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Shu”t maharam mintz 109,
Chavas yair 19
Machsheves charutz, rav tzadok hakohen, 9
Who isn’t respecting the BT? It’s very respectable; i don’t know anyone who would not respect such a thing.
Conservative was a mixture of many elements. Observant maskilim, like saul lieberman, total kofrim, like Mordechai Kaplan, and a lot in-between, but the common denominator was a break from mesorah and an embrace of modernity, a need to revamp yiddishkeit to save it in America… Which is basically what most of MO wanted to do as well.
This is why rav aharon says that the two are not very different.
The only differences were how far they would go, how much they would sacrifice to “save” whatever Judaism was left in their world. MO sacrificed kedushah, letting its people swim and dance mixed and barely teaching tznius, and conservative allowed people to drive on Shabbos.
But conservative was worse than MO, because while MO only gave tacit approval for their sins, conservative openly declared that driving on Shabbos was allowed, and many, many other issurim.
Failing to give mussar may make one culpable, but it’s not the same level of heresy as publicly announcing that sins are allowed.
That’s aside from the issue of many in the conservative world stating disbelief in torah she baal peh, or chumash… But MO had a tolerance threshold for heretical beliefs as well.
I’ve heard that before, about Yeshu being roshei taivos, but where is that brought down?
I just love the “be quiet because you’re not chabad” line of thinking.
Any argument is automatically over because anyone who isn’t chabad is automatically wrong about anything to do with chasidus.
It’s like how secular women say that you’re not allowed to have an opinion on women’s issues if you’re not a woman
It’s garbage.
Cherem removes the person from the community until he repents; svi weiss and his heretical ill should be ostracized by MO in the same way until they do teshuva.
Coffee – very poignant stories. Thank you for sharing.
The strength of individuals should also be noted. My Rosh yeshiva says over a story about a plane he was on, where most of the passengers were charedi. The food being served had a questionable hechsher, but most people were eating it. One passenger, a kippah srugah wearing man, asked the Rosh yeshiva if the food was alright, since he looked like a distinguished rabbinic person.
The Rosh yeshiva said no, and the man(with the rosh Yeshiva) spend the whole flight not eating. Sometimes people can surprise you – but there is a marked difference between MO rabbis and real rabbonim/roshe yeshiva.
The Rosh Yeshiva also said it was important to note that during their conversation on the plane, it became clear that the man possessed some krumeh hashkofos in other areas, but a maalah is a maalah and should be acknowledged.
Yserb, did you notice what i wrote earlier regarding rav moshes family? Rav dovid zt”l snd yblch”t rav reuvain are the only people who say that rav moshe held it was basically lechatchila. Every lther talmid in the world will tell you that he said it was bedieved. Every. Single. One.
And it’s corroborated by various igros.
Could be that rav moshe at one point held that it was lechatchila, and then was chozer…i don’t know.
Yserb, the way you describe the process in publishing Rav Hirschs writings is not altogether accurate. In “collected writings,” there is a controversial essay about chazal and science, which was not written in Rav Hirschs handwriting , was found in his study, and was included, because someone on the team said it “must” have been written by him, despite its being considered heresy according to rishonim and achronim across the board.
So maybe they usually were careful, but there were definitely cases of mistakes.
Lake – cute.
Which other chasidusen believed their rebbe to be moshiach?
A small group of breslover chasidim thought that rav nachman was moshiach, but it was short lived and nobody thought that after he was niftar.
The rizhiner may have been considered his generations candidate for moshiach, but again, no one thought he was after his petirah.
The only people who believed in a posthumous moshiach were the shabsai tzvi fanatics.
MT, that’s not a complete picture of the litvishe mesorah of a rebbe/talmid relationship. Rav boruch ber would consult with rav chaim on dvery decision he made. The nefesh hachaim consulted the gaon about building volozhin. Rav boruch ber would even get rav chaims haskama on every nigun he wrote..
A rebbe is forever; as the mesilas yeshorim writes, he is like someone overseeing a hedge maze. He knows where you should go, left and right. He’s supposed to guide you in avodas Hashem and how to grow. It’s a lot more than tesching hashkofa and derech halimud and then dropping you (if im understanding what you’re quoting correctly)Some chasidim take it further, with the idea of hiskashrus.
Litvishe mostly do not subscribe to that idea, but even by chasidim, it’s not a memutzah issue; more of like ridding on the shoulders of giants.
Hogwash – no one even called yushke “yeshua” until the 20th century, when messianic “judaism” and “hebrew roots” Christianity became movements. They just Hebraicize the name J. He was likely Yeshu or Yehoshua.
Nom – what do you make of cherem? We expel such a person from our community. He doesn’t count for a Minyan. You can’t walk in his 4 Amos. He’s persona non grata.
Sechel…now we’re just quoting random lines from other kuntres acharon?
I’m not even going to look up the context this time, because this conversation has veered so off rhe rails that it just isn’t worth debunking another claim.
First you said to look at kuntres acharon. I did. Your claims didn’t hold up there at all.
Then you said to look at igros. I did. Again, you misrepresented.
So why should anyone trust you a 3rd time? You are claiming something and dancing around various mareh mekomos from your mashpia or from google searches – I’m not going to play this game anymore. Neither am i going to play the game of me being instantly wrong because I’m not Lubavitch, and that only people who sit and spend their whole day learning things that they don’t understand “really” know what’s going on
Please. This whole exchange has been misquotes and appeals to authority, the way college kids say that you’re not qualified to have an opinion on a political issue if you’re not a professor.
This is the result of insecurity and knowing deep down that you’re wrong.
Mdd, the qualifier isn’t being an apikores; if someone is not aware of a commandment, or a Commander, or that the Commander gave that commandment, then he’s not doing anything.
The average frei person never heard of tefillin, and definitely doesn’t think that Hashem commanded him to do so.
Maybe this would apply to some sefardim, but chabad just asks people if they’re Jewish and plops it on them, in full view of pritzus sometimes, which is shelo k’din.
Mdd, the poskim are clear that one who is not aware of the existence of a mitzvah or who denies its origin as a commandment from Hashem has accomplished nothing; his brochos are levatalah, his actions are maysoh kof b’alma..
That’s what i meant by “not knowing aleph bais” – not literal aleph vais, im talking about people who are not aware of or who do not believe in the Mitzvah of tefilin. They are accomplishing nothing and their status of karkafta delo manach – if they’re included… they’re tinokos shenishbu – is unchanged.
Ujm, they probably think that they don’t want to distance OO and make them go conservative.
Problem is that they’re already there, and they’re even worse than conservatism until the early 2000s, because they accept toevos.
So why doesn’t this bother the RCA enough to expel them?
Same reason messianic and god/body avodah zara doesn’t bother “mainstream” chabad enough to expel those people.
edited
Also, the term “admor hazakein” was coined by… Guess who? Wasn’t the tzemach tzedek or the rashab!
I just can’t get over how learning tanya – something hundreds of thousands of non Lubavitch chasidim do – is being compared by some chabadskers to learning chumash without chazal…
I guess when you decide to put tanya together with chumash in a sefer(with tehillim)… you’re going to….end up thinking that chumash and tanya are on a similar level, aren’t you?
Maybe they shouldn’t have published them together in such a misleading format?
Oh…rav shach already decried that 50 years ago. He was spot on; look what it has led to.
Also, please acknowledge that you misrepresented the igeres of the heiligeh baal hatanya; or rather, your “mashpia” did, or his did, or someone.
Actual Misnagdim, like the Gaon, etc.. Had no problem with rebbes preparing for davening. Their issue was with the zmanim, but that’s not relevant to this discussion.
My issue wasn’t with preparing for davening; my issue is that i don’t believe the shu”a harav’s heter would allow someone to eat in order to do something that’s additional. די לך בחידושו.
Neo chabad again paints a narrative that if you’re against any of their 20th century ideas, like putting tefilin on people who don’t know aleph bais in the street with pritzus, or teaching them “kabalah”, or worse, believing that a rebbe is god in a body…. Then you’re just a misnaged!
I’m not a misnaged. I learn chasidus, but i don’t make a new religion out of it. Do you ever wonder why other groups of chasidim don’t either? Why do you think millions of chasidishe communities learn only small amounts of chasidus, when they’re older?
And why are their tznius standards so much better? Give a look outside your 4 Amos. It’s a big world out there.
He also says that il what he’s saying is a huge kitzur and that he’s going to explain to each chosid privately what he means, so saying nonchalantly that “the baal hatanya holds that the ikkar avodah is tzedaka” is not intellectually honest.
Continuing a narrative about tanya being “torah shebichsav” or whatever is just that – a narrative. You have no evidence that chabad ever looked at it that way before the last rebbe changed everything.
As for the igeres. Did you notice that he’s talking to working people? You left out the first part of the letter. He’s cautioning them to work and have families leshem shomayim.
For them, he’s saying that what will bring the geulah is mitzvos maasios in addition to their learning (he says gam kein), tzedaka being a prime example.
He’s coming laafukei the idea that all you have to do is learn, because lots of people think that way. Also, why do chessed if chazal say that torah is bigger?
He’s saying that in our time, ikvesa demishicha, they need physical involvement too(train the words ‘gam kein’)
And clearly, the baal hatanya didn’t spend all of his time or even most of his time doing chessed; he sat and learned all day, and was a massive talmid chochom.
Sechel, are you ever going to understand that outside of your community, the writings of the Lubavitcher rebbe in likutei sichos etc… have little influence?
I’m not interested in reading his thoughts on what is more important in my life. Zos hatorah lonsehey muchlefes. It doesn’t change. Talmud torah keneged kulam – the rambam also writes that there is no mitzvah “that is keneged all the mitzvos” meaning other mitzvos it says “kneged kulam” like yishuv ererz yisroel etc., But none of them are equal to Torah.
And he was after the gemara.
I’m also not interested in the countless commentaries chabad churns out on tanya; it’s a sefer like any other chasidishe sefer, snd it can be learned the same way. I learn it with as much iyun as i did sfas emes and meor aynayim. The tanya actually clarified a lot of ideas for me which i learned in meor aynayim.
I looked up the source in kuntres acharon. Of course, he says no such thing. He says that the ikkar “birur” is through tefilah, even though Torah is higher. That doesn’t mean our ikkar avodah and time investment should be in tefilah. It means that tefilah accomplishes something important which Torah doesn’t in our time. This would actually explain why people who are patur from davening because they’re toraso umnaso (rebbes, according to rav meir shapiro) still daven, because there are things which tefilah alone can accomplish.
It’s also not even his own chidush – he’s just quoting the Arizal!
And he doesn’t mention “the time of the gemara,” rather he just says that “bazman hazeh the ikkar birur is through tefilah” – i don’t know when bazman hazeh started; maybe it was after the churban?
Whoever taught you tanya really did a number on you. That’s a problem with chabad; too much chiddushim on esoteric and lofty concepts which lead to forsaking basic yiddishkeit.
Mdd, the number of real misnagdim is not very high in our time; the Brisker mesorah is to accept chasidim; they even prefer to marry chasidishe women. It was explained to me that briskers see the vast amount of ways to learn a sugya, and can justify even strange minhagim(without following it themselves)
Whereas hashkofos…. Are more clear cut.
Menachem, you’re confusing halacha with mitztayer that you’re not mitztayer that you’re not mitztayer that you’re not mitztayer that you’re not mitztayer ad infinitum. The latter is purim torah, not a “mesorah” – it’s from the last rebbe.
Sechel, chas veshalom to say that the tanya says that tefilah is the ikkar and not Torah; i don’t know how they twist the sefer, but I’ve learned it, and the way he describes torah is food for the neshoma, dveikus that no other mitzva – including tefilah – brings(perek 5, and 25)(or 23, i forget))
And allowing an issur that might be deoraysoh is not “simple.”
And where do people get a heter to eat whatever they want? The shu”a harav doesn’t say to have a meal. He says you can eat IF you need to for kavanah; who decided that everyone needs to eat to have kavanah? I daven with more kavanah by shacharis than i do by mincha, after i have eaten; I’m not the only one. How can you be koveah a minhag/heter that’s universal when people are different?
As for learning about Hashem before davening; who says such preparation is allowed if it’ll make you have to violate an issur of eating? Maybe the shu”a harav allows eating in order to do the basic mitzvah of tefilah with kavanah; who says it’s mutar for tosefes?
In the gemaras time, there were many foods that were readily available. One could take a bite of bread, vegetables, apples… No such distinction is made.
Actually, the nosei keilil are all matir drinking coffee, because it’s not gaavah, even though in their time it definitely took considerable effort to make it, as you described.
In addition, what if someone else offered it it to you? The whole premise is based on not learning the sources or even reading them at all. Please do not make halachik pronouncements without doing so.
It has nothing to do with the effort made in preparing food. The rishonim (mentioned by the Tur in the above siman) say it is gaavah to eat before davening, and therefore it is allowed to drink water, tea, coffee because it isn’t gaavah…
Many teshuvos have been written about drinking coffee with milk. Rav moshe has a heter because in our time, it’s so typical to drink it with milk and sugar that it’s not gaavah, but others disagreed. The prevailing custom is to drink coffee with milk and sugar.
However a fancy starbucks type drink would definitely be assur.
The poskim make no mention of the effort required in preparing the food, nor do they talk at all about missing davening.
Missing davening applies to mincha and maariv, as shu”a paskens.
Anon… Please learn the following clear sources before making such statements, as they are demonstrably incorrect and might lead others to sin.
Eating before shacharis: gemara brochos 10a, based on the pasuk lo lochlo al hadam – it is assur to eat before praying for your blood.
Shu”a orach chayim – 89, 3-4.
There is a shailoh if it’s deoraysoh or only derabonon, but an asmachta.
It’s definitely not a “minhag”
Square; there are a lot of kosher gyms in Brooklyn. Yelev veyalda and the boro park Y are two popular places
Nom, cholim are definitely allowed to eat before davening.
But there’s a huge difference between shacharis and mincha/maariv. The former is a pasuk and understood that it’s gaavah(this is why drinking water and tea, coffee, is allowed, because it’s not gaavah)
Before the latter, it’s simply because one might forget to daven
So if they have a set time, like in Yeshiva, it’s mutar; same if you have a shomer, etc..Nom, so all the working amei haaretz have impeccable manners?
All the working people who attend nightly talmud readings are baalei middos?
Huh?
Others say that the Holocaust was so huge and daunting that it transcends just one day; since we’re not empowered to make restrictive days like Tisha baav, and a simple commemoration like 29 sivan wouldn’t suffice, our hands are tied.
Anon, great question!
The gedolim were opposed to making a Holocaust day for a number of reasons. The chazon ish said that we’re not on the level of previous generations to declare commemorative days. Others said that it would inevitably fall into the narrative of the zionists, who profane the Holocaust as the epitome of Jewish failure in exile and “proof” that we need a state with an army etc…
Some of my rebbeim spoke about 20 sivan. I don’t understand people who take issue with it or go as far as square(I’ve never heard such things in person, baruch Hashem) to repudiate something many tzadikim taught to do.
Jewish communities the world over had significant dates that they used to commemorate bad and good occasions. 20 sivan was from among the more widespread.
Mdd, the chabad rebbes had a lot of respect and were accepted as much as any other chasidus…
Neville is saying tosfos’ pshat; there are cholkim i believe
Right…so instead of doing what the neviim say moshiach will do (rebuild the bais hamikdash, bring all jews back to eretz yisroel, restore malchus yisroel, make all of the world know Hashem, bring world peace, heal all the sick, etc..)
Nope – his job is to teach chasidus.
Sechel, it’s not my problem if you can’t understand yiddish. It’s right there in the link i sent.
Avi – agreed that you’re not supposed to tell a person if no harm was done, the chofetz Chaim writes that.
But confession isn’t only about making amends to the aggrieved party; vidui, to Hashem and publicly, is part of teshuva according to the rambam.
Someday; i should have mentioned that it’s not my own chidush; i saw it in a more recent chasidishe sefer (like nesivos shalom)
While yeshivos don’t spend hours a day on mussar, most learn something daily, as the Gaon and chayei odom (brought in the mishnah berurah) say to do
Mdd, there are valid defenses for those practices; sukkah on shmini atzeres is based on a tosfos which can be understood to mean that if one would not normally sit in the sukkah due to it not being pleasant, one would not be allowed to do so due to bal tosif
This would not apply to eretz yisroel, however. I can find the tosfos if necessary.
Davening late…i wrote rav meir shapiros explanation above.
edited
There’s a reason why for averos bein odom lechavero, the rambam says that a sinner needs to confess publicly for it to be optimal teshuva… But for mitzvos between a person and Hashem, the repentant man should not confess publicly due to the chilul Hashem.
This is because it’s understood that gezel and other sins are part of, sadly, society; sinning against man is not the same level of rebellion as sinning against Hashem, even though of course all averos are against Hashem, it isn’t as clear when someone steals etc
It should be noted that toras hamusar accomplishes pretty much the same goal as chasidus. Moshiach will come when penimius hatorah – whether it be chasidishe torah, or a deep piece of sichos kussar – will spread. People need to be oved Hashem with their hearts; the goals are the same.
The yeshivos kedoshos are not holding back the geulah.
Forget the zohar. Read. The words. He says you can pray TO him because HE is god.
Do you understand yiddish?
Nom, a bedieved is both – it’s not optimal, because it’s shaky in halacha.
Here you go – https://hebrewbooks.org/16065
Page 510 and 511
Here he says that praying to a rebbe isn’t a memutzah because a rebbe is god.
This language was removed from subsequent prints.
Rav belsky didn’t deny the existence of rav moshes heter; he told me openly, in clear language, that lechatchila one should not rely on it.
Sechel, when Lubavitch says to learn chasidus before asking questions – I’m not asking questions; im allowed to simply disagree.
But for the record, i spent about 5 years learning various chasidishe seforim, including Tanya, which i adore. Actually, tanya probably had the deepest influence on my thinking than the other seforim i learned.
Sechel, lechatchila the halacha is to wash. It is not a strict chiyuv, which is why if one forgot retzeo he does not bentch again. But there was never a minhag to specifically not wash and do the Mitzvah in a bedieved way.
Sukkah….no. being metztayer that you’re not mitztayer that you’re not mitztayer ad infinitum is not mentioned anywhere in any shape or form.
Eating before davening was never meant to be a thing that everyone does; it’s for individuals who are sick or weak. But if someone says that they need it to be able to daven…. it’s not the end of the world, and if this were the only thing neo chabad did i wouldn’t care. But even the shu”a harav does not allow the large amounts of food eaten without concern for davening that some people do. I myself have eaten a bite of cake a couple of times when my stomach hurt or i was feeling extremely exhausted.
The original yiddish in the sicha, not translated(in likutei sichos 1st edition, before the Lubavitcher rebbe ordered the line removed due to accusations of kefirah) – the words are “a rebbe is der atzmus elokus vohr ehr hut areingeshtelt in a guf”
This means, one can daven by the kever of a rebbe, because a rebbe is the essencd of god which he has placed inside a body”
It doesn’t mean the nefesh elokis, if that’s what he meant he would have said so, but even then, you can’t daven to the nefesh elokis of a tzadik, you can only daven to Hashem – so are you davening to Hashem or the tzadik? The Lubavitcher rebbe js saying you can daven because you’re davening to Hashem, because god is there, i.e., Rebbe is god.
This is undeniable kefirah.