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Does your view on chabad include throwing likutei sichos out without genizah?
Does it include not eating meat or ( wine, he was clear about that) withoit investigation?
Dear Avram,
Exactly! It is not that your relatives want to believe in sainted humans as atzmus haguf, or they want to speculate endlessly on what is above, or even that they struggle with the terms used to describe God in TaNaCH. It is simply that belief does not mean much to them. Whether that belief is dead-center, borderline, or out-of-bounds. Instead of fighting about what is proper belief like a bunch of simpletons, we would do better to discuss the benefits of an unshakable conviction in the ultimate divine powers. However they may be properly defined.
It is not what you believe. It is how much weight you put on your beliefs.
So when the rambam, rav saadya, ramban, and others discussed notions of Hashem, they were being simpletons?
They were not discussing anything as trivial as we are. The only one who actually had discussions with other Jews about what they believed, (from what is known) was Rav Saadya Goan. (Maybe add the Ibn Ezra instead.) Those discussions were more about the supremacy of the chachamim than anything else.
But that is off topic. What interested those luminaries was the truth. Not the ltechnicalities of the commoner’s personal beliefs.
You wrote that as if they sat together and argued over the exact way to believe in some stodgy dogma. Is that the way it is in your head? Sounds Catholic. Kol haposel…..
If I had a copy of the sichos, why would I not keep it? It’s not really worse than most of the reading material in the yeshiva world.
@AviraDeArah
“Similarly, at the council of shluchim, one of the organizers began with a vehi noam, that “the rebbe should look down and we should find favor before him”And you don’t think rav chaim is looking down and finding favor in all of the bnei torah? Do you not think so?
How can you even have a tzad to think this is avodah zara??? Every tzaddik (especially a rebbe) looks down from shamayim and sees their chassidim following in their footsteps, & they get a lot of nachas!
@Kuvult
“I asked one major Chabadnik and he explained of course the Rebbe died but a Rebbe lives on through his students.”A rebbe represents the chassidus. Even if the rebbe passes away, the chassidus & especially the chassidus that the rebbe taught. And when people learn it, it is like he is active, present, “ki heim chayenu”.
“It’s avodah zara. Period.”
If you say so.
Regardless of what they are actually thinking.
And all the precedent by other Rebbes that you choose to ignore.
Additionally, go look at some of the descriptions of the Arizal’s meditations. Angels, ancestors, and the pious of the past. I’m not saying I think they are authentic, but there is precedent. It’s odd that you don’t just saw there are old debates that no-one is lenient about anymore.
Also, go to Meron in two weeks and ask them what is going on.
@TS Baum “A rebbe represents the chassidus. Even if the rebbe passes away, the chassidus & especially the chassidus that the rebbe taught. And when people learn it, it is like he is active, present, “ki heim chayenu”
oh really, did they place the same emphasis on the Rebbe Yosef Yitzcok ztl or Rashab?
Ts, before doing mitzvos we say vehi noam – that Hashem should find our service fitting and proper and should bless our efforts, that we should serve Him the way He wants us to.
Opening q religious event with a request that we find favor before the lubavitcher rebbe, is very very different than a speaker saying at, say a siyum hashem “rav Meir shapiro is looking down on us with such nachas”
One is a request, which only Hashem can and should answer, and the other is a sentiment.
My main avodah zara point was cunin’s rebbe running the world bit.
Dear Common,
There are several Rebbes that maintained their chassidus after they died.
As far as being concerned with what jews believed in, the rambams Moreh, hilchos deos, and shemoneh prakim are full of exactly what he held a jew should believe, and the consequences of not doing so, i.e. apikorsus. The rambam held that corporealism, even unintentionally, disqualifies one from olam haba. Clearly he cared and held that Hashem cares about what we ordinary Jews have in our heads. Some of us may have brains rhat are a rishus harabim, but that’s not the way it’s supposed to be.
Nome – invoking zchusim from the avos is something we do everyday. Malachim are a bit controversial; i.e. machnisei rachamim, but that’s not relevant here – those tefilos always are that the malachim bring our tefilos to Hashem.
I was not referring to likutei sichos’ quality per se, and seforim aren’t “reading material”. The yeshiva worlds seforim are very different from anything even in mainstream chabad, so I don’t see the comparison at all. Rav Belsky held that the sefer isn’t a sefer.
“Bzchus adonainu bar yochai”
Lekovod hatana eloki, rabi shimon bar yochai ”
Where in lag baomer liturgy is there even a request to him at all?
That is how the reformers read the Rambam. You’ve been on their course for this whole post.
@AviraDeArah The Likutei Sichos of Rav Schneerson ZT”L are just collections of divrei Torah, no more no less. They should absolutely be treated with the same respect given to any sefer.
But not the level of respect that many in Chabad give them. They do not contain the answers to all of life’s questions. Yeshivos setting aside a long seder every day to go over them is time better spent learning Gemara or Rishonim. They do not need explanations. One cannot divine inner meaning from apparent contradictions or mistakes. The late Rebbe of Lubavitch was a human being and the transcriptions of his writings are just the writings of an Acharon who himself is Basar V’Dom. Not (Chas v’Shalom) Torah m’Sinai, nor even Shulchan Aruch.
What do you think they mean when they talk about the Rebbe “running the world”? They mean exactly what you’ll find in 8hazal, מי מושל בי. They mean no more, no less, then that Hashem fulfills his requests. There’s nothing new about that. You don’t like the way it’s expressed? I don’t either. So what.
Regarding finding favor, don’t most people describe their ancestors being proud? Is the song about Mamma Rochel also Avoda Zara? (I happen to find it weird, actually.)
At I said, anyone acquainted with Chasidishe literature, or its precursors, will know in what light these statements are said.
About the sichos. I thought you were stating that I’m obligated to get it out of my house. My apologies. I do not really care about whether is a sefer what is not. I’ve read worse.
Dear Avira,
That post was not referring to any of the standard liturgy. If you go back in history, you’ll find a lot of really bizarre devotions. People think that they go to Meron to beg Reb Shimon for various requests. I’m not promoting any of this. Or even conceding that it is permitted. I’m just proving that it’s not only Chabad and it’s not knew.
>the organizers began with a vehi noam, that “the rebbe should look down and we should find favor before him”
i think it is very clear to any unbias human, that they hope their rebbi is having nachas from the initiatives he established. to call it avoide zora is crossing the line and your poshut twisting poshute things and accusing frume yidden of disgusting inyanim. Btw you dont need to let out what happened to you earlier in life on people you have never met. calling it avoide zorah is crossing a line.Avira hate to break it to you but your just not a tzadik.
@nomesorah, besides breslov name me one
>BUT their result should be a lesson to all of us that you should not just ignore vehement opposition from Talmedey Chachomim from other groups
‘Talmedey Chachomim’ such as @smerel, @avira and @HaKatan.
You guys are mamash your own metzius. in tosfos taanis i think daf vov or zayin tosfos asks on the gemera saying one who learns torah lo lishma its sam hamavas but in pirkei ovos it says in pirkei ovos mitoichlo lishma bo lishma. he answers that in mitoich lo lishma its talking about for schar such as gashmius or ruchnius such as oilom haba (as the rambam discusses in sharei teshuvah perek yud i believe that learning for oilom haba is lo lishma) or just plain enjoyment, but in taanis its talking about learning torah to shtech and prove others wrong, that is mamash sam hamoves. i think its clear that alot of users on this thread are using torah for the wrong reasons and are just drinking “sam hamoves”I never said I’m a tzadik; pretty far from a tanya-esque beinoni too.
Doesn’t change the arguments i made; that’s just ad hominem, so too with the sam hamaves line
Most of my rebbeim are no longer living, but when i do something i don’t preface it by davening to them that i should find favor before them in my work. I hope that they are seeing whatever good i do and are having nachas
Halevi, chabad enjoys its exclusivity, claiming (as manu cults do) that “you just don’t understand because you’re not chabad”
I’ve learned chasidishe seforim for over a decade, including tanya. Never saw a piece about rebbe worship, him running the world, or that you can pray to him at a kever and it’s not doresh el hamaysim because he’s the essence of god wrapped in a body.
I’ve seen a lot of things i don’t understand, but those are things that are not meant to be understood, they’re just plain AZ
“I’ve learned chasidishe seforim for over a decade, including tanya. Never saw a piece about rebbe worship, him running the world, or that you can pray to him at a kever and it’s not doresh el hamaysim because he’s the essence of god wrapped in a body.
I’ve seen a lot of things i don’t understand, but those are things that are not meant to be understood, they’re just plain AZ”
If you think you understand the chassidishe velt because you learned a little chassidishe seforim and went to Torah Vodaas then that might be the reason you think Chabad is not rooted in precedent from Chassidishe thought.
he said “I’ve learned chasidishe seforim for over a decade, including tanya.”
you responded “If you think you understand the chassidishe velt because you learned a little chassidishe seforim’
that’s called twisting someones words. more commonly known as sheker
“Is the song about Mamma Rochel also Avoda Zara? ”
HaLevi – Rochel Imainu was buried there in order to cry for us. Asking her to do so is not the same. I believe you knew that but were hoping to make a parallel
“the rebbe should look down and we should find favor before him”
And you don’t think rav chaim is looking down and finding favor in all of the bnei torah? Do you not think so?
again, a distortion of someones words. Of course Rav Chaim zt”l is looking down on us. That does not even remotely connect to us asking that he should look down so we should find favor before him. Not at all. And you will never hear it said.
And when people learn it, it is like he is active, present, “ki heim chayenu”.
yes, he is. but you have to stop pretending that what a neshama does and finds is equal to requesting that neshama to do so.
At most we ask neshamos to bring our tefillos and bakashos to the Eibeshter so that HE should have nachas. you are omitting that crucial ingredient that makes all the difference.“that’s called twisting someones words. more commonly known as sheker”
Hard to accuse me of sheker when I literally quoted his words in my post. You’re right that I don’t know exactly how much chassidishe seforim he has learned but when someone says “including Tanya”, it would be like someone saying I’ve learned mussar seforim for decades “including Mesilas Yeshiram” revealing their ignorance as they speak.
Dear Syag,
Of course a line could be drawn separating chabad’s practices from everyone else. But that does not prove a thing. Is a repeating line the actual line that separates the permissible than the forbidden? If someone responds “Absolutely!”, that seems awfully convenient to me. And if it’s not the separating line, than why does anyone care how they pray? What’s in their heads when they say these things, is their business. I’m surprised by your stance here.
I’m surprised by your confusion
Is your issue with the poster, or the topic? I assumed the latter. These topics are clouding my senses.
If anybody on here learnt tanya, even the basics, understands clearly that every neshama has a chelek elka’ah mima’al mamash – a literal chelek of Hashem inside his neshama.
So it’s not so hard to say that we are part of Hashem wrapped in a body, because our neshama which has a chelek eloka’ah mima’al mamash is wrapped in a physical body.
Before getting to the content, I must say this: referring to a practice, or manner of speech, as Avoda Zara is immature and rash. Even witchcraft, which is surely based on Avoda Zara ideas, is not a transgression of Avoda Zara.
I get it. You hate Chabad. Much of the Yeshivish, AZ-trigger-happy crowd does as well, for various reasons.
Now, you cannot convince me that you get the context when you are literally calling it what it isn’t. I am not a Chabbad Chossid, which should be obvious by now, but I do get the background and general paradigm from which these talks emerged.
Dear Avira,
If you did not find there ideas in a not insignificant quotient, than you were not learning Tanya. Or maybe you had an agenda. Or sadly, you may be resistant to gaining new insight.
Dear Avira,
On yidishkeit. When a Yid does a mitzvah because he is a comitted Jew, that is the desired outcome of creation. This is even if the Jew has no concept of a creator or any idea of the god-head. Just the act itself, is included in ‘boruch asher yakum es divrei hatorah hazos’. Now, how can this be if the practitioner has no devotion to Hashem or his Torah?
The answer is exceptionally unique in the annals of mankind. Hashem gave the Torah to us! It really, actually happened. And now that it is here, it is the individual possession of every single yid and all of Yisroel’s collective possession simultaneously. So even when a mitzvos are done with no connection to Hashem, is is still Torah by the mere connection of being Jewish. Because even though the intentions and devotions are almost nil, it is unaltered Torah in that the practice itself is representative of what the Torah wants from us.
A look at the taryag will easily demonstrate that Hashem gave us the Torah for us to enact it by living it. Not much in the way of how we should devote ourselves or what our intentions should be. There are many ways to approach God. But there is only one mission to carry out on His behalf. All the sugyos that we learn, are filled with the smallest details of proper actions. There is no sugya of proper beliefs.
Even the most far out atheist, can be a committed Jew. Rav Hirsch said as much regarding Spinoza. And the Chofetz Chaim have avowed atheists mussar about keeping mitzvos. His sefarim are filled with admonishments about mitzvos that people ignore. But when it comes to belief, he just writes that the common belief is not at all the way the Torah views it.
N0mesorah, maybe the Christians also do not really mean what they say, and they are actually real monotheists?
Notably missing from your definition of judaism is one single source, pasuk, rishon, acharon, or chazal.
Ever read chovos halevavos? Ever heard of the title?
What you describe is yeshayahu Leibowitz, pretty much copied and pasted. It is really your contention that if a jew keeps shabbos out of fear of communal reprisal but denies Hashem, that he is a “good jew”?
Mordechai kaplan said that one does not need to believe in Hashem to be a good jew. He was the founder of reconstructionist judaism; sounds like you and him would really hit it off.
Rav hirsch put other frum jews in cherem for espousing hererical beliefs regarding the definition of torah shebaal peh, including rav azriel hildeshimer.
The torah is repleat with exhortation after exhortation to love, fear, and obviously believe in Hashem. The mitzvos are meant to bring us to that state, and express those feelings as well.
Reform believed that only faith in god matters, and that Hashem doesn’t care what you do as long as it’s not hurting anyone. Conservative believe that Hashem cares a little about both. Reconstructionism said you can be a good jew without God.
Orthodox judaism requires belief and practice. Lo sasuru, a laav you probably don’t like very much, is violated, as in, Hashem cares about it, as in, a person burns in gehinnom for it, every time a heretical thought is entertained. Acharei levavchem zu minus.
If Hashem only cares about mindless actions, why is tefilah belo kavanah like a guf without a neshoma? Why does Hashem punish us tachas asher lo avadta….besimcha…merov kol, why does Hashem care if we serve him with joy and will punish us severely if we don’t…if all that matters are going through the motions?
During the war with amalek, why did it matter that klal yisroel were meshabed es libam, subjugated their heart to Hashem? Shouldn’t they win because they were doing the mitzvah of fighting the war, no matter what was going through their mind.
Mitzvos tzrichos kavanah is a machlokes. However one thing is clear; we don’t answer amen to the bracha of, say hamotzi, made by a known idol worshipper, because he beloeves in AZ.
Rav hutner makes an important point in his rebuttal to the common practice in chabad of putting tefilin on the oblivious heads and arms of frei people. He says that even if you hold mitzvos do not require kavanah(the jurys out on that one, it’s not resolved, which further disproves your “yiddishkeit” sweeping statements), it does require for you to be aware of the mitzvah that’s being done. Someone who does not believe in the mitzvos, wherher due to ignorance or kefirah, cannot do them, because there’s no such thing as a mitzvah without a metzaveh.
“Above all things, guard your mind/heart, for from it comes life” according to you, life comes from the body doing the actions.
The mesilas yeshorim explains, and I’m quoting this word fkr word: created the world to bestow upon His creations perfection, shlaimus, to be in a state where one can behold the shechina and enjoy it. The tools that bring one to this state are the mitzvos. The place where this experience is felt is olam haba. On this world, we experienced it too in the form lf dveikis “veani, kirvas elokim li tov’. That is the only good, to be close to Hashem. The opposite, aveiros and materialism, bring a person far from Hashem. According to you, eating and being materialistic is perfectly fine as long as you put on cow hides with scrolls in them, wear fringes on your 4 cornered garments and eat meat slaughtered in a special way.
The lengths you go to contrive a non existent yiddishkeit are baffling. Is this perhaps something a therapist recommended when you had problems with emunah, maybe OCD? To just do it anyway and not think about philosophy? It’s good advice for such conditions, maybe, but it’s not normal avodas Hashem.
Dear Mdd,
Christians make up a vast amount of groups. All the theology for dummies that they practice makes for a almost pagan like deity. Some groups are monotheistic. But if you want to know their beliefs, you have to only look at their theologists and philosophers. Which you are refusing to do with chabad. And, I do not care what the Christians think either.
Dear Common,
Sorry I did not see you question. The first Vorka and the Berditchever. Not in a defied way – in a sainted way. This is not unique to chassidus. There were some by the Stolin split that chose to remain with the dead one until things sorted out. Old Lelov and early Chabad had such a side as well. Then there was the son who gave his dead father an aliya.
Dear Avira,
That’s a long one! I’ll get to it tomorrow. But you really do not know me. So try to explain yourself! And then maybe we’ll get somewhere.
n0mesorah,
“On yidishkeit. When a Yid does a mitzvah because he is a comitted Jew, that is the desired outcome of creation. This is even if the Jew has no concept of a creator or any idea of the god-head. Just the act itself, is included in ‘boruch asher yakum es divrei hatorah hazos’.”
Define “committed Jew”. You may have an unusual personal definition of this, but the vast majority of the frum world would say the term is synonymous with “G-d fearing Jew”, and the attention to the details of mitzvos flows forth from this fear and love of G-d.
If one has no concept of his Creator, how would he fulfill Anochi Hashem Elokecha asher hotzeitzicha meieretz Mitzrayim? Or Veahavta es Hashem Elokecha? Or es Hashem Elokecha tira? Keriyas Shema? Tefillah? The seder? Brachos? Sukkah and tefillin, for which specific reasons are given?
You are divorcing the mitzvos from their very essence and purpose, which is to serve Hashem (including the mind and heart!), and while bedieved one fulfills a mitzvah even if he didn’t have specific kavannah for it according to some opinions, like showing up to shacharis half asleep and waking up to figure out which yom it was to say “hayom yom chamishi”, that is only because he has a concept that what he did was a mitzvah (i.e., that there is a Creator, G-d, King of the Universe who commanded him to do such). Without that knowledge and belief, how can what he did be considered a mitzvah at all, or even more, the desired outcome of creation?? If a guy blows a shofar on Rosh Hashana because he thinks it’s a good luck charm to help the Mets make the playoffs, did he fulfill the mitzvah of shofar?
n0mesorah,
“Instead of fighting about what is proper belief like a bunch of simpletons, we would do better to discuss the benefits of an unshakable conviction in the ultimate divine powers.”
So your fight is not with me, it’s with Yaakov Avinu. When he and Lavan made a treaty, Lavan invoked the (plural) G-d of Avraham and god of Nachor, but Yaakov would only swear upon the Dread of Yitzchak. Things were tense, Lavan practically brought an army with him to assault Yaakov. Why on earth did Yaakov jeopardize this tentative peace treaty with his powerful relative by kvetching about the details of Who’s upstairs? And, surprisingly if beliefs are not so important, we learned at the seder a few weeks ago that chazal felt this simpleton belief quibble was a matter of great importance, saying that Lavan tried to destroy all of klal Yisroel with his little statement.
Dear Avram,
Your really out on a limb with that. Nice vort! And?
Dear Avram,
God fearing key is not so accurate. Fear of God takes a Jo’s of goods work for most of us. I mean continued to keeping the mitzvtos (within the Jewish community).
The idea necessary for mitzvos is a mitzaveh -commander. Not boray – creator. You have a big swing there between a mitzvah for it’s own sake and a good luck charm. There is a lot in between.
No mesorah, the flying spaghetti monster is real.
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