AviraDeArah

Neville, re, doing mitzvos for the sake of their rebbe – I’ve seen in some chabad educational material (to be fair, i do not remember if it was printed by kehas, or if it was an independent institution, but it was definitely taught in a chabad summer camp). I’ve heard it from Lubavitchers individually, too.

Avram, i should have been clearer about the kiruv point – i saw a tzivos Hashem pamphlet where the children were asked to describe the importance of kiruv; many of them responded by saying “the rebbe said to do it.”

That’s different than doing what your rebbe says because you’re supposed to follow him even if he’s a minority opinion. I have some rather unique practices that i do from my rov too, but i do them because i follow his psakim across the board.

As for comparing mitzvos done by adult chabad chasidim to what children do…the difference is that the child sees the reaction from the parents. Here, they are actively imagining the pleasure their revbe gets from their actions instead of imagining the pleasure Hashem gets from it.

Of course, the Occam’s razor solution here is the underlying deification, where pleasing the rebbe, speaking to him, him knowing your thoughts, etc…is because of him being one and the same with kavayachol

Menachem, shu”a saya what ylu originally said, that stam secular materials are assur because of al tifnu and moshav leitzim; shtarei hedyotos are because of kesiva, which is a shabbos specific gezerah, and captions are(apparently, i jad forgotten about the reason) included in that.

But news articles aren’t shtarei hedyotos…

Neville, i disagree; the term misnaged became something similar to yekkie; it’s no longer a pejorative for one who wears short jackets. Some use the term for litvishe in general, but it’s rare.

I also don’t think it showed exceptional scientific knowledge, just an eye for detail that the professor didn’t have

“only one” famous Rosh yeshiva..

Let’s change that to “I’m familiar with only one famous Rosh yeshiva,”

There were a lot; you’re going to have a harder time finding roshei yeshiva and gedolim who were pro chabad, excluding mizrachi.

Sechel – ramban in vikuach and rambam quoted here a million times.

Rso…the rayatz was an accepted gadol batorah. Not only are you being extremely disrespectful, you’re also playing into the hands of chabadniks who say that the only people opposed to the last Lubavitcher rebbe are just against chasidus or chabad in general.

It is not our place to say that stories related by gedolim “don’t make sense”

Potato, the abarbanel(used in messianic circles ad nauseam) says that moshiach might be from those who rise during techias hamaysim, anf tzaykuntzus that gemara – no one ever sair moshiach will be the lone resurrected one. Not the gemara, rashi, the rambam, or anyone else.

He invented the techia protis thing; no one says it clearly.

And rashis 2nd(and preferred) pshat is that the gemara is talking about examples of who moshiach will be compared to.

Eliyahu doesn’t have to be resurrected because he never died, as evidenced by the pesukim and thousands of encounters yidden have had with him all throughout history.

As for the medrashim, check out the meforshim who this guy ignores. It’s simply explained that the neshoma of moshiach was around flr thousands of years; he embodied people like dovid, chizkiyahu, etc…who were bona fide moshiach candidates. But they individually were not moshiach, since the geulah did not happen in their times.

Cs, none of that happened, not even one part of it. And the rambam was aware of the lack of need for war, forcing etc after moshiach comes – but moshiach himself will have to fight wars and coerce people to follow the Torah initially, and that never happened. Not one thing on the rambams list happened at all.

Menachem, what Neville is saying is that a rabbis name attached to something isn’t a defense thereof if the rabbi is a member of the movement in question. He’s saying that we shouldn’t just accept it as having rabbinic approval if the rabbi himself is from that sect.

He’s also going against the idea of the Lubavitcher rebbe being right because he said he’s right. Something some Lubavitchers have an issue with

An example of weird diyukim is the idea that the ramban meant that Hashem might revive one person, moshiach, before everyone else. He doesn’t say that. He’s writing a letter explaining techias hamaysim and says that Hashem can revive who he wants when he wants… He’s referring to tzadikim as opposed to just anyone, or people like rebbe zeirah, who were revived, but he is not talking about moshiach, who must fulfill his mission in whole.

Building the idea of what this kuntres calls “techias protis” is just not a diyuk; it’s his religious fantasy.

That’s just the first thing that comes to mind… He also butchers rashis 2nd pshat with some non kashas and non diyukim, to deviate from the simple meaning that rashi learns that the gemara is not literally talking about moshiach coming from maysim, but rather is discussing what moshiach will be like.

I know plenty pf BTs and gerim who don’t let their past define them, and havd totally embraced yiddishkeit in every possible way. They are true bnei torah and don’t deviate from their yeshiva or chasidus an inch. And no one has a problem with them.

The only difference is in rebbehe shiduchim, where they won’t get rehdt to a rebbishe einikel…nu nu.

But in Litvishe yeshivos, BTs have married roshei yeshiva; it’s more of a meritocracy.

And in Lubavitch their pool of shiduchim is even more limited.

Menachem, while i agree that that alone is not an issue of deification and i don’t think it’s even a hint to it, you need to understand the difference between the other years you mentioned. Klal yisroel has a minhag to change page letters and years which have bad things, like shmad, etc…so as not to mention them. I’ve never heard of a minhag to change a year to fit a positive thing, however. So i believe that’s unique, but the other changes are almost universal

Coffee, my experience in “in town” communities is that if someone makes themselves an outcast, then they’ll be one. For better or worse, dressing, talking, and acting differently from literally everyone else will make you stand out and make people not want to be associated with you.

I’ve never met a person who didn’t both say that they were an outcast and also state the importance they felt of maintaining fheir “individuality” and not wanting to be like everyone else.

You can’t have it both ways; not wanting to conform and then complaining when people don’t want much to do with you.

Ortho, if you need to dig for a sefer that’s not readily available in a fully stocked chasidishe beis medrash, then it begs the question…why is this not known in rizhiner circles, or any non chabad messianic circles? Why is this sefer so hard to find that ltzar hachochma only quotes someone who says it without the original? I personally don’t have otzar hachochma. My beis medrash used to, my current one does not; I’ll give it a look when i get a chance, but the words really don’t sound authentic. They’re not in the style of sifrei chasidus; they appear written by a current day person; but I’ll accept it if it can be shown to be authentic.

What i will not accept is the assertion that this belief is common in rizhiner related chasidusen. Go to a beis medrash anywhere, in the states or eretz yisroel, and find a rebbe, magid shiur, or even an educated yungerman who has heard of this – you won’t. Because it’s a completely unheard-of idea.

Im not defining gedolim. I said that shabsai tzvi and the other names you mentioned are not valid; what did you attempt to prove from their existence? They only show that there are deviant movements in the jewish community, and that they don’t last very long. Chabad will join that list pretty soon, as it’s been around 30 years. I give the messianics about 10 more years before it branches off into people who totally reject messianism, embrace normative judaism with their chasidus, and those who go the way of shabsai tzvi, and create a new, short lived movement of weirdos, just like shabsai tzvi, frank, dovid alroi(who i had never heard of – thanks for the history lesson)

As for rabbi zev leff; not every rov, talmid chacham, rosh yeshiva, etc…are known to be gedolei yisroel. Lakewood is full of 38 year old roshei yeshiva and kollelim; they’re not all gedolim. The term might be subjective, but we all know one when we see one, and rav leff has not done what gedolei yisroel are known for. He’s a rov and a fine person, but he’s not baal habayis on yiddishkeit, and he is not a spokesperson for the Yeshiva world…and he’d be the first person to tell you that. A Lubavitcher chossid has as much business telling litvishe who our gedolim are as we do telling a Lubavitcher which rebbe of theirs was bigger or who they should consider gedolim; i don’t know much about chabad beyond my learning tanya, some likutei torah, and a few pieces from the rashab.

But i do know what the non chabad gedolim said about the last Lubavitcher rebbe, and they were qualified to do so. I also know many rabbonim who left chabad when he took over, including rav nesanel quinn, and many in Yerushalayim.

Yankel, he was. I’ve heard several comments from him to this effect, mostly about learning specifically.

So… Those against the Lubavitch Rebbe are misnagdim.

But the Lubavitcher rebbe said that there are no misnagdim today.

Huh?

Ortho…those were all false messiahs with followers who went off the derech, except maybe in the case of Alroi; there isn’t a clear version of what exactly happened, but according to Binyomin toleda he had followers who didn’t give up after his death, for a short time, but…they were just wrong; they just couldn’t accept it, but the movement died out not too long after.

The other poster was referring to legitimate movements, yeshivos, chasidusen, communities…no gedolim are on record accepting this idea.

Yechiel, the meforshim say on that gemara that Hashem was telling the malaachim that to explain even to them why this is happening, He would have to tear apart the world, show them every fiber of creation and how everything fits together.

The dubno magid gave a moshol; imagine a king who hires a tailor to make a royal garment. He gives him as many bolts of material as he asks for, and when it’s done, the king suspects that the tailor may have pocketed some of the materials, because to him it appeared that the garment couldn’t have taken up that many threads. The tailor says, do you want me to unravel the entire garment to show you how much went into it? The king backs down, not wanting to ruin this beautiful garment.

Mdd, i was saying that the only group which focuses on so called misnagdim is Lubavitch. They paint any and all criticism of them on litvishe just being misnagdim of yore.

But that’s demonstrably false, because the same rabbonim who bash neo Lubavitch have no problem with Tanya, shu”t tzemach tzedek, or any other strains of chasidus(maybe some divergent neo breslov groups too, but not remotely at the same level… they’re not accused of heresy, rather they’re laughed at for chanting na nach etc..)

The chazon ish was somewhat misnaged, that’s true. So? The last gadol I’ve heard of who was openly misnaged was rav elya weintraub. Currently, do you know of any others?

Menachem, i didn’t know about that rambam; thanks for sharing, very appreciated.

Er, you raise some good questions.

When we are in power in eretz yisroel, we definitely would judge goyim under halacha; same thing goes when moshiach comes and rules the entire world.

But do we have to risk ourselves to make goyim keep the 7 mitzvos?

We definitely have a responsibility on some level to prevent averos, as per lifnei iver applying to goyim(i can get sources for you on this, but poskim say it regarding doing things which make goyim sin, such as gezel), and supporting those who are declared enemies of Hashem through their abominations would be not nust lifnei iver, but actively helping them commit their atrocities.

But it’s not just for their sake; it’s lesaken olam bemalchus Shakai, creating a world which is as close to ratzon Hashem as possible, which applies to the entire world.

Not only that, but what goyim around us do affects us deeply. We’re influenced by our environment, especially jews who need to work among goyim and who need to go to school, or who are less educated and/or competent in learning Torah; these people will and do fall prey to goyishe society, and they definitely are our responsibility regardless of goyim.

But does that mean we should support, for instance, a neo nazi party if the alternative is the abomination people? That would be likuach nefesh, so no. In such a case, there simply wouldn’t be anyone to support; one’s a spiritual danger and the other is physical – let Hashem decide, it’s shev ve’al taaseh.

But in out case, even the most extreme republicans are not neo nazis. They might be nationalistic, which is never good for us, but there is just as much – if not more – antisemitism on the far left as there is on the far right…but the difference is that the lefties get away with it by dressing it up as antizionism.

So i believe that the metzius is that both would put jews in danger, but even if im wrong, and the maga republicans would present some physical danger; our spiritual health and our mission to make the world in Hashem’s image would take priority. Because trading temporary safety for kovod shomayim is not a good deal.

Now again, that doesn’t mean necessarily that we’d be obligated to fight the abomination people, unless they are making gezeros on us, and we might not be obligated to support the other side, But we definitely would not be able to support the left! That’s clear.

As for historically not being too involved in kiruv, so to speak, there is a machlokes about this. Some say that we shouldn’t reach out to goyim, because we don’t want to give them zchusim, but in this case, when they are destroying society, we’re not giving them zchusim, we’re simply preventing destruction. Remember, no society in history allowed same sex marriage since the mabul, and the medrash rabba says that this was the final straw.

Others, including rav hirsch, say that we are definitely obligated in the spiritual welfare of goyim, but our priority is jews, so until all jews are frum, it’s a moot point.

But that’s regarding kiruv; no one’s saying to go around teaching them about the 7 mitzvos; what we’re saying is not to support those who are actively against those mitzvos.

Er, would you likewise say that mechias amalek shouldn’t be done because of how much we’ve suffered? There is a time for compulsion, and it is clear that we are supposed to support the forcing of non jews to keep their mitzvos, and at the very least to support those who advocate for keeping them nationally.

Gadol, do you think the Torah would favor candidates who are racist, misogynistic, and narcissistic, or politicians who are actively creating laws which fundamentally contravene the basic code of decency outlined for non jews to follow – i.e., abomination groups, gender ideology, etc..?

Which do you think is a net gain for kovod shomayim?

All minorities have it better in america than their home country; a black man even during segregation was far more prosperous and healthy than his African counterpart. A society which is at its worst, unequal, and gives less to some than others might be unjust, but has it violated any of the 7 mitzvos? Is racial and gender equality obligatory?

No.

Is creating a new, non-heteronormative society(their words) with pride in their sinfulness on full display, which celebrates baby murder and calls it health care, against the 7 mitzvos? You bet it is.

Use your Jewish sense of right and wrong and put down the New York Times for a bit; you’d be surprised what thoughts start coming to you when all you expose yourself to is the blatt gemara for just a few weeks.

Coffee, the aveilus is necessary by itself, to drive home what we lost, why we want it back, and to feel the pain of Hashem kavayachol.

But that awareness that we gain from aveilus is supposed to spur us to teshuvah and rectifying the causes of the churban, namely sinas chinam, which the chofetz chaim says refers mainly to lashon hora.

The two things are related, but separately important. Without aveilus, we wouldn’t know what we’re directing our efforts towards.