When will all Yidden finally have Achdus?

There are prominent names of rabbis that in the core of the yeshivos are known not to be gedolei yisroel, but kevodam bemkomam omedes… When i asked a certain gadol regarding another gadol from previous generations who refrained from saying halel on 5 iyyar, he told me that he wasn’t the same as the chazon ish or other top tier gedolim.. There is a method to the seemingly arbitrary categorizing

I was holding off on it, but it needs to be said – Surprising as it may be to some, I’ve heard from several gedolei yisroel that exact expression, that he was not a gadol. when i was a teenager and unsure about a lot of things, i asked pointed questions to rabbonim I was close with, one of whom was a gadol beyisroel who said the exact words “he said a sharp vort here and there, but was not from the major leagues”, after saying that he made a moshiach driven campaign to leave behind a legacy in the absence of having children. Later on i learned that many gedolim have said similar things, with the brisker rov saying ,”this meshuganeh thinks he’s moshiach”, or the satmar rov calling him a “shoteh”.

Gedolei yisroel have judged one another before; this isn’t new. Rebbe Evyasar was doubted at first by other amoraim as to his gadol status (מאן לימא לך דרבי אביתר בר סמכא הוא), in gitin 6b. Be was obviously accepted, but there are many other examples where a rabbi is rejected by the composite of gedolim and lomdei torah. These include people like shlomo yehudah rappaport, shmuel Dovid luzzato, the author of me’or aynayim in the time of the maharal(not the chasidish sefer from the heiliger tchernobler), and many others.

There are criteria to be considered a gadol. Tzidkus, torah knowledge, mesorah…a key element is lack of negius. It seems from the behavior of the lubavitcher rebbe that it was in the last element that he was most missing. He was a genius who amassed a lot of knowledge, kept the mitzvos as far as we know, had a mesorah, but seems to have fell prey to the yatzer hora for kovod and gaavah. We see it in the personality cult, the pictures everywhere, the parades, the reformation of chabad into a movement with symbols (the rambam menorah), missionary “shluchim” , the promises of redemption… It points to what my rebbe said about him wanting to leave behind a legacy in the absence of children.

Syag, I only realized now that you look and go into so much depth of my words, that i realized I must explain myself properly.
“You have even built a sect who teaches that our gedolim and rebbe’s are just commonfolk, there are, as you put it, “thousands of them. It’s pretty hard to keep track”. Unlike your rebbe… And you don’t chap the problem with that?”
You are looking at the negative side of the words, but I wasn’t meaning that. I was saying you need to look at a different perspective, and I was trying to help you see that. The litvishe school I went to, they called every Rosh Yeshiva a Gadol. I know many of them, but there are many in Eretz Yisrael and America and all over the world that I haven’t heard of, and you can’t blame Lubavitcher Children not to know of.
I am pretty flattered that you take my exact wording so seriously.

AVIRA

So… what is a godol?

And, whether or not some gedolei yisrael said he was not a gadol or not, he is a Gadol and we all have to respect him.

Not sure what that’s supposed to mean. Are we supposed to accept your assessment over the assessment of gedolim?

Farby, i hooe you realize that lubavitcher rebbe stories (there are thousands) come only from chabad. Chasidish gedolim such as the poskim cited above don’t quote him in their teshuvos, let alone the litvishe poskim. Outside of chabad, MO revered him as a tzadik, as did sefardim who flock to kabalists, but few gedolim acknowledged him as anyone significant. Rav avigdor miller did, but in his later years stopped referring to him in mesholim of tzadikim and generally understood why the yeshiva world, led by rav shach, was opposed. Rav pam also originally said that rav shach is “talking to bnei eretz yisroel” but later was chozer.

It’s only laughable if one lives in isolation. Where i come from, the lubavitcher rebbe is not considered a gadol. Rabbi kook and rabbi yoshe ber Soloveitchik are held in higher learning esteem, yet are not accepted due to their divergence from mesorah.

“I find it hilarious that a bunch of zundels on the cr the rebbe is not considered a godol.”

And there it is again. Farby knows his rebbe is the nasi of the dor because he/his talmidim taught him so, but when we follow the words of our gedolim we are a bunch of zundels on the cr.
Hmmm…

farbycoffee,

“we do tend to know about our personal Rebbes because they are our rebbes.”

That is fine, and given my family’s background and location, my children do/will tend to know more about our personal poskim, and gedolim such as Rav Moshe Feinstein and the Chofetz Chaim, than say the dayan in Kalamazoo, the Baba Sali or the Skulener Rebbe. But relative familiarity is not what I’m talking about. From my perspective, it seems that many in Chabad give little to no acknowledgement of any contemporaneous Yiddishkeit or Torah outside of Chabad at all, almost as if they are sundered from the rest of the Jewish world and we’re actually two separate religious groups. I think that situation is accentuated in Syag’s community, and more muted in mine. And I know that many in Chabad will say that is because of misnagdus, and many outside of Chabad will say that is because Chabad believes non-Chabad Torah is inferior and unworthy of attention. But this communal situation is why I think simply saying the mishichists are nuts is not ending the debate.

I think that now I understand that some people here are anti Chabad inside and they don’t plan on changing, I think I’m going to leave this discussion if this is the way you treat a tzaddik.

Avirah – “i hooe you realize that lubavitcher rebbe stories (there are thousands) come only from chabad.” This statement is false.
And in all of what you have been telling over above, I personally think it is extremely important to keep your personal revelations and conclusions out of it. It waters down the information that is given from sources from whom we need to follow and respect. And that was the point of what we all have been trying to give over.

You maybe should reread the thread with a pencil and paper and take notes. You’ll be less confused. You’ll still be mad and call us names, but if you are honest with yourself you won’t be confused

“who refrained from saying halel on 5 iyyar”

Avira, did you mean tachnun?

True achdus and shalom/peace doesn’t have to mean that we’re dancing together and hugging each other all day everyday. When ehrliche yidden accept other ehrliche yidden’s right to daven their nusach and go to their respective manhigim for guidance and/or blessings, that is the best achdus.

Rav Zalman Brizel ZT”L of Yerushalayim once said (I’m paraphrasing, not necessarily quoting) “My Rebbe doesn’t have to be the biggest Rebbe. He’s MY Rebbe”.

Who cares if you are okay with it. Following our rabbeim isn’t about you. If you excuse yourself for terrible jokes/comments/thoughts about rav shach, why should you complain that we follow the opinions of many gedolim as well? If you are going to use such petty criteria it’s not anti chabad unless you are anti litvish.

I know that you have a few bachurim and a few screen names. It was one of them. I say “you” because you all argue the same complaints and the same points.
I am not making up that you are anti chabad unless you are anti litvish, I said that if you all are going to decide that not holding of your rebbe means anti chabad, than you not holding of ours is anti litvish. I was saying that its stupid.
I also have a lot of respect for many people in chabad. I listen to and respect YY Jacobson, I think the mesiras newest of the shluchim is unbelievable. And when I encounter chabadniks in my chesed work I treat them no differently than any other yid. But if my rabbeim have harsh words for the rebbe that they base on Halacha, mesorah, personal knowledge or even ruach hakodesh then that becomes our reality. You have no business calling someone anti chabad for that. Now do you understand?

I used to listen to a shiur by a very brilliant accepted rabbi. One day he said something a bit off. Later he did it again. Do I say, “he is a choshuva rebbe, I will just accept that”? No. I turned to those greater to see what their response was and eventually he was put aside. He was “un acknowledged”. We follow our gedolim.

I don’t need to define “a bit off” because the context here was clear to the players. There was a claim that even if our gedolim tell us someone has lost chezkas kashrus, we should still hold of them because they said so. I added to that from the other side. Just because a person was highly respected, that does not mean they cannot lose that position when they no longer qualify.

You are bringing irrelevent examples as I said that he “said something off”. And i don’t care what other people think of it, I turn to those in position to make the call. You seem so stuck (as in immobile) from the idea that people need to respect all different kinds of opinions and speakers, even if it is heretical or apikorsus, because maybe our leaders really just don’t know the difference and are myopic. Just entertaining that thought indicates that you don’t seem to get the difference between open minded and inappropriate. Maybe it’s your upbringing, or maybe it’s too much time spent revering people who are chipping away at your purity.

“In the latter case, there is some benefit of listening to a T’Ch of a different approach just to appreciate different aspects of Torah, even if you do not plan to subscribe to his views.”

as you have demonstrated, you are under the impression this includes everyone with a yarmulke, who is shomer shabbos and calls themselves orthodox. You believe it is proof that we should be honoring people and ways that are corrosive. You don’t seem to understand that the box this is in (or plastic container if you don’t like boxes) excludes your free thinkers like slifkin and steinsaltz. Same as you laud the Rambam’s secular knowledge because you think it is proof you should go out and do the same. This is a gross misunderstanding of what is going on here.

Syag> all different kinds of opinions and speakers, even if it is heretical or apikorsus,
where did you get it, I am not sure.

> laud the Rambam’s secular knowledge because you think it is proof you should go out and do the same.

I am not saying everyone should. And I would think if Rambam would think that he should be the last Jewish person to learn science, he would say so. Please provide a citation. I would not be surprised that he would define some limitations, I would be interested to learn specifically.

I do not want to get into personalities, but I am not sure what is your issue w/ R Steinsaltz. I never heard anything inappropriate from him, and I saw with my own eyes totally non-modern yeshivish and Chassidish Rabonim (including at least one from your town) either sitting at the same table or participating in worthy initiatives started by R Steinsaltz.

AAQ – steinsaltz was called a kofer explicitly by the steipler and rav shach. No, they did not use that term mildly. The only place steinsaltz had refuge from the controversy was in chabad, because of an ancillary affiliation that he had with the lubavitcher rebbe. You will see steinsaltz gemaras in chabad shuls at times.

The issues with him can be clearly seen in his book “biblical images” where he casts people in tanach like characters in a soap opera. He also was part of a fake Sanhedrin. He was a very intelligent baal teshuva who had no mesorah and made up things as he went along. He also wrote garbled kabalah books in English for “laymen” and decided that he was qualified to reprint shas with his perush next to rashi’s.

I recall another big taaina against Steinsaltz was that he printed his Shas with different pagination than the standard Daf.

@HaLeiVi

No! No! No!