking at it as mussar, then yes, i agree that it’s not my derech, but it’s not necessarily bitul torah either – I don’t know of a mussar yeshiva that ever spent that long on it everyday…. even novardhok, which was considered “extreme” in the mussar world, did not spend 3 hours a day. Actually, in an interview with rav greinom lazevnik zt”l, he said that the weaker boys who couldn’t handle learnijg gemara all day woild spend more time on mussar than the others. Thay also had mussar rooms and would take off time from yeshiva to do things like going to grocery stores to ask for nails, to break their gaavah, or sleep in cemeteries…but that wasn’t bekevius, taking hours out of every day.

If that’s what chabad yeshivos did in europe, then fine, but i simply don’t know, and I don’t trust the historical accounts people say today, because there’s a lot of revisionism (not just in chabad, rhis happens in many circles…i know my own worlds history from roshei Yeshiva who lived it, and there’s plenty of untrue stories about rav aharon, etc..)

Sounds like we agree that learning kabalah outright shouldn’t occupy 3 hours a day.

Dear Avirah,

If you only include Yidden that are from communities to the right of MO, with no forms of Zionism, and no connection to Chabad, that will be significantly less than five percent of all Yidden.

If this is hard for you to calculate, think of this: How many of the half a million Yidden in South America will make your count? Twenty five thousand would be five percent. Or think of this. There are more Yidden in Florida than NJ. Only half the synagogues in NY are even Orthodox. And not even half the Yidden of Brooklyn will make the cut.

But you have a bigger problem. I am still included in your accounting of Klal Yisrael. It’s a never ending Jihad. The only way to claim your (The same is true for anyone else. There are dozens of books that make your argument.) opinions speak for Authentic Judaism, is to declare yourself it’s mouthpiece. Otherwise, opinions are just opined and don’t hold up to vigorous Torah study.

also, what opinions of mine don’t hold up to “vigorous torah study”?

you often resort to ad hominem(like now), secular arguments or dismissing the sources in rishonim and achronim that you don’t like in favor of unearthed, forged, or otherwise disregarded sources that maskilim dug up to upheave mesorah. I wouldn’t call that “vigorous”

also, the claim that an ideology can’t be right because it invalidates a large amount of people isn’t a very strong logical argument; maybe a lot of people are wrong? weren’t most people wrong during the churban?

the only issue with saying that everyones wrong is that if that would be the case, the omission of protest from gedolim would imply that they are right, and this is how the defense of minhagim – even to the point of dochek – is justified.

But we dont defend minhagim from amei haaretz, because no such gedolim were around not to protest. there’s no reason to defend not covering a married woman’s hair, because the gedolim at the time protested. there’s similarly no reason to justify television watching, because that too was protested.

making kiddush on schnapps is justified, because gedolim did and saw it, and most were ok with it.

so if the gedolim protested against what the majority of klal yisroel were doing, it would only mean that we should listen to them, not from me as its mouthpiece, but from them.

of course, you probably don’t care much about what gedolei yisroel say, and will counter that the rabbi doctors and maskilim were “gedolim” too, and who am I to say who is authentic and who isn’t

to that I would say, that going back to…say, shulchan aruch’s time, there were few controversial figures. the ones who I say are valid were validated by the ones who followed that time period. the maskilim were derided by the same ones who were validated by those previous generations.

Now here is how we see the breakdown.
I have it as:
25% observant
1% yeshivish standard.
Barely anyone who can claim authentic Judaism.

You have it as:
10% orthodox
5% ideologically ordained by Hashem

Your assuming minhagim are part of the halachic system. I tend to view it more as it’s own system.

We see those three (covering, tv, kiddush,) examples the same way, but I won’t use the word ‘justified’. I would substitute ‘accepted’.

the ramchal was an exception, and was accepted shortly after his petirah. The Gaon greatly magnified his standing, as well.

Most other leaders of the torah world, from the nosei keilim, to rav akiva eiger, chasam sofer, gaon, etc…were directly connected to those above and below them.

Nom, you seem very casual about admitting conservative and other “branches” of disbelieving jews into the valid Torah camp.

There are more orthodox vs. conservative synagogues now than there were 20, 30 years ago – the fact that most Jews aren’t Orthodox seems to mean to you that there should be some validity in non-orthodox jewish movements.

For the record, you believe that there is a type of legitimacy in conservatism, even though they do not believe in the ikkarim and constantly change halacha?

Perhaps you’re a hybrid of saul lieberman and neo chabad wrapped in one package. If anything, it’s outliers who still ponder the words of shmuel david luzzato, shlomo Yehudah rappaport, Abraham heschel, etc…who are the tiny, insignificant minority, falling into obscurity amid the towering tidal waves of normative Torah spreading throughout the world.