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The kefirah is believing in another, independent power besides Hashem.
The ramban is saying just that they can’t be blamed if they enslave the jews, because that was the job given to them. But if they decide to do more, they’ll be punished – but he doesn’t say that they can independently cause it to happen.
The suffering would have happened anyway, just someone else would have done it; Harbeh shluchim lemakom, etc..
Pro, this is wby we have chazal. So we don’t make up our own religion.
The gemara says in bava metzia 58b that telling someone that they are suffering or that they lost a child due to their sins is onaas devorim. Does that mean it isn’t true? No! Chazal say to do teshuva when suffering comes. But telling people that is hurtful to them, because they most likely will not accept it as mussar; they’ll just be hurt. So chazal say to stay out of their business in this regard.
However, when there is no onaas devorim, such as learning a lesson from world events, you are obligated to do so. And gedolim are obligated to share their daas Torah with the public. Does that mean regular individuals know the answer to why gezeros happen? Certainly not. I had a theory about covid, but i would never share it with someone who was sick or cv”s lost someone. Actually, i didn’t share it with anyone! I kept it to myself, because I’m not a gadol byisroel.
The ramban doesn’t say that the mitzriim did so independently; he aays that they went beyond the gezerah of avdus, but there obviously is a new gezerah, which they submitted to of their own volition.
Want mekoros? Sefer hachinuch on lo sikom; you can’t take revenge because everything that happens to you is min hashomayim. It’s all over shaar habitachon in chovos halevavos. It’s in basically every machshave sefer of the past 500 years.
See sefer sifsei chaim from rav chaim Friedlander, who famously reconciles the sources which seem to say that a baal bechirah can affect others. It’s a beautiful piece.
And it’s pashut sevara; why would bechira allow someone to interfere with what Hashem wants to happen?
And that’s just for yechidim; how much more so for klal yisroel.
Sechel – i read it. Didn’t change my mind at all. Just the same lone source abarbanel and wrenching a rishon who basically just repeats rashi’s pshat in the gemara. He also butchers rashi’s 2nd (and most likely preferred) pshat
Can someone explain to me why loving every jew unconditionally, and believing that we’re all pretty much equal, and what makes you better than the frei, etc..
Why does that stop at marriage? Why would gaza’anim never dream of marrying non-gaza’anim, regardless of how great in Torah and yiras shomayim they may be?
Sincha, the chosid yaavetz was not blaming the inquisition on philosophy alone; he was saying that those who are consumed by it – something universally accepted as wrong, by proponents of philosophy – was the cause, or at least a large part of it. He’s describing a breakdown of yiddishkeit among those who were into it, not the study of it that was done by rabbonim.
And i disagree with your characterization of how gedolim explain tragedies. The satmar rov was quoting an open gemara that says that violation of the shevuos makes us hunted like animals.
But that’s for the gedolim to say. And most gedolim did not give direct causes, but said that the general abandonment of mitzvos caused it, which was plainly obvious to anyone who learns Chumash.
Also, people like me(i can only speak for myself though) quote the tosfos yom tov’s taanis chalom to explain tach vetat as being due to talking in shul, even though that’s hardly a political issue.
Communal tragedies require communal and personal introspection; no one’s questioning that, but it is up to the gedolim to offer daas torah into the causes of calamities, and they do. And sometimes it’s things like tznius that offend some people, but that’s their problem.
If we are to take into consideration what happens after a messianic candidate dies, then the claim is unfalsifiable. It can literally be said of anyone who claims to be a dead messiah. It got worse when he was around, got better when he passed away, but that only falls in line with him being moshiach? When the torah, yeshiva worlds growth had zero to do with him? When the sefardim BTs likewise have nothing to do with him? He laid the groundwork for the mitzvah vans and tefillin putter-oners who contribute very little if anything to frumkeit overall, snd we’re talking about klal yisroel, not one jew doing something which you think strengthens his non existent connection to something he doesn’t even know about.
The rambam doesn’t say moshiach will strengthen a connection of ofherwise frei jews to yiddishkeit, it says he will force or bring them back to Torah – the Torah as a whole, not crumbs here and there. And that didn’t happen in the Lubavitcher rebbes time, nor is it happening now; 85% of Jewry is still not frum, the BT movement severely slowed down except among sefardim, and the main reaskn the numbers of frum jews are growing is because of having babies, not BTs and gerim…the latter basically nake up for rhe OTDs, which while we’re on that subject, shouldn’t no one go OTD in the messianic era?
Smerel, it definitely is kefirah to think that the fate of the jewish people depends on the bechirah of goyim. Even if their bechira can affect us, it only would be meorer dinim etc… Hashem directly drives the fate of klal yisroel, and according to almost everyone, the individual occurrences of a person’s daily life. To take the pashtus of some of the rishonim who said that not everything that happens is min hashomayim is likewise assur according to most poskim, after that view – if it even ever existed – was completely rejected hundreds of years ago.
But certainly to think that Hashem lets anything happen to klal yisroel without it being a direct gezerah…
By Purim, did anyone think that Haman was just a baal bechirah? It’s preposterous to a believing jew.
Gold, i put them together because they both are openly declaring war on Hashem and His Torah, albeit in different ways. As it happens to be, most WoW are definitely abomination activists, but that’s a separate issue.
What WoW do is deny the Torah, blame rabbis including chazal for not being woke enough, and openly demonstrate that they disagree with the gender roles assigned by halacha to them.
Some posters here think that while the Torah is full of warnings that bad things will happen, and we will deserve them if they do, they think it’s horrible to apply the Torahs reasoning to Jewish suffering.
We do indeed get what we deserve. Klal yisroel deserved 40 years of wandering, churbanos, crusades, inquisitions, pogroms, and the Holocaust. Otherwise, how would Hashem have done those things? Hashem is a tzadik and we are guilty. We admit our sins and do teshuva. We don’t t, as the rambam calls it, act cruel and attribute our suffering to anything other than Hashem and divine justice.
I understand how survivors often are upset at the idea that the Holocaust was a punishment. We can’t judge people who went through that gehinnom. But what excuse to armchair philosophers online have? It’s total kefirah to say that suffering is just mikrah, pointless, random, or just because of racism or not being tolerant enough.
This is the rage of what i call the chanukah gelt god.
The chanukah gelt god, is something i share with my students. He’s a god which gives you presents. All he does is give you money and snacks. But what happens when you get a strep throat or fall off of monkey bars and end up wearing a sling for 2 weeks? Well, that’s not chanukah gelt god, that’s yom kippur god. Uou know, the god who makes all the things happen that we don’t like.
They get the idea.
Shema yisroel, Hashem elokeinu – Hashem is midas harachamin, elokim is din – Hashem echad, it’s all from Hashem, both good things and things we think are bad. Hashem knows exactly what is best for us, when we have no idea. Much like a child who thinks that chanukah gelt is good and yom kippur is bad. We’re mature enough to see how good yom kippur is, but we are not on the level to see why the Holocaust was good.
Aaq, i was only talking leshitaso, where the poster is harping on minimal successes
Square, gedolim say nowadays not to hate people who aren’t frum. It’s a chidush, because chazal say it’s a Mitzvah to hate unrepretent continual sinners, but naniach.
Hating a reform jew who, for instance, is a proud marcher in the abomination parade, and a member of women of the wall, etc…is definitely not baseless! Whether or not you should depends on who you ask. Im not on the madrega to hate someone leshem shomayim, so I don’t.
Preventing intermarriage was and is the focal point of most kiruv operations; at least they’ll keep thar and not be lost to klal yisroel.
Since when is having a bar mitzvah even a mitzvah? Who cares if a frei kid has one or not; kids don’t become frum because of bar mitzvos with (usually) treif food and dancing.
Most rabbonim will not reach out to an intermarried couple; rav shmuel Kamenetzky was asked this a few years ago at a shiur, if our approach should change because of how vastly ignorant frei people are that they think intermarriage is not a big deal…rav shmuel(I think it was rav shmuel, may have been another of the ziknei rosh yeshivos) said absolutely not; they marry out, they’re gone. Dead to us. If they come back, then great, but we don’t reach out to them. They’re gone to the jewish people.
It’s not something i decided. It’s something basically everyone outside of wherever you are thinks, even traditional jews who don’t keep shabbos but recoil at the thought of intermarriage. Perhaps when chabad was being mekarev you they didn’t talk about that – and neither would any sane kiruv person, as it’s not the kid’s fault – but when you venture out a bit you’ll see what the jewish community collectively thinks of the situation. No kiruv shuls support bringing non jewish spouses to shul, etc…unless that spouse has an interest in converting… that’s a different story.
But aside from that, chabad likes to hype up individual mitzvos to the exclusion of a bigger picture; seeing the trees without seeing the forest. The forest, is that in the Lubavitcher rebbes time, more than 90% of jewish people were not frum. The number of Orthodox jews vs. non frum has risen precipitously since his petirah. This shows that in his lifetime he did not bring jews back to Torah. He didn’t hurt them, but he only helped a little bit, on a microcosmic level, where a tiny fraction will do a mitzvah here and there.
That is a far, far cry from bringing klal yisroel back to Torah. In terms of net mitzvos, the litvishe and chasidishe yeshivos produced more net mitzvos, because their talmidim learn and keep everything. Every word of torah is a mitzva. Imagine 10,000 nen saying 10,000 words of torah a day. That’s 100,000,000 mitzvos in one day.
Let’s say there are 6,000 chabad centers…maybe. each one gets a person to do 2 or 3 mitzvos a day. That’s only 18,000. And that’s now, not during the Lubavitcher rebbes lifetime.
So if BMGs founder resulted in more net mitzvos, perhaps rav aharon kotler was bechezkas moshiach?
Ujm, i think the two have been regarded differently historically. One aveirah doesn’t define a person, but living consistently with and committing to a life without Torah altogether, which is what intermarriage is, is seen as forsaking everything in yiddishkeit and klal yisroel.
It should be noted that the spanish jews never questioned chazal or wanted to change the Torah to fit the then-modern era. They were basically baalei taavah for philosophy.
Al achas kama ve’kama….
Classically it refers to hating someone because of what they’ve done to you, since everything is min hashomayim, it’s baseless.
But it can apply to your cases as well, assuming you’re not referring to sinners who violate halacha routinely – the mitzvah of hating them might not apply nowadays, but it’s definitely not baseless hate.
Rso, correct; I never meant to imply that the Lubavitcher rebbe was the cause of mass secularization of most jews, or the loss of Russian jewry, just, as you said, it shows clearly that he’s not moshiach.
“The Rambam writes he will compel all Israel and wage wars. He then says “if he does this” what is this going on? Wars? Okay, wars. “And he succeeds” what’s this now going on? Wars again? Strange. Maybe u want to say it means “if he waged wars and succeeds in them” but then he could have just said “if he succeeds [in them]” as he already wrote earlier he was doing them. And then he writes “and defeats all the enemies that surround him”. ”
Not a kashya; the rambam lists every qualification before saying im lo hitzliach; it’s not repetitive at all
Re, secularization; I was not aware of your personal circumstances. I apologize if i offended you.
However, gedolim still say that in our time, intermarriage is a red line. It means they’re out. Hashem doesn’t hold back the schar of anyone, but when in that state, they are not to be considered redeemed by a messiah. That is not geulah, it is a spark of good in a miasma of evil sin. And every mitzvah is precious; every thought of maybe doing a mitzva is precious, but that is not the state of messianic redemption at all. Like i said, things only got worse when the Lubavitcher rebbe was alive. More jews became further away and were not oseh maysoh amcha. Regardless of culpability, they have the halacha of goyim regarding things like stam yainom and bishul akum(the latter is a machlokes). A nation of millions of mumarim, even if at this point they’re tinokos shenishbu, is not moshiach’s mission.
Re, rav hutner; I’d trust what his talmidim say over online people obsessed with their rebbe, who continually attempt to make him not only their rebbe, but the nasi hador, etc..
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Menachem, litvishe gedolim did not charge neo Lubavitch with being frei. Their problem was with the ideologies of god in a body, praying to a rebbe, deviations in halacha, and other things. The Lubavitcher rebbe definitely stressed tznius, kedushah, being separate from goyim, etc…it wasn’t a freikeit issue.
But while we’re on the subject, due to the amount of baalei teshuva and gerim of various degrees of observance, chabad has been affected by the outside world more than other groups, resulting in communal issues in kedushah inyanim and other things understood by the term freikeit.
As for being antizionist, the rashab was just as antizionist as satmar, but the last Lubavitcher rebbe changed the stance from antizionism to non Zionism. However, some of his positions can be seen as being sympathetic to the state, such as refusing to give back land no matter what. He also was much more open to dealing with the government than others, which is not necessarily zionistic, but when you put it together with the “love all jews and all jews are great no matter how sinful and heretical…”, It does sound like mizrachi’s attitude to an extent.
Menachem… Lubavitch information flat out spreads falsities about what gedolim said about Lubavitch. Take a trip to chaim berlin and talk with talmidim, there is no shortage. Ask them about it.
Yserb, rav breuer going to college was part of his mesorah… what he did wasn’t risky, because he was going with a pure devotion to his rebbe.
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As an aside, rav belsky told me that after rav breuer finished school, he never once opened a secular book for the rest of his life.
Lubavitchers make lots of claims about how gedolim viewed their rebbe; if you want to know what rav hutner held of him, talk to a chaim berlin person. Some of my rebbeim were talmidim of his; you will not like what you hear, not one bit of it
By any objective standard, intermarriage is a clear indication of assimilation. No one’s even close to being close to being a jew if they agreed to marry out; even traditional jews used to say kadish for their intermarried children. It’s the leaving of yiddishkeit in its entirety. And going to a chabad house and saying some Hebrew words while learning kabalistic concepts while violating every aveirah in the world is not “being close to Judaism,” and how many even do that? There are 10 million secular jews in the world. Chabad houses usually barely have a minyan, if at all. They account for like 3% of secular jews; most do to reform/conservative temples, if they go at all, twice a year at most. And if they happen to go to an Orthodox shul, the experience doesn’t change them. And again, to do a Mitzvah requires the awareness and belief that something is commanded. Most Secular jews, which 50% deny Hashem according to a pew research study, do not believe in the Torah; their actions are completely meaningless halachikally.
When i said Russian jewry was lost, they are. Whatever chabad did there, millions upon millions of jews are forever lost to our people, having died without once saying shema in their lifetime and their parents’ lifetimes, victims of a spiritual Holocaust, never redeemed by the one they call a messiah.
I’m also still waiting to see where the shtefanister rebbe is quoted as saying this
I looked into the sefer pirkei geulah, it was written by rav shachne zohn, a very big person indeed. Where does he say what you claim?
Furthermore, the rambam says that moshiach will fight our enemies “misaviv,” surrounding eretz yisroel. Eretz yisroel was not conquered by Torah jews, and it is continuously surrounded by non-defeated arab countries.
Chabad decided that THE enemy was the Soviet union, thus drawing a target around an arrow once it was shot. They also have zero evidence that the Lubavitcher rebbe brought down the Soviet union. It actually happened quite naturally; it had a failed economic model and the US put tremendous pressure on it. Claiming to have brought it down single handedly requires faith in the Lubavitcher rebbes words, which essentially means to believe him because he’s right.
All of klall yisroel were davening for the fall of the Soviet union. And so it fell, without open nissim.
And what happened to the millions of jews who were in russia after the war? Almost all of them were lost. Not very messianic, is it? Shouldn’t moshiach bring those jews back Edited
Ortho, ive never heard of the sefer pirkei geulah; I’m talking about the plain reading of the rambam. I don’t care what haskamos it has; who wrote it? A Lubavitcher? It’s not in the nosei keilim or gedolei meforshei harambam – it says he will bring all of yisroel to Torah, and the Lubavitcher rebbe did not. You’re getting into hair splitting about who heard and didn’t hear of Lubavitch – who cares if they heard about it or not? More jews intermarried, regardless of whether or not their children are jewish, the point is that they left judaism entirely. The percentage of Orthodox jews, as per pew research data, was not increasing during the time of the Lubavitcher rebbe, but only started growing after his death.
And i was waiting for someone to mention putting on tefillin once as an example of returning jews to Torah. It isn’t. Because, as rav hutner explained, the rishonim are clear that in order for a mitzva to count, even according to the opinion that mitzvos don’t require kavanah, one must believe in their existence and be aware of their existence, otherwise it’s a maysoh kof b’alma. There can be no commandment without a commander, and secular jews almost universally do not believe, r”l, that Hashem gave us the commandments, or even what tefilin is, much less a mitzva. Putting leather straps and boxes on people randomly is not a Mitzvah. Actually, it can be assur if it’s done near pritzus, which often it is. And it’s also assur if the man has to use the bathroom; shluchim never, to my knowledge, ask the man if he has a guf naki, and heaven knows what kinds of hirhurim might go through his mind at the time which are a sacrilege to tefilin.
As for not needing weapons, that’s correct, but nowhere does rav moshe say that the wars are spiritual, just that the goyim will fall at his side, like they did in some of the wars fought by Yehoshua.
Da, perhaps I am not aware, but where does it say that thee baal shem went to shomayim? How is learning with Achiah any different than learning with Eliyahu?
As for saying that moshiach will come; many say he was referring to spreading avodas Hashem, and that the baalei mussar accomplish the same thing, which is why around that time, chasidim didn’t attempt as much to gain adherents anymore.
As for having hisnagdus… Many gedolim did too, including the rambam, whose seforim were burned, rav yonasan eybeshutz, etc… Having detractors, even the stature of the Gaon and tzlach, doesn’t mean that you’re wrong.
And it wasn’t all of the gedolei hador of that time, either.
Ortho, i have no opinion about the Lubavitcher rebbe as a person, of he was a tzadik or not. It isn’t my business; i only concern myself with halachic and hashkafic problems that he and/or his followers promulgated. If after 120 i see the Lubavitcher rebbe way up there in shomayim, i won’t be happy or unhappy; I’ll just acknowledge that he was a tzadik. If he isn’t there at all, i likewise wouldn’t have a reaction – i don’t give much thought to him as a person. It only comes up when Lubavitchers think that he was uncontroversial, and this simply isn’t so. It shouldn’t rock ones world to know that some were against your rebbe – my rebbe, rav belsky, had a lot of detractors, some of whom i respect very much. But it doesn’t matter to me, because i accepted him as my rebbe based on the Torah expertise he showed me and being around him ,seeing his middos and hanhagos.
But in chabad, people are extremely offended at the thought of someone not holding of the person they call the “nasi hador,” even though only in their own circles was he considered a leader – a leader of s generation, for instance, rav Moshe, the chazon ish, rav chaim kanievsky…has to be accepted by virtually all of klal yisroel, and the Lubavitcher rebbe simply wasn’t. Large parts of the klal were against him, and many groups simply didn’t care about what he had to say. And that’s a truth that chabad needs to be aware of.
Ortho, where is that quoted from? Which sefer is that recorded in?
Re, the rambam “if he has not succeeded to this point…”, Dying would be an example of failing. For instance, the Lubavitcher rebbe tried bringing jews back to Torah, one of the requirements in the rambam. Not only did he fail to do so, under his leadership, intermarriage only increased. Frum people became more populous because of having children; the BT movement barely made up for the OTD population.
The real BT movement, which were seeing now especially in eretz yisroel, is among sefardim and Israelis, and chabad is not the major player in that regard.
So during his lifetime, the Lubavitcher rebbe failed to bring back even 1/10 of klal yisroel back to Torah. The rambam says moshiach will bring all lf yisroel back, and that’s just to be bechezkas. He also will fight wars, physical wars, as evidenced ny juxtaposing moshiach with bar kochva, because BK was fighting physical wars.
Fighting spiritual wars was also a failure, because the world only became more secular under the time the Lubavitcher rebbe was a leader, not less. One anti religious country fell, but others grew, including China, which became more of an international player at the time.
Re, techias hamaysim and moshiach being among them – that’s what the abarbanel says, that moshiach can be from those who rise at the time of techias hamaysim, and the rishonim were unsure if TH will happen before or after bias hamoshiach.
But that would make the Lubavitcher rebbe no more likely than anyone else to be moshiach; I’ve also not heard any messianic Lubavitchers say that he will come back by techias hamaysim at the same time, but the rizhiner was a far greater person than the Lubavitcher rebbe, and if what you quote is accurate, I’d sooner believe the words of a universally recognized tzadik who said something will happen, over a controversial figure who many question even his tzidkus, and frankly his status as a member of shlomei emunas yisroel, due to the god in a body remarks.
If what you quote from the rizhiner is true, it’s also one opinion that is not mainstream. One of my rebbeim is a sadigerer chosid; he would quote the rizhiner all of the time, but never said anything of the sort. And he wouldn’t have shied away from it – i was a shtikel ben bayis by him for about 5 years.
I love how chabad imagines itself immune to criticism because it situated itself all over the world.
Living in places without a frum community is itself questionable. It does nothing to legitimize a movement, even if frum people avail themselves of those resources when necessary.
I regard stam Lubavitch wine as stam yeinom, given the amount of people who pray to their rebbe and/or ascribe any sort of divinity to him. Same with shechitah.
I personally would only daven in chabad shuls where i know the rov and the people who daven there do not have these issues. Otherwise I’d rather daven beyechidus, because davening to a rebbe is not davening, and such people wouldn’t count for a minyan regardless.
If the only issue they have is messianism, that would not disqualify them for anything, but i have a hard time imagining a messianic who doesn’t believe in atzmus-guf ideology or praying to their rebbe. But if such people exist, I’d eat their meat and drink their wine, and daven with them while holding my nose at their narrishkeit.
As for earlier rebbes being big in learning, look no further than tue baal hatanya, who is universally revered for shu”a harav. The kozhnitzer maggid is also someone I’ve heard misnaged-inclined roshei Yeshiva quote as a big talmid chacham.
Da, when I’ve talked about chasidishe torah with Lubavitchers, they’re on a different spectrum than others. Their answers and logic doesn’t satisfy me either. Plus, being a “rabbi” in chabad doesn’t mean that much. Anyone mildly successful is pushed into smicha, many getting it online.
Go to a talmid chacham with your kashas; ask someone like rav Efraim wachsman, better yet, post one or two here, and see what you get – I’m very interested to know what kashos are bothering you.
Also, the arizal said that he learned his Torah from heavenly revelations. The Gaon also had tons of revelations; he said he didn’t want them because they didn’t require ameilus. The shu”a also learned from a malaach; same thing with the baal shem learning from Achiah – it means his neshoma came to him and taught him torah. I don’t know why this is so surprising.
All of the talmidei habaal shem were first known to be very big in nigleh, too. It’s true that the baal shem himself did not reveal himself initially as a talmid chacham; I’m sure there were reasons for this, but his talmidim were – we’re not talking about a person who courted simpletons. They respected him and saw what he was in both nistar and nigleh.
Sechel….whenever a non Lubavitcher says something in the name lf “the gaon” it refers to the vilna gaon.
Ortho, the ruzhiner returning as moshiach is in line with the abarbanel, that moshiach can come from those who rise up by techias hamaysim. So the two things can happen at the same time; that’s really not a chidush, and i don’t care that Dr Berger supposedly admitted that this was in line with chabad messianic ideology.
Rizhiner chasidim did not say that the rebbe was moshiach, began his mission, and will return to complete it. That is a foreign concept. They’re also careful to say that it will happen the same day, because this does not contradict the rambam and ramban.
But I’m assuming you’re factual in your quoting; you’ve already misquoted rav Moshe as giving a haskama to a sefer claiming that the Lubavitcher rebbe was moshiach, and then you admitted that the sefer was just chidushim on the rambam, and that the author wrote those words in another book. So you’ve already weakened your source credibility.
I say this mainly to messianic posters here because time and again, i look up things only to find that they’re totally missing or wrenched out of context(see the thread about tzedaka supposedly being bigger than learning from an impassionef messianic) i just don’t have the time and resources to debunk every single claim made, but “just as there’s nothing in these, there’s nothing in those”
So please quote where rizhiner/sadigerer chasidim say this. I don’t buy it. The rizhiner was the bechinah of Rebbe Yehuda Hanasi, as known; his avodah was Torah ugdulah bemakom echad…he used to wear golden shoes with no bottoms, so as not to benefit. He raised his pinky when he was about to be niftar, just as rabbeinu hakodosh, and swore that he never benefitted from this world with even his small finger.
If any gadol was moshiach oriented, it was him; he showed malchus. Much more than the Lubavitcher rebbe did, much, much more.
Da, do you similarly not believe in the Arizals kabalah, because it was largely revelation based?
Litvishe have a mesorah from the Gaon, which was at the same time as the baal shem tov. Talmidei habaal shem said that their ways were really old, and the truth is that many chasidishe ideas can be found in other places, such as rabbeinu yonah.
You haven’t addressed my issue with your jumping to conclusions about chadidus because an individual man, not a rosh yeshiva or rov, couldn’t answer your kashos.
I had kashos on tanya and other seforim; did you even bother trying to answer them yourself, or did you come into the seder with preconceived notions against the seforim? You should treat a chasidishe sefer with the same seriousness as nefesh hachaim; I’ve asked kashos on that sefer too, and nobody shies away from answering them.
There are virtually no gedolei yisroel today who agree with your idea that the baal shem tov was simply mistaken or that people shouldn’t follow him. Later chasidusen didn’t move away from chasidus, they simply taught their generations. There was a time for a certain avodah, and there was a time for kotzk. There’s also a time for today’s chasidus.
Chasidus is about taking kabalah and using its ideas for avodas Hashem, in not a very different way than baalei mussar taking maamarei chazal and medrashim for the same purpose. One chasidishe gadol said that rav yisroel salanter does for the litvishe what I do for you. One of the gerrer rebbes told his chasidim that rav hirsch does for the yekkishe what i do for you.
Classic Chabad and, to a lesser extent, Breslov, use more kabalistic ideas than other groups; that’s the main difference.
Chasidus produced gedolei olam the likes of the divrei chaim, the rogotchover, rav meir shapiro, the sfas emes(who the brisker rov held was a massive gadol in nigleh too), the avnei nezer, the butchacher rov(aizer mikodesh on shu”a), and many, many others who were universally respected.
Da, most of the tanya is based on kisvei arizal, firstly.
Secondly, the same can be said of learning rav chaim with a bochur, who expresses doubt after someone asks him some good kashya
Some chasidishe people aren’t used to vigorous kashas. learn xhasidus with someone qualified, not just anyone with a long jacket. a serious lomed Torah doesn’t doubt their mesorah because of kashos.
Yechi hamelech dealt with moshiach in general, and did not say that the Lubavitcher rebbe was bechezkas moshiach. Rav Moshe also gave haskamos to almost anything; there was a reason for that, but it’s not for now.
When a delegation of rebbes, i think ger, and others, met the chofetz Chaim, they came out and said they had never seen a pereon reach his madregos withoit toras chasidus.
This is because all paths of Torah lead to the same place. They lead us to Hashem, as an adam hashalem. A person can be an adam hashalem as a chosid,a litvak, a sefardi, a temani, a hungarian or a yekkie. All roads lead to Hashem.
Rav Akiva eiger says this about the “machol latzadikim” that Hashem will make leasid lavo. All of them will point to Hashem and say “this is the Hashem that we hoped to” each tzadik will recognize that their path led them straight to Him, just as all ends of a circle are equidistant from each other, with no tzadik being oser to Hashem than the other, as long as they followed their mahalach to its fullest.
I have the utmost respect for an emesdige chabad chosid, those who reject god-in-a-body and dead messiahs, and live according to the mesorah of the rashab, rayatz, etc….fhere are plenty such people in Yerushalayim. One of my rebbeim also broke off from Lubavitch when the last rebbe became the leader.
The abarbanel and sdei chemed have been discussed here at length; check out the other threads.
But in no universe would we pasken lile an abarbanel over a ramban in any case; they were completely different classes of rabbonim. And the abarbanel’s sefer which is quoted, yeshuos meshicho, is machniah to the ramban and quotes his vikuach all the time. Funny thing is that I’ve been through the yeshuos meshicho, i can tell you the main themes and points that the abarbanel makes, etc…but that one line is something i didn’t notice. On the other hand, messianic Lubavitchers don’t know the sefer at all, and just quote that one line!
And what was that one line? He says that you shouldn’t be surprised if moshiach is from those who get up by techias hamaysim. It isn’t clear id techias hamaysim happens before or after bias hamoshiach, so the question is up in the air; that in no way is an acceptance of second -coming ideology, where a messianic candidate begins his mission, dies, ks resurrected, and finishes it. This would be clearly against both the rambam and ramban, and the abarbanel basically never argues on either one of those rishonim. While the sefer deals extensively with christian issues, it never makes this concession; if he did, he would have been clearer about it, because it’s a dramatic deviation from the rishonim.
Go through the sefer. Learn it. It’s a great sefer.
But even if tha abarbanel says it could happen, we would respectfully not accept it if the rambam and ramban disagreed, just like we would take the gedolei rishonim over a lone acharon in a shailoh of kashrus, shabbos , etc..
The sdei chemed on the other hand, actually refutes chabad messianics. Because he interprets the gemara about moshiach being min hamaysim metaphorically, as referring to if klal yisroel is zocheh or not, if moshiach will be from shomayim or down here. But he deviates from the plain translation of maysim/chayim.
Also should be noted that this whole thing is only according to the first pshat in rashi. It’s known that Rashi usually prefers the second pshat, and in this gemaea, rashis 2nd pshat is that the tzadikim mentioned are dugmos, and that the gemara is not saying that moshiach will actually be from the dead.
What is meant by mesorah, is that the seforim which talk about moshiach; rambam in yad, igros taiman, igeres techias hamaysim, ramban shaar hagemul, vikuach, maharal, ramchal, kisveo arizal, gaon, yaaros dvash, drashos haran, and tons more… don’t even quote this gemara about the possibility of him being min hamaysim. They ignore it, either because rashis 2nd pshat was accepted, or because it was a machlokes in which we as a klal paskened not like that maan d’amar.
Regarding the chazon ish…sometimes it stings, but yes, there were and are many gedolim who believed that the Lubavitcher rebbe was not a tzadik, a gadol, a nasi, or whatever else. The majority of the yeshiva world believes that. Some think he was a tzadik – i have no opinion, and i don’t care if he was or not. It makes no difference to me, not only because he wasn’t my rebbe, bit because my yiddishkeit does not rest on the idea of the greatness of one man. If i discovered that one of my rebbeim was not a tzadik, it would hurt, but I wouldn’t fall apart in my yiddishkeit, because i do not believe in men. I believe in Hashem, the Torah, and the unbroken mesorah from talmidei chachamim over the generations, who were guided by ruach hakodesh and siyata dishmaya. One person doesn’t make or break that mesorah.
The Lubavitcher rebbes status is between him and Hashem; it’s not productive for me to delve into it, and it’s not really my business. But ideologies that affect my people are my business, and as long as chabad situates itself at the forefront of community issues, including gerus and marriages, it will be high on my priority list to make people aware of the dangers of the neo chabad movement.
For example, nasan of gaza was once regarded as a tzadik and mekubal, but he joined shabsai tzvi; acher went off the derech, one of the rishonim became a priest r”l, and many young talmidei chachamim became maskilim….that doesn’t shake me. But for someone who does mitzvos for their rebbe, talks to him, writes him letters, believes that he himself saves him, that he can answer your questions….yes, a realization or a doubt about him xan rock your world. So perhaps it’s better not to go in that direction; whether or not he was a tzadik, messianism is wrong, and the entire Torah world either laughs at it or repudiates it. Finding a podcast with carefully curated snipets doesn’t change it. Go to BMG, chaim berlin, mir, Torah vodaas, ner yisroel, etc…and see what rebbeim and talmidim have to say about it. Do some footwork.
I also don’t know who rav cohen was referring to when he said that there have been jews throughout time who believed in dead messiahs. He doesn’t name any. I’ve never seen a record of even a group of simple jews believing in a dead messiah, except the early christians.
As an adherent to messianic Lubavitch, can you please provide us with an example of a group of jews who thought that their leader was the messiah after his death? And don’t bring up the abarbanel’s general statement about techias hamaysim, etc… we’re talking about a community or a yeshiva, or some group.
As for rabbi Shechters “helevai, just let him come whoever he is,”
He said it after cautioning against overdoing messianic teachings, saying that talking about moshiach all of the time leads to praying to him.What rabbi shechter was getting at was, I think, similar to what the brisker rov said about a kasha someone asked him…someone asked, how can we say “achakeh lo bechol yom…” When moshiach doesn’t come on Shabbos, because techum, etc..
The brisker rov said, let him come and answer your kasha.
The only difference is that the brisker rov was talking about normative moshiach, and rabbi shechter was talking about a deviation, a completely foreign idea which crept up in the 20th century and was the result of decades of constantly talking about moshiach, making it the focus of everything the community did. Do a Mitzvah, not to make Hashem happy and fulfill your purpose, bbut to bring moshiach! Then it became “do a Mitzvah because the rebbe said so,” etc…
I can’t answer for rabbi hershel schechter, but he’s not a gadol in the yeshiva world. He is a leading modern orthodox rabbi who generally has level headed halachik decisions and is a baki in shas and poskim, but he does not speak for me or the hundreds of thousands of bnei Torah worldwide who do not seek out his opinion about anything.
Regarding my mention of rav shach, the chazon ish, etc…my point wasn’t to move the goalpost. I was trying to say that the Torah world’s policies on dead messiahs and the Lubavitcher rebbe’s status in our eyes was already determined 70 years ago. When someone, even a big person, tells me something i know that the briser rov and chazon ish were opposed to, i listen to the latter, because they were far bigger than anyone alive today. Perhaps eav dovid cohen has more important things to do with his time rhan ponder messianics and their beliefs, but if he were shown the kinds of rebbe worship and cult like messianic fervor, he would have something else to say entirely.
Rav pam and rav avigdor miller stepped back their support for the Lubavitcher rebbe in the late 90s, when more information became available. Not all rabbonim know the metzius about everything; if rav dovid cohen told me something that i know b’metzius to be based on mistaken facts, i would not be allowed to follow that psak.
I looked up the headlines podcast. Rav dovid cohen did not say that the idea of a dead messiah is valid, only that it doesn’t make one pasul, as in, an apikores. He also claimed that other jews have had such ideas in the past, but did not say that gedolim or talmidei chachamim did.
The host also only played a snipet of what rav Cohen said. We have no idea what other caveats or qualifying statements he may have made. The host also clearly had a pro-chabad agenda, praising them at every chance he got, and throwing around gemaras without giving the rabbis he interviewed a chance to answer them. Same thing with his snipet of rav shmuel kaminetzky saying that they’re our brothers.
I think it’s understood that the rabbonim who go on headlines know who their audience is and would likely say something different if asked in person; rav shmuels Rebbe was rav aharon, who held very strong views on Lubavitch.
He did have rabbi Hershel shechter speak, who he allowed to speak longer. Rabbi Shechter said that the plain messianics are not doing avodah zara, but that a sizeable, growing amount pray to the Lubavitcher rebbe, which he agrees is avodah zara and requires richuk. He also said that this is exactly how Christianity started; first he was messianic, then they prayed to him, etc…
I agree that it’s not apikorsus to believe in a dead messiah. It’s wrong, and it’s a twisted interpretation of a gemara that the rishonim and achronim do not use in explaining moshiach nearly at all, and it’s of course wrong because they say he started his mission and will return to finish it, which the rambam clearly says won’t happen(if he was not successful to this point…)
But no one’s giving them a stamp of approval. Rav dovid cohens rebbe, rav hutner, had very, very strong things to say about Lubavitch as well. I daven in his shul sometimes; maybe I’ll ask him why he said those things on the podcast, if he’s feeling up to talking.
Either way, rav dovid cohen isn’t rav shach, the chazon ish, and brisker rov, who all held anti chabad views, with the chazon ish calling the Lubavitcher rebbe a kofer for his god- wrapped-in-a-body line.
Yabia, have you ever learned those sugyos, or are you just repeating tired superficial banalities?
Learn the meforshim. Get some education. I’m not going through rhe sugya now because it isn’t the appropriate thread, and it’s been discussed ad nauseam here, but your version of “Judaism 101” is a society of amei haaretz.
Lake, i suppose opposing tzedukim, karaim, shabsai tzvi, reform, conservative, zionism, and every other bad idea was against the Torahs lesson from korach?
Was pinchas also guilty of not learning from korach?
The Torah tells us not to associate with reshoim and to actively oppose things that are against the Torah. It’s not live and let live. Any it’s not “machlokes” or “sinat chinam,” it’s defending the honor of Hashem.
Chazal say “if someone whispers in your ear, “do you oppose the wicked”, know that his heart is after them’ (megilah 6b)
Yechiel; want to know what is against halacha? Going against one’s rebbeim. If they don’t hold of college and say it’s assur, a chosid of theirs is not allowed to go.
Imagine two jews; one is told by his rebbe that going to kosher college is a Mitzvah for him in his situation. Another is told by the same rebbe that it’s assur for him to go. One will gain schar and the other will be punished – for doing the same thing!
Sinah = hatred
Chinam = baseless
Why is criticizing an ideology hateful, and if it is, why is it baseless?
Pizza shops are risky; they open and close every few years, besides some neighborhood fixtures, like J2 on avenue J, Mendelssohns, amnons, etc…the majority don’t last very long.
Also, “being your own Mashgiach” does not exclude the hefty cost of acquiring a reliable hashgocha, who is a yotzeo venichnas,as a baal habayis is not believed fully without accountability when it’s a business.
A business with more lasting power would probably be Chinese food. They seem to be open for years and years.
Chazal: everything that happens in the world os because of Jews, and they are supposed to learn a lesson from it.
Anonymous: that’s egotistic.
Who are we going to listen to?
Anyways, my take on the issue is that both the crew of the titanic and the submersible travelling to visit it shared the same problem. The captain of the titanic in his gaavah threw away lifeboats and security devices because he thought his ship was unsinkable. He had the arrogance to tell Hashem what will be, and this led to the deaths of 1,500 people.
Similarly, it was reported that the pilot of the submersible disregarded safety protocols.
It’s a lesson in humility; never to be cavalier, arrogant and reckless.
Yabia, why don’t you quit your job and learn all day?
Maybe because giving major lifestyle advice to someone you don’t know online is rude?
Ramban, shaar hagemul, writes that techias hamaysim will be at the end of the tekufah of yemos hamoshiach, and will be olam haba on this world.
The Rambam in igeres techias hamaysim writes that it isn’t clear when it will happen, could be before moshiach comes or after.
Hasagos Raavad on hilchos teshuva 8:2,3
Maharal gevuros Hashem, hakdama, writes that techias hamaysim is the beginning of olam haba for those two kept the Torah,
Ramcham in maamar ikarim, “hagemul”
I disagree with these suggestions; Uber driving is not always safe, and it’s not very profitable either. Day trading is almost like gambling, and I’ve read stories of people getting addicted.
I’d suggest driving for a Jewish car service; they give generous portions of the fares, largely because there’s so little overhead cost.
Buying and selling things on eBay, Amazon, etc… Can be doable on a small scale.
You could also spend a few hours selling things like business mortgages or other high-yield sales, where one sale pays off significantly; companies like Eastern Union, based in Lakewood, hires people to do this for a few hours a day, not even everyday necessarily.
I think by “this thread is getting stupid,” you mean that you don’t have an answer to the taanos posted here.
There are different opinions among baalei machshava and mekubalim about when techias hamaysim happens; some hold it can – but not necessarily will – happen before, as the abarbanel writes, but most hold it happens after, including the rambam, who says that the entire point of techias hamaysim is that the maysim get to see moshiach. The ramban also agrees that it is after, but argues about what will actually happen; the ramban holds that the body which returns(for all tzadikim) will be very spiritual, like adam kodem hachait, and will live forever. The rambam holds it will live and die like a regular human.
If we don’t know the sugya, please explain it, because all I’ve seen so far is likutei sichos, which I’m not interested to read, snd misquotes from chabad seforim, and a zohar which can be understood many ways, as evidenced by the machlokes among mekubalim.