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If the vilna gaon believes something is part of Torah, and a blog is against it, then they are by definition anti torah. Not “supposedly.”
The only people who wear fabric on their head that deny kabalah are maskilim. Not one group of Jews who traces back to gedolei achronim has any issue with kabalah as a whole.
Some, like yekkies, do not incorporate it into their yiddishkeit very much, because of their experience with false messiahs. But they used to, very, very much (the kav hayashar was rov in Frankfort)
It’s not detective work. People are drawn to minus, as chazal say “minus shaani, demashchi” minus is different, because it draws people. It’s an old yatzer hora, but it exploded in recent centuries and had a resurgence on the Internet, which gives every sonei Torah a platform to think they’re “dismantling” Torah concepts.
Dvar Hashem is not “dismantled.” It appeals to people who wish to justify things they do. Especially because they know that certain aveiros are considered the most chamur (in shulchan aruch, who also accepted kabalah!) because of statements in the zohar and kisvei arizal. Some people are tortured by guilt, and it becomes a lot easier if they just wisk away that part of the Torah.
For others, it’s just plain gaavah. They think they literally are on the same level as rishonim and achronim who universally accepted kabalah as Torah misinai. Yes, some questioned exactly how much of the zohar was written by rebbe shimon bar yochai, or his talmidim, or talmidei talmidim, but no one whose name you’ll find in the mishnah berurah questioned its truth.
Of course, there’s kapach. Who was extremely influenced by his years at university; imagine being an innocent yemenite Jew who barely knows anything outside of the community, and suddenly you’re exposed to “new” ways of thinking…he succumbed to it. And he was toleh himself on what he thinks is the rambam; of course, achronim way before him preempt his machinations. The migdal oz, for one, and the abarbanel, who writes that the rambam in fact saw the zohar, and had charatah for being involved in philosophy, saying that had he had the zohar he never would have needed it.
Either way, it’s chazir treif. And the most treif part of it is how nonchalantly you throw around your apikorsus, in an attempt to normalize kefirah in a public space. It’s dangerous.
וכל המינים כרגע יאבדו, we don’t even daven that such people do teshuva. We daven for the above, three times, each and every day.
Talmidim of rav shlomo zalman aurbach write that once he and kapach were at a wedding, where kapach was supposed to be a witness, and rav shlomo zalman, the mesader kidushin. Knowing that kapach was pasul l’aidus, but not wanting to cause a scene or offend him needlessly, he said “it’s not befitting your kovod for me to be mesader and you a witness… let’s change places,” since there is no requirement that a mesader kidushin be…. anything.
And yes, as the sonei Torah are quick to point out, rav ovadia yosef writes that kapach is not an apikores. He also had to deal with him on a regular basis. He couldn’t refuse to answer, either. So he wrote something which was dan lekaf zchus; what is he to do if he finds things in kabalah which to him sound like avodah zara? It’s not his fault.
Of course, it’s very much his fault, because he wasn’t living under a rock. He knew full well how many gedolei yisroel – all of them, including in Yemen, had accepted kabalah. Rav ovadia didn’t say that denying them would be acceptable. He found a very expedient way to avoid a very messy machlokes with a person who had zero regard for talmidei chachamim, which would have jeopardized his mission of spreading Torah among a very neglected part of klal yisroel.
Not to mention your rejection of open statements in the rishonim regarding the cessation of the deaths of rebbe akivas talmidim.
“More than met most eyes”
Because your eyes are so much more enlightened than the rishonim with their primitive talmudic reasoning.
Then you go and dismiss kabalah wholesale.
Disgusting. No respect for the chain of mesorah whatsoever.
By “woefully uneducated” i was referring not to secular education, but to chinuch. The fact that your mind goes straight to college when hearing the word “education” is exactly the issue here.
It’s not “misspeaking,” it’s a conclusion you drew from seeinf people celebrating and not even bothering to get THEIR view of what they’re happy about. You rather went straight to the anti Torah blogs, which make you feel good about the life choices you’ve made.
An example I’ve seen of Lubavitchers who, based on solely learning chasidus without fundamentals, come to confusing ideas about basic yiddishkeit is in a simple question – why did Hashem make the world? Every Lubavitcher i know will pipe up and say “because he wanted a dirah batachtonim.”
That’s an esoteric chazal. It is not meant to be the overarching reason, because if taken at face value, it would imply that He was chas veshalom missing something or that He chas veshalom did it for Himself
Rather, the rishonim say that the purpose of creation was a manifestation of Hashem’s attribute of being the ultimate maitiv, Giver. He wanted to bestow upon others as much shlaimus that He himself had, and to do so, others must be created. To attain this shlaimus one must keep the mitzvos and learn Torah. That’s the only way to accomplish this. The place where that shlaimus is granted entirely is Olam haba, for it is created for this purpose.
What i wrote above is the rishonim and expressed clearly in perek 1 of mesilas yeshorim. It’s basic Judaism.
Chazal say lots of other things about Hashem creating the world. Those are to be understood through the lens of the overarching purpose. A dirah batachtonim was in order for US to benefit from the greatness acquired through our discovery and service of Hashem in the lowest form of creation. THAT is the היכי תמצא, the route in which we achieve that shlaimus mentioned above. Malaachim cannot do this, only we can, because we were created to experience that shlaimus that is the result of our own efforts and avodah – batachtonim. It is out of fiery love of Hashem that we desire to make this abode for Hashem here, in this world, but it is the chessed Hashem that he made us desire to do so, to achieve our ultimate purpose.
Gadol, if you’re here to spew anti kabalah, haskalah dribble, at least learn the meaning of the term “hilulah.” Hint – it is not “birthday.”
Youre only proving that maskilim are woefully uneducated and merely parrot what they read from other maskilim, who themselves parrot from others.
What business does someone who can’t understand gemara have in learning tanya? You can get very confused very easily learning the sefer. It’s not for everyone. It’s not chumash, or tehilim.. it’s a sefer written by an acharon that is no more or less important than the maharal, ramchal, etc…
And ramchal, especially mesilas yeshorim, is a lot more basic and fundamental to learning to live as a functional Jew. So is shaar bitachon in chovos halevavos.
And rambam is not “easy,” it’s learned as a rishon when learning a sugya, but since we often don’t pasken like him lehalacha, it isn’t logical to just learn it straight. If you’re looking for a sefer to amass yedios, then kitzur shulchan aruch is more appropriate.
The Lubavitcher rebbe was wrong to encourage every single illiterate jew who is married to a shiksa to learn tanya – plain and simple.
Dofi, if crazy people tell others to play in traffic, they’re just nuts; they’re not apikorsim.
Smerel, NK might not do kiruv (i have no idea if they do or not) , but their presence and their dress might serve as examples for these kids that you could be super religious and fit their twisted political agendas that they were indoctrinated with in school, which could be a stepping stone to yiddishkeit. Far better than the “we’re Jewish and pro Palestinian” crowd who are very anti Torah.
Dofi, conservative and open ‘orthodox’ can and are very often conflated with authentic Jews. Their apikorsus is poisonous to klal yisroel and the damage inflicted by their words leads to communal sinning and akiras hatorah.
NK isn’t taken seriously by anyone, and even if they were, the content of their speech isn’t apikorsus, nor are they advocating the abrogation of mitzvos. They are parroting political talking points from the anti semites, and they are, at the most, tokenized jews who serve as cover for antisemites to hide their jew hatred.
For a crowd whose yom kippur drashos are all about the “state of world jewry” and think that the main thing that we should be concerned with or outraged by are israeli politics and/or our physical safety, yes, NK presents more of a threat. But to Torah jews who are more concerned with teshuva and kiyum hamitzvks, we just laugh at NK and daven that their actions don’t lead to jews being endangered. But we understand that some jews might actually bs drawn to yiddishkeit by their message, because some have imbibed the colleges’ radical anti Israel teachings and are open to a Judaism that does not include Israel – that can be either yeshivish, chasidishe, or NK,
…or “liberation ” jewish groups like Jewish Voices for Peace which are secular and self hating Jews.
unfortunately their campus rabbis are typically modern orthodox or chabad, which make Israel advocacy and hasbara a huge part of their kiruv.
I’m talking about the less than 10% of college jews who are not pro israel; they are a considerable population. And if NK makes even one of them interested in authentic yiddishkeit, then that’s a positive.
Ujm’s and all of us Torah jews on here are saying that NK hasn’t fundamentally drifted away from Torah values in their ideology, but moreso in their nutty practices. Think of them as a mentally unstable frum person compared with an apikores.
Gadol, do you feel unbound by Jewish law?
When you have a shailoh, do you ask ola rov or do you decide on your own?
And even if you decide on your own, do you use poskim, or do you decide from the gemara on your own?
Or do you use chumash and just consider what chazal say as optional?
Jewish legal authorities consider this line of thought, which was held by maskilim, to be forbidden, as apikorsus. Just as you are bound by halacha as to what you do, you are bound to have certain beliefs. These beliefs are codified by the same authorities who tell you what tefilin are kosher, when you’re obligated to say shma, and what food you are allowed to eat
The sefer kaftor veferach from the early rishonim reports that early greek scholars met with neviim and chachamim, and that greek philosophy is a corrupted version of torah, namely kabalah.
So if socrates said it, he probably got it from yidden, not the other way around, even if the written date came before our written record, but as smerel pointed out, this isn’t the case.
“I thought it was well known,”
Either it’s well known in JTS circles (probably isn’t) or you’re pretending that something you saw online from an apikores is well known to make it look somehow authentic, but even in co-ed schools, no one teaches that chazals torah is from goyim.
Gadol, you say in one line “Chas Vashalom allow our sages to be trodden upon.” But then you turn around and say that the bracha was made because of greco-roman influence?
Rabbi yoshe ber soloveitchik, not one who was quick to label things heretical, clearly wrote in 5 drashos that to attribute any motivation or outside nfluence to anything in chazal is unequivocally apikorsus.
“We have no prophets today so anyone trying to explain a gemarah and apply it to whats happening today is a false prophet”
חכם עדיף מנביא
We have gedolei Torah who throughout the generations pointed to signs in tanach and chazal of opportune times for geulah.
More recently, gedolim including the chofetz chaim began saying that we are in עקבתא דמשיחא, the heels of moshiach, ths last period before geulah. Rav chaim kanievsky would say geulah is very imminent; these are not false neviim chas veshalom.
No one said a definite date, and all predictions are with conditions that unfortunately don’t seem to have been fulfilled.
ויחד לבבינו לאהבה וליראה את שמיך
Our hearts spould be united to love and fear Your name
Happy, they’re not protecting anyone. Antisemites are using them the same way white supremacists use isolated black people who were happy under him crow or slavery to back themselves up (not that the two are the same; they’re very different morally)
It’s called ‘tokenizing,” and the fanatical branch of NK are consummate token Jews.
Ujm, you’re correct. There’s an idea of chasidim being ‘farbunden” with the rebbeh; if he’s doing it, they can too. But this would certainly not apply to a deceased person who no longer is davening.
Sechel, who mentioned the steipler? And yes, you don’t need to follow brisk, so please don’t mention rav chaims shitah about kavanah as a way to undermine the importance of zmanim when brisk holds very, very much of zmanei tefilah.
Re, other rebbss davening late; that is correct, and tefilas nedava is only half of the answer you’re reaching for, which is the shtikel torah of rav Meir shapiro, who said that a rebbe is chazal’s “toraso umnaso,” who is patur from tefilah. Any tefilah they perform is a tefilas nedava, which does not require the zman lf shachris, mincha or maariv.
That has nothing to do with other people besides the rebbe.
“The existence of Eretz Yisroel is a daily neis”
Eretz Yisroel existed since maysoh bereshis, lr possibly ths Avos, depending on how you look at it. It exists as am area of land regardless of who lives on it.
If you’re referring to the.secular shmad state built on Nazi collaboration and euroepam6 nationalism, then you’re correct, that the state is not a natural phenomenon.
“Who says one should skip all the hachanos, and just say words with minimal kavanah in order to beet chatzos? It can be not even considered davening.”
After chatzos it’s the afternoon. It’s no longer shacharis, and one cannot daven minchah until half an hour (shaaos zmanios) after chatzos. So it’s stam a bracha levatalah.
“Minimal” kavanah is defined as knowing the words to the first bracha of shemoney esrei.
“It actually says in shulchan aruch if one can’t have kavanah he should not daven”
It says not to daven over again if you didn’t have kavanah by the first bracha, because maybe you won’t have kavanah the second time either, but it does say to continue and have kavanah at least by modim, because some hold that modim is the bracha that’s mea’kev for kavanah
It does NOT say that one shouldn’t daven unless they have total kavanah for the whole or even most of shemoney esrei. The steipler writes that one who knows Hebrew basically always has basic kavanah because they know wbat they’re hearing when they aay the words, even if it’s by rote.
Rw, rav chaim and being omed lifnei hamelech – rav chaim is a daas yochid on this issue and in brisk they indeed are makpid, and daven a fast shemoneh esrei to maintain this kavanah.
They also will always be makpid to daven shacharis in time to make brachos krias shma within the zman krias shema, as is commonly taught in yeshivos.
Sechel, the point is that a person has a darca achrina, an alternative route. Being with one’s close relatives is not darka achrina. What would be the alternative? I agree that one in that situation shouldn’t see them unnecessarily, but for family occasions this is derech eretz.
There seems to be a big disconnect here.
By “litvishe,” i and the other posters here are referring to people who live by the mesorah of litvishe yeshivos and rabbonim. But it’s not centralized; there are scragglers who are loosely affiliated or not at all, and there are people who might have grown up in yeshivos but became baalebatish and discarded much of the mesorah.
That being said, in places like Lakewood, no one who wears a lace top shaitel would ever be chosen or kept in any kind of chinuch role. There are community standards that if not kept, might not lead to a cherem but will also make such people ostracized. It’s not what I’m “calling” modern – there are, firstly, modern orthodox jews, and there are the above weaker people, but you seem to want to lump together all non-chabad people as if we’re a homogenous group, differences between which critics of chabad are inventing out of thin air.
The difference is that in chabad, there’s a tolerance for sinfulness in the above issues (and others), as long as you consider yourself Lubavitch. Now you might not get a shiduch with a gez family, but you will be shielded from criticsm from us “snags” simply because you believe in their rebbe.
Making belief in a person so central to a religious perspective, where stated belief in him is almost the sole criteria for shielding and acceptance, and the one deal breaker, where if someone opposes him, he is totally chutz lemachaneh…. that is essentially christian.
AAQ, when MO teachers have an equivalent of “zohgt der heiliger Rashi,” I’ll change my tone. It’s not even comparable. MO kids are pumped full of zionism, “ahavat chinam,” which is a very apt description of a sourceless fantasy, love of secular culture, and told over and over about how you “can” be a good jew in the modem world, edited. Torah is taught as though it is stories about ordinary people… people can question if Avraham was correct in going ahead with the akeidah – they look at it the way goyim read their Bible. But they add a sprinkling of rabbinic commentary as food for thought.
ARSo, not only is it accepted, but such lacking people are,as noted here, sometimes promoted to positions of communally leadership and representation of chabad abroad, something unthinkable in other circles. Even modern Orthodox rebbetzins dress according to halacha nowadays, as far as i know.
I’d also add to your point about letting everyone do things on their own level – I’ve heard as a knee-jerk reaction from supposedly anti-messianic people that the reason why they don’t come out in a ma’aracha, full blown opposition to the messianics is because “there’s enough division in klal yisroel as it is.” This empty line seems rehearsed and inculcated, but aside from its disingenuousness, it also speaks to how much neo-chabad will admit to the chaos in its camp, where no rules are set in stone and you practically have to be Shmuely boteach to get any kind of reprimand….or maybe he’s ok now too; who knows.
Aaq, i was referring to my “actual” chinuch, when i learned Hashem’s Torah instead of the Bible and Rabbinical commentary.
But as it happens to be, most MO, especially the women, treat pesach the same way the Torah world does. It’s almost universal.
Kuv, if you grew up having no problem getting your hands inside a bag of rice that fell out of the chometz closet, or better yet, kept it on your shelves during pesach and just didn’t eat it, then there’s just a fundamental difference in the chinuch you and i received, and there’s no sense arguing over it
Coffee, correct, i said it backwards. It’s a real chashash.
As for feeding animals being hanaah, the poskim say it regarding issurei hanaah, even if it’s not your animal, you enjoy it eating what you gave it. It’s “cute,” and that’s the whole reason why people feed them – they enjoy it.
Kuv, of course you should teach them about kitnios. I meant not to teach children that it’s normal to hold and deal with kitnios on pesach. There’s a sensitivity….same way we wouldn’t touch chometz that’s not ours.
I also cannot speak for Rav Shmuel and the wzo, but those who allowed it did not say that zionism is any less bad than it used to be. They said that it was a token statement affirming zionism.
Most gedolei yisroel were extremely against that psak, as we have a mesorah from all the gedolim to not join the wzo; in fact, this was a major element of Agudah’s shitos.
Smerel, if we’re talking about eidus(which is what the two women from the shaar ha’aspah gave) then you’d be correct. You’d also be correct if levin said a shitel torah, or quotes a chazal.
Big people listen to anyone.
That’s not the case here. Levin allegedly said a very simple observation, and rav Yaakov, it is claimed, changed his mind from it. That doesn’t happen with gedolei Torah.
Lernt – proving a blog entry with some article in a lukewarm zionist /charedi lite/ MO forum doesn’t help anything. I was close with talmidim of rav yaakov, including rav belsky; it’s all sheker.
Where is this piece in emes leyaakov?
Also, do we want to educate our children to handle kitnios on pesach?
Sir, who says the kitnios in the farm wasn’t mixed in with the wheat feed? The issur of owning might be a kezayis, but when a person feeds an aninal, it’s called hanaah according to halacha. I don’t believe there is a minimum for how much chometz one can benefit from; it shouldn’t be any different than having hanaah from other issurim, like basar vechalav, which has no shiur.
“litvaks” don’t wear lace top shaitels. Modern, baalabatish people do it because they want it to look as though they’re not wearing a shaitel. All the litvishe poskim clearly ruled that they’re assur.
Who said a long shaitel is more tznius than a tichel which leaves less than a tefach exposed? Lomg shaitels are alluring. Tichels are not, even if a small amount of hair is showing. Halacha allows that. It does not allow alluring styles, which include long, fancy shaitels.
And no, foreign as this may seem, most kiruv workers do not stand in the street, expose tefilin to pritzus,and then wrap these holy objects on the arms of people full of machshavos asuros who probably don’t have guf naki and whose hands have been heaven knows where.
Rather than acknowledge a kasha and seek a terutz, you just conclude that chazal were acceptable when they give you the history but not acceptable when they say repeatedly that Torah protects us.
What is meant on a simple level is that Torah gives us a kiyum,an existence, which is a huge miracle, while among hostile nations. The fact that we haven’t been wiped out despite attempts by everyone in every generation is a bigger neis than krias yam suf, says rav yaakov emden.
Anon, chazal were fully aware of their own history – that’s how you know about the tragedies that you describe. And they say that Torah protects us.
You’re just spewing kefirah and it’s not helpful in a time of tzarah.
Torah protects in ways above our understanding. It also doesn’t prevent every decree – do you think the churban, Holocaust, crusades, etc…happened all of the sudden? There were warnings of calamities from.neviim and gedolim. People ignored them, and so they came; you might ignore them too because you’ll think “we’ve had suffering before even when I think we’re been behaving well”
Itchie Meir levin was not a “rav.” He was an askan. A good askan, but also not above criticism, and had made errors regarding his presentation of Agudah’s daas Torah on the world stage.
Reb Yaakov never said such a thing. It’s laughable that a gadol would change because of a simple observation, not that that was ever the discussion to begin with.
What he DID say, speaking as a talmid of his yeshiva, is the exact opposite – when the satmar rov’s sefer on the 6 day war was published, they met (which occured often, as they lived near each other at the time).
The satmar rov had written that even if his sefer changes the mind of one yid, it’ll be worth it. Reb Yaakov told him, “I’m the one yid.”
Blogs are full of nonsense. If you want to know what gedolei yisroel held/said, talk to their talmidim!
Ujm, really no need to pick fights
ובאיבוד רשעים רינה
A pathetic, disgusting murderer, who emboldened criminals and was a hero for a community steeped in crime
“And if using electric devices on Shabbos is no longer a shailoh, why is it a problem to turn lights on or off?”
Are you joking? Poskim will not allow the use of electricity in any form on shabbos.
I had the same question, but the roshei yeshiva know better. Despite the danger of the government drafting bochurim, the terrorists….they still said bein hazmanim should stay in place.
Maybe the cheshbon is that without it, the bochurim won’t be learning flasig anyways. It might be proper, but maybe they’re not ready for that kind of sacrifice, which might harm their learning next zman.
It’s good timing; shaimos trucks are ubiquitous this time of year…
Coffee, they used to. They changed it for kiruv reasons, which in and of itself isn’t a huge deal.
Also they’re not the only ones who don’t wear streimels; stolin in America don’t either
Reb E, i disagree; we need shishim when there’s taste. That’s nothing to do with rov anymore; rov is used when it’s min bmino
Anon, the concept of chozer v’niur goes as follows:
When something is batul, nullified, in a mixture, this can happen through having 60x the volume of the nullified item, or the majority, depending on the case. Sometimes you need 100x..
Typically, the concept of chozer veniur means that if there was enough to nullify the item, but then more of its own substance was added, the material that was previously nullified is counted with the new stuff.
For instance, a pot has 122 ounces of chicken, and one ounce of chazir falls in. No problem, because you have 60x the chazir. But what happens if subsequently, 2 more ounces of chazir fall in – each one by itself would be batul, but when you add them together, you get 3 ounces, which would require 180 ounces of chicken to nullify. Do we say that what’s done is done, and the first ounce is as if it’s not there anymore, or do we say it is “revitalized” by the additional ounces.
That’s chozer veniur.
Reb E is saying that if the chometz was batul before pesach, do we say chozer veniur because now there’s a new issur that previously was not there, one which is not subject to bitul, as chometz on pesach is never batul, even in a mixture of 10000x itself. Do we say that the chometz should be looked at as gone completely, since it was batul before pesach, or do we say to look at it as still existing, and subject to the current judgement of not being batul no matter how much there is against it.
Reb E, did you mean pas.yisroel? There was no “cholov stam” in the times of the rambam.
Sechel….
Please read my post. Rav Shach holds like the Taz. Nobody said kabalah isn’t Torah. The question is if you’re mekayam talmud Torah with it, because talmud Torah is to learn tanach and gemara to come to halachos. The shulchan aruch harav even, can hold that kabalah isn’t talmud Torah, if you go through his psakim.
He doesn’t write that it isn’t Torah or that it is; that wasn’t his discussion. His discussion is if you’re mekayam talmud Torah with it or not.
In maaseh ish talmidim testify that the chazon ish was an expert in kabalah too.
I agree that if food is found clearly to be unhealthy, it should be avoided, but i do not think one should alter their habits regarding communally accepted practices, like eating cholent and kugel.
Shomer pesayim would likewise permit, but not recommend, things like soda; i was saying that to forbid it would be against halacha.
Smoking at this point might be assur, not because of current knowledge but because it’s fallen out of practice.
Aaa, it’s a halachik principle which permits activities that might be scientifically seen as dangerous but are accepted practice in society. The gemara is saying that danger will not befall people in such a situation, which explains why yidden in Europe weren’t dropping dead all the time from lung cancer, despite having smoked day in and day out.
Smoking is not considered acceptable anymore, so its dangers have more shlita in the world.
You’re reading it literally – it’s not saying that one who relies on shomer pesayim Hashem is himself a fool, rather the pasuk means that Hashem protects people from things that should be harmful if they would be communally aware of it, just one of Hashem’s wonders and kindnesses. Talmidei chachamim who were aware of the sakanah of tashmish with meuberes nevertheless did so, because of that shmirah. They weren’t “fools.”
Just out of curiosity, I looked up Rav Shach, and surprise surprise, he says no such thing.
What he says is essentially a Taz in shu”a YD246:4, which puts chochmas hakabalah together with shaar chochmos that one should only learn b’akrai and only after learning kol hatorah kulah.
These shitos hold that kabalah is hakaras haboreh, and not a mitzvah of talmud Torah. Just like many hold mussar is a kiyum mitzvah of v’davka bo, and not talmud Torah, even though its contents are definitely Torah.
Kabalah is Torah but its study might not be considered the mitzvah of talmud Torah in halacha. Many disagree about it and mussar; the shailoh might be תלוי זה בזה.
Yankel, the zionists caused the Arab threat. Let them handle it on their own – that’s different than the Nazis. Plus, there’s no active genocide in eretz yisroel – if it would be that kind of situation, the satmar rov would have no problem cooperating with whoever is available to save jewish lives
Smerel, i was referring to the English biography that came out in the early 2000s, it was called mishnas reb aharon, in addition to an English title i don’t recall, something “maran rav aharon.” It was painstakingly researched. But if it’s disputed then so be it – I don’t think it’s very difficult to get in touch with the mafia… just ask some no good’niks and flash some cash. mafia men don’t act anonymously; they’re known people with public personas and high profile lives, especially in those days…police were honestly afraid to start up with the big crime families, and they actually made the streets safer for the average person, as they didn’t rob random people that they didn’t have “business” with, and petty criminals were also afraid of them.
Anyways, entrenched means publicly associating with them b’kevius, permanently, in a set way.
Sechel….
Avi ezri was written by Rav Shach, not the Chazon Ish. The chazon ish wrote….the chazon ish.
And nowhere in either sefer is there any mention that kabalah is not Torah, chas veshalom. Rav Shach, as it happens, fiercely opposed Kapach, the haskalah -oriented yemenite “rabbi” who denied the zohar and kabalah.
I’m sure there’s ample motivation in chabad to demonize Rav Shach and make it as if he was against everything holy – he wasn’t.
Sechel represents the “man on the street” in crown heights, and CS is attempting to be the apologist, but both are quite telling in the current state of chabad.