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Nom, a person believing in a god with a body, or believing in baal, is avodah zara regardless of if the person serves the deity.
But here, they DO serve the deity. You’ll see lubavitchers say that they do mitzvos to please the rebbe. At a shluchim conference, an oved avodah zara prayed that the gathering be pleasing to the rebbe, and may he bless our efforts… Effectively a vehi noam. Shlomo cunin, chabad head of the West Coast, said after the Mumbai tragedy that the world will see that it’s the rebbe who runs the world.
It’s there, and it runs deep. It went from personality cult to full on idolatry.
Nom, for the same reason we need to break Christianity, islam, karaism, reform, and conservative off of the community. It’s alien, and the tolerance of institutionalized avodah zara or apikorsus is not only a chilul Hashem, but a stumbling block.
It’s really immaterial where you came from; I’m responding to what you’re saying – you could be a chat GPT bot for all i know or care.
Ben,
Those who know things in Torah don’t use their knowledge to whack people over the head and make it look like they know better, questioning their mental abilities and saying things like “it might be a surprise to you,”
It’s just childish grandstanding, and it shows not only a lack of knowledge, but a profound insecurity. It’s a bully mentality.
I’ve responded to your interpretations, phantasmagorical as they might be, and I’ve entertained your messianic rantings, but if you want people to take you seriously, you need to cool it with the ad hominem stuff. It’s just embarrassing.
Kabalah can be twisted into avodah zara very easily. If someone thinks that G-d can be divided in any way, even if he’s basing himself on mekubalim like the arizals comments on chelek elokah, such a person is still an oved avodah zara.
It is avodah zara to say that Hashem has any body, or that any body reaches him. This is 13 ikkarim. A rebbe or any other tzadik is not god. He doesn’t have god in him, as Hashem cannot be contained, divided, be here and not there, etc..
What the lubavitcher rebbe wrote was an answer to how a person is allowed to pray at the kever of a tzadik. Instead of going the normal route and saying that it’s either bzchus the tzadik or tbat you’re asking the tzadik to daven for you, the lubavitcher rebbe went into avodah zara and said you can daven there because you’re davening to god, because a rebbe is atzmus elokus, the essence of god, vos ehr hut areingeshtelt in a guf, which he has erapped himself in a body.
And this is why many in neo chabad have no qualms about asking the rebbe to save them when they’re in trouble.
And this is why some call him boreinu, our creator r”l.
And no amount of being told that I don’t understand or don’t know will change that.
No one ever did mitzvos to please bar kochva.
No one said that bar kochva was the greatest jew to live.
No one carried around pictures of hin thinking that he will protect them after his death.
No one followed him after his death.
No one prayed to him when they were in trouble.
No one thought that bar kochva knew their thoughts
No one said that bar kochva is the essence of god wrapped in a body.
Good to know; he didn’t target would-be combatants, if there even were any there at the tims. He just shot anyone with Muslim attire. It was senseless.
Mill – there’s not a shred kf evidence for any of the kahanist revision of history that you described. Goldstein wasnt “murdered in cold blood” – he was a murderer who was killed by people he was trying to kill. They didn’t kill him because he was jewish, they killed him because he was on a murderous rampage himself.
And if there really was some plot to carry out an attack, when has attacking arabs helped stop it? It just makes them more willing and angry to kill jews. The whole thing is preposterous.
And why would the army “warn” Goldstein? He wasn’t in some position that would warrant that. And where is the evidence for any of these claims?
American, it’s because first there’s a personality cult. The lubavitcher rebbe made himself into a messianic figure, as the brisker rov said upon his ascension to the position.
Lubavitchers literally believe that their last rebbe was greater than every tzadik in the last 2000 years, and have no bushah in saying so.
I don’t think teshuva is required. He genuinely believes himself to be in danger. Having a delusion is not an aveirah. And for people with severe anxiety attacks, they literally cannot convince themselves that they are not in mortal danger. Each time, they think “no, THIS time is different!”
It’s not an aveirah. And him thinking it is is only going to make it harder to have a refuah.
I think you need to get in touch with shomrim if there’s a branch near you. Or a police chaplain, hate crimes unit, etc if there’s no shomrim where you are.
Ujm, it is highly problematic to believe in a second coming, as in, a messianic candidate would be identified, then die, and come back to finish his job. This is Christianity 101, and absolutely repudiated by the rishonim; the rambam, the rambaN in his vikuach, and loads more.
The abarbanel is saying that Moshiach can be anyone, even someone who is brought back during techias hameisim. He doesn’t say that “moshiach will die and come back,” rather the language is “don’t be too surprised if moshiach will be from those who come to life during the techiah”
Big difference. So much, that it is a different religion entirely.
My guess is that someone the rosh yeshiva trusts told him the story according to the fanatical kahanist narrative. Rav Mazuz stresses that Goldstein was trying to prevent danger to jews.
The kahanist claim os unfounded. Goldstein was a mentally unstable man who snapped and murdered people; some were probably terrorist supporters, although there’s no evidence of that…there were people who just happened to be at maaras hamachpelah minding their own business, killed for being muslims.
If islam ever had an actual martyr, it would be those people; they were senselessly killed just because of their religion and nationality.
Bsn, my position was and is that normative hashkofa is that Moshiach will not be from the meisim, and i thank you for showing me the sdei chemed which supported rashi’s non-literal reading of the gemara in his lishna achra.
The ramban paskens not like the gemara, or he holds like the sdei chemed/rashi’s lishna achra.
I was not aware of ths abarbanels shitah that Moshiach might be from those who come back from techias hameisim – it’s an interesting footnote, but the consensus of hundreds of seforim, including chasidishe seforim – and chabad seforim! – is not even like that abarbanel, let alone the words you put in his mouth about a second coming, which is totally unmentioned anywhere.
Re, nitzachon:
First you say that the wars are spiritual, and now you’re agreeing that they’re physical when it suits your “diyuk” that a messianic candidate is killed during the wars…
But it’s not a diyuk, because even if all the wars are finished, if he didn’t bring all of yisroel to teshuva and build the beis hamikdash, but was killed/died, he is also disqualified, because “if he was not successful to this point” meaning all of the above, or if he was killed, again, before doing all of the above, then he is not the one the torah promised etc…
“Right and or doesn’t mean or. He’s talking already about Yoshka who is “like all Good and Perfect Malchus Bais Dovid that died”. Notice Rambam does say died there, but not about disqualifying, not B”K, not others, and not Yoshka.”
And there we have it; a “reading” of the rambam which leads you to think that he said that yushke was a ‘good and perfect king.’
Yushke was not a king, not good, and not perfect. He was a rasha.
The rambam used him as an example not of kings, but of “lenasos es yisroel,” those who are sent to test yisroel, which can also include good people like bar kochva, but certainly not yushke, which is why he adds in the word “af” beforehand. Not that you need to be very technical in deriving that the rambam didn’t think yushke was good…
Re, techiah; you’re again putting things in the abarbanel ‘s mouth. Partial messianic accomplishment to be completed at a second coming is Christianity 101. The abarbanel would have made it clear that he is agreeing with “baalei rivainu” as he calls them in the sefer if that were the case. the constant jewish perspective in their debates with Christians is that Moshiach wouldn’t die and wouldn’t partially accomplish his mission. Please read the sefer yeshuos meshicho, but first go through the ramban’s vikuach, which the abarbanel draws from heavily, because these are simple issues that divided jews and christians for millenia. Please do that instead of googling keta’im from seforim that support a neo-messianic view.
Why do you assume that the abarbanel agrees that there are different stages in techias hameisim? Does he say that anywhere? It’s not the pashtus.
Iyour kasha on the abarbanel, where a partial accomplishment would be disqualifying for a resurrected candidate, is only a kasha if you start off with the premise that he’s talking about someone thought to have been moshiach while alive. But he never says anything like that. He says that Moshiach can be from those who are resurrected; meaning someone like Daniel in the gemara. And you’re asking, can it be ruined by his accomplishing part of the mission? The answer isn’t that it’s ruined, it’s that the abarbanel isn’t discussing someone thought to have been moshiach while alive, because not only is that extremely rare(it happened only once, by bar kochva) but it’s also a completely foreign concept, that he would die in the middle of the geulah. It doesn’t say anywhere that such a thing is expected.
What difference would “killed” or “dying” make? The point is that Moshiach needs to fulfill his mission. He mentions “killed” because that’s what happened in practice to both bar kochva and lehavdil yushke. And believe me, if the lubavitcher rebbe was assassinated, the Messianic fervor would have just increased, as he would have been a martyr.
Nomesorah is correct that you simply don’t have the understanding of how your views are seen by outsiders. Even many in chabad recoil from these sort of second coming ideas, including rabbi yoel kahn who was outspoken against it. What seems to you to be simple and established, to the point where you think that someone who disagrees must lack mental capacity, is just a myopia.
Instead of insulting others’ intelligence while at the same time putting on a veneer of “dan lekaf zchus” and “ahavas yisroel,” it might be a mentally healthy exercise to visit outside yeshivos, not as a missionary, but as a person wanting to learn about the outside world. You won’t go to gehinnom for talking to litvaks or bobover chasidim.
Nom, depends on what you mean by internet – they can use library computers, but b”h at least in Brooklyn, they are filtered. As for personal devices, if you don’t have wifi open in your house, how are they going to use the internet? An average teen can’t afford a cell phone and a monthly plan, and it can ve pretty easily discovered by a discerning parent, and confiscated.
I love it when chabad says that a few gedolim who wrote letters to the lubavitcher rebbe and referred to him with titles means anything – talk to people who knew rav moshe. I did; many of my rebbeim were talmidim of his, and none had a favorable view of the lubavitcher rebbe.
It’s not as if rav moshe wrote that the lubavitcher is reliable, or sent someone to him. He didn’t.
I asked rav belsky once about why rav moshe used titles when writing to him. (Rav belsky used to say very harsh things against the lubavitcher rebbe, and there’s no point in mentioning them here. He also was extremely close to rav moshe.)
He said that rav moshe did everything he could to have his psakim accepted in klal yisroel, because he knew that it was necessary. He grew payos so that heimishe yidden would not repel him, and was warm with lubavitch and others for the same reason. He wasn’t a particular misnaged to chasidus in general, nor was he chasidish.
As for rav noson vachtfogel and….rav forcheimer? Different doros…not fit to be lumped together, but it any case, i have no idea if they were misnaged to chasidus in general, but they aren’t known to have said anything in contradiction to rav aharon and subsequent roshei yeshiva in Lakewood who openly consider lubavitch to be chutz lemachaneh.
But it’s not a chidush if someone is not a misnaged. Most gedolim after the kotzker rebbe were no longer opposed, once some of the more controversial practices were stopped and it became clear that chasidim in general, and especially polisher chasidim, were keeping normative Judaism.
There were and are a minority of gedolei yisroel who are still outwardly or quietly misnagdishe, but the problem is that in lubavitch, “misnaged” doesn’t mean someone who is against chasidus, it means someone who is against neo-chabad chasidus….and in that regard, it’s the vast majority. And many who initially were pro-chabaf, including rav avigdor miller and rav pam, changed their views when the issues came to light.
I don’t understand why it is being repeated over and over that I’m judging people either lekaf chov or zchus; I’m discussing the ideas and claims that a group is making. There’s no Mitzvah to “judge” ideas one way or the other – were just supposed to look for the emes.
Re, abarbanel: he says that it’s possible that Moshiach will be from those resurrected. He, again, makes absolutely no mention of his being a messianic candidate while alive, and definitely would have done so if he thought that’s possible, because half of the sefer is his responses to christian ideology, which he shows a very clear understanding of. You’re throwing in tons of exterior words about him being identified as moshiach, while as we established, such a candidate is eliminated when they die. If the abarbanel meant to say something that was against the plain meaning of the rambam, he would have done so.
Bar kochva was disqualified: the whole point of the rambam there is to say that no miracles need to be done and that once he dies, he is no longer a candidate, that everyone at the time agreed that bar kochva was not moshiach. According to you, the fact that bar kochva died should not be disqualifying, but the rambam clearly says it was.
You still haven’t explained why 2 achronim, even if they said what you think they do(which they don’t) would overturn the pashtus of a rambam and eclipse the enormity of the fact that none of the baalei hashkofa who discuss moshiach talk about him not finishing his job or coming from the dead at all. It’s not normative hashkofa, and it’s Christian. It’s also a sign of a stubborn insecurity when the entire yiddishkeit rests on one man being the Messiah… There’s another religion which teaches that, and it’s not judaism
Let’s say i thought that rav efraim wachsman was moshiach. Would i care if someone else disagreed? Why should i? But to a lubavitcher, if someone says that they don’t believe that their rebbe was moshiach, he might as well be denying bias hamoshiach altogether.
Re, the lubavitcher rebbe saying that effectively everyone would be a chossid (a chabad chossid only?) If only they “understood” – that’s a warped version of what the Rashab said to an atheist, that he doesn’t believe in the same god that he denies; meaning that if the atheist had the right understanding of Hashem, he’d believe.
Sorry, but tons of gedolim knew just what chasidus is and didn’t hold of it. I personally love chasidishe seforim, including chabad, but i am well aware that people that we, and lubavitcher rebbe, had no understanding of, were against it, including the noda beyehudah and the Gaon.
As for vitriol; take a look in the mirror.
The part about punishments only coming to the world because of yisroel is in Yevamos 63a. And it includes earthquakes anywhere in the world. When the Mississippi river flooded, the chofetz chaim said it was meant for us(in Europe) to learn mussar.
Or they can get off of the internet if the parents learned to say no to their kids.
King – the gemara says that refers to an am haaretz who mispronounces words; there’s greatness in amei haaretz, and the fact that the lowest among us are so full of mitzvos shows how incredible klal yisroel is.
But they’re not role models; the gemara is not saying that dikduk isn’t important for the rest of us.
Menachem, i never said that the realization that chabad isn’t the end all be all, or that the lubavitcher rebbe had many detractors is the sole or even the most common reason for going off the derech – i don’t think it is. What I’m saying is that unlike a litvishe person whose yiddishkeit isn’t concerned with the fact that there were big machloksim between the satmar rov and rav moshe, a lubavitcher can have a crisis of faith over such things, due to the unparalleled emphasis of a rebbe not found in any other chasidus.
And I’ve seen it happen. I’ve also read about it in my days on frumteens, when lubavitcher teenagers would write to rabbi shapiro and ask him to stop writing against chabad, because they knew many people who were going off because of his articles, which at the time were almost the only place online where you could find the yeshiva world’s perspective on lubavitch. And even now, very few online outlets serve as open forums for the issue.
Nom, fair point about the internet not being an accurate representation of any community, but my encounters with chabad are mostly in person. And almost all of them are extremely friendly and non confrontational about their various beliefs; our friend here is the exception.
But he’s just saying the quiet part out loud; the culture is one of “otherising” the rest of klal yisroel and believing that they are the sole possessors of truth.
Ujm, it was an essay; I don’t have enough free time to redo it. But as one example, i admitted that i was unaware of that line in the abarbanel, but it didn’t say what our very-eager-to-defend-second coming ideology friend said it did. All he said is that Moshiach might come from those who are revived during techias hameisim, which he holds can happen first, before bias hamoshiach. He makes no mention of a second coming, and he definitely would if he held of it, because half of the sefer is a rebuttal to christian ideology, of which second coming ideas are a center piece. And that’s how he understands Sanhedrin, as “from the meisim” means those who will rise during techias hameisim, not that Moshiach alone will come from the dead.
Almost every interaction i have with lubavitch makes me really question how long it’ll take for either the outside world to give them the conservative treatment or for them to return to normalcy.
Nome – i think if your entire judaism hinged on such things you too would be insecure enough to lash out at anyone, even an anonymous name online, who questions it.
Ever see a lubavitcher who first finds out that many gedolim didn’t hold of the rebbe? It gives them a crisis of faith and many go off the derech because of it.
On the flipside, the adulation goes so far that i heard from kne6 lubavitcher that they’re still frum because if the rebbe held of yiddishkeit, it must be the right religion.
Yserb, see the hakdoma of the yam shel shlomo – they most definitely did have to defend themselves from the possibility of outside influence. The Gaon said – and of course we would never dream of saying this on our own – that even the rambam was not immune to outside influence. And he said it as a criticism, not as a neutral statement.
Maybe you should pay attention to what the gedolei yisroel actually say about chochma instead of looking for hypocrisy and being in the category of “hanei rabbanan” who suffer a fate too horrible to describe?
They don’t bash the chochma. They bash the desire some people have to learn it at the expense of Torah, or to foresake the yeshiva at an early age to go to college.
Pay attention and you’ll learn from them.
I’m not sure why my responses didn’t make it through
Toshma, if it’s aramaic i think it would be ברכתא בתראה
I always feel a little twinge of repulsion when people sing baruch hu elokeinu sheBARanu lichvodo, with a komatz, because it means “we created”, instead of seb’ranu, “that He created us” with a shva.
Same goes for likovod hatana elokai, rabbe shimon bar yochai – elokai means “my God” instead of the correct eloki, which means Godly, as in, the Godly tanna.
Kuvult…there isn’t a shred of evidence that the lubavitcher rebbe had any connection with Einstein.
Maakil – thanks for clarifying, and i agree
What has been said here that contravenes anything that the roshei yeshiva sm signed on to? The OP is upset with rebbeim who get drunk, dance, wildly sing praises of Hashem, rattle off torah, grammen ,and so on – the kol koreh calls for a spiritual celebration, and that’s exactly what these rebbeim show their talmidim.
Maskil, having a sensitivity to not hunting doesn’t mean he had “jewish values,” it just as easily can comport with secular humanism. Or worse, that aninals are just as important as people.
Does he say that it’s wrong because Hashem has mercy on the animals? Because the gemara says that that’s a mistake, to say yagiu rachamecha on aninals by shiluach haken. Rather it is for OUR sake, to not build in ourselves the midah of cruelty.
Did Einstein say any of that? If not, it’s not a “jewish value”
Yechiel, the chazon ish held like that, that it is makeh bepatish, and a deoraysoh. Most poskim did not hold like that, but it still is an important opinion to consider in halacha shailos.
Menachem, wbat about “reshoim, even at the opening of gehinnom don’t repent”
Who knows?
Just to clarify, i didn’t mean to imply that I’m agreeing or disagreeing with the achronim mentioned; when i said “if true,” i meant if they actually said what is being alleged, which it wasn’t
Aaq, can we not evaluate a plumbers neshoma because we don’t understand plumbing? What does his scientific knowledge have to do with our ability to understand his spiritual life, or lack thereof? To whatever degree we can judge a person doesn’t depend on how smart they are, or how athletic, or how artistic, because those things have no bearing on a person’s moral capacity.
Einstein was not above anyone else. I only wish you’d have the same attitude when it comes to talmidei chachamim, many of whom you think you can judge, even though you don’t understand their level of learning.
I also neglected to mention that i don’t know why the words of 2 achronim, even if true, would establish enough precedent to overlook the baalei machshava throughout the doros who completely ignore this possibility. Those include the maharal, ramchal, rambans maamar al hegeulah, the kisvei ari, rav yonasan eybeshutz, chasam sofer, gr”a, nefesh hachaim… And ironically, sifrei chasidus, including the baal hatanya and chabad rebbes.
Imagine combing through hundreds and thousands of seforim just to find a glimmer, however faint, of a possibility that a deceased rebbe – and not just any, , but specifically the last lubavitcher rebbe – can be moshiach, ignoring the fact that seforim that deal with geulah never make mention of it…
But that’s one issue. Another is that no one actually has advocated it, not the sdei chemed, and I’m 99% sure the abarbanel too.
And the other issue is that there’s not a shred of evidence that even when alive the lubavitcher rebbe had any shot of being moshiach.
I agree that his piqued interest, about which we know very little(did he ever keep shabbos?), would not take him out of the category of tinshn”sh according to those who say that it applies to secular jews in his time and place.
Forgot to address one other thing; rashi living hundreds of years after the gemara is irrelevant. He’s not writing his own sefer on what will happen when moshiach comes. He’s explaining the gemara, which was written when it was written.
Usually messianic lubavitchers are more polite, because they don’t want to say the nasty parts out loud, but your post can serve as an example of the superiority complex and belittlement of the rest of klal yisroel, who does not accept the messiahood of a deceased rebbe.
Let’s go through this step by step;
Re, Sanhedrin:
Rashi brings two pshatim in what min hameisim means. First he says that it will be someone like daniel who suffered, then he brings a lashon acher, a different pshat, that the gemara is just saying a comparison for who moshiach will be – is he compared to a living person like rebbe, or is he compared to a person who passed away like daniel.
—
Avira, I did not say a Prime Minister is betur Melech. Just because he is voted in doesn’t make the position one of Malchus. The Israeli President is more like a Melech than the PM, but I didn’t say he is either. How you attribute what was not said is baffling.
–
You said that kings are voted on; that’s baseless and not the way kings in tanach or beis chashmonai were made. And kings into bais chashmonai were all annointed; the ramban says that the latter kings were in the wrong for taking meluchah, because of “lo yasir”, too, so a voted on king who is not from beis dovid would likewise be a violation.
—
The Abarbenel on Derech Eretz Zuta most certainly allows for Moshiach from Techiyas Hamaisim.—
First you said it’s in yeshuos meshicho, a sefer I’m familiar with; it’s not there. Then, you point to derech eretz zuta, of which i am not familiar, and i will look into it, but i highly doubt it exists there either.
—“Supposed” Sidei Chemed??! Clearly you didn’t even do a Google search before employing such idiotic phrasing. I’ll let you have sechar halicha to discover you can find it easily yourself, with even an English search.
—I’m just going to ignore the ad hominem; it only makes you less convincing, so why should i care? Saying “google it” is a pretty obnoxious thing to tell someone.
I looked it up in the sefer…i can see why you wanted me to google it though, because messianic websites quote it and completely butcher it, almost as much as the word salad you made of a clear rambam, but more on that later.
As I expected, he says nothing of the sort. He is interpreting the gemara as a moshol; min hameisim means someone came as if on clouds from shomayim, in a grand display and everyone will accept him, if we are zocheh. From the living means ani rochev al chamur, a lowly-appearing person who will not be accepted by all, not stam a living person. If he were saying that min hachaim means stam living people, as chabad messianics would say, he wouldn’t have to add anything; ani rochev al hachamur is a non-ideal state of bias hamoshiach.
Normative techias hameisim happens from the kever; people are resurrected, they don’t come down from shomayim.
What he’s saying is, of course, a refutation of dead candidacy, not a proof.
—-Re, rambam:
ואם יעמוד מלך מבית דוד הוגה בתורה ועוסק במצות כדוד אביו. כפי תורה שבכתב ושבעל פה. ויכוף כל ישראל לילך בה ולחזק בדקה. וילחם מלחמות ה’. הרי זה בחזקת שהוא משיח. אם עשה והצליח [ וניצח כל האומות שסביביו ] ובנה מקדש במקומו. וקבץ נדחי ישראל הרי זה משיח בודאי. [ ואם לא הצליח עד כה או נהרג. בידוע שאינו זה שהבטיחה עליו תורה. והרי הוא ככל מלכי בית דוד השלמים הכשרים שמתו. ולא העמידו הקדוש ברוך הוא אלא לנסות בו רבים
youre mistranslating “oh shenegereg” as “or he is someone who is killed” – that’s an error. The translation is “if he was not successful to that point (ad koh), or if he was killed, know that he is not the one the Torah promised, but rather was as all other proper etc kings of yisroel.
And Hashem has only sent him to test yisroel.
This is directly followed by an example of such a person, who died and is therefore only meant to test yisroel.
אף ישוע הנוצרי שדימה שיהיה משיח ונהרג בבית דין. כבר נתנבא בו דניאל.
And you wonder why people compare chabad with yushke? A Christian could just as easily have made the same nonsensical “diyukim” in the first sentence of the rambam, and then “bliebed shver” on the seconr sentence….no, the second sentence clarifies, as if it needed to be clarified, what was said in the first.
But chabad sees a “second coming” ….in the rambams demonstration that another religion claimed so, and was wrong.
Wow.
Not that the way you’re understanding “or” has any legitimatacy….it means either this happened or that happened, either one..
Usually when people insist something is “basic logic” it’s just an appeal to make their shaky statements sound better. That, together with repeatedly saying that things are “over my head” only makes your arguments, such as they are, appear all the more baseless.
—
Lastly, you are missing PSHAT again. Rashi says “kegoin” Daniel, meaning not Daniel necessarily, but a similar individual; meaning he did not make any reference to when the person might live. The insinuation that Rashi indicates someone in that time is totally made up
—
I never said rashi says that. I said that if he’s similar to daniel, he must be on the level of such people, of which, no one today is.
Unless the lubavitcher rebbe was greater than literally everyone in the past 1000 years.
If he was, you’d think his supposedly profound learning acumen would have impressed everyone in the Torah community.
Why is it, then, that so many Torah leaders thought he wasn’t so big in learning?
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The main question relating to there is: does “fighting Hashem’s battles” mean actual physical war, or ‘Hashem’s battles’ means spiritual battles.
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The rambam in the next sentence, when recapping what moshiach does, says that Moshiach will fight the nations all aroundand beat them. How is that remotely ideological? He is talking about people like bar kochva, who fought physical wars. It’s just an invention that lubavitch decided a few years ago and is not mentioned at all in the meforshei harambam. It’s just another aspect of “ain bein…shibud malchios bilvad,” it’s an integral part of geulah that we be no longer under the rule of goyim.“Kol makom….teshuvaso betzidah”
Maybe building the beis hamikdash is metaphorical too? Oh, wait….they say that, that 770 is the beis hamikdash. Right, i forgot how far this rabbit hole goes.
Also regarding bar kochva, the rambam says first that he was killed in his sins, but then changes to “once he was killed, they all knew he was not moshiach” omitting the reason why he was killed.
Oncd he’s dead, he loses his candidacy. Either he doesn’t pasken like the maan deamar in Sanhedrin, or he holds like rashi’s davar acher.
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If you can see my view and you want to point out something, try asking a thoughtful question.
—I love how you have no problem disparaging me yet you ask for me to ask you, the superior-minded and better educated, questions in a respectful way…. sorry, but this is the internet, and respect is earned, and not given to people who announce that they are better. I realize that in chabad, they tell you that everyone else doesn’t know anything, and that only they do, but all it does is make neo-chabad a laughing stock of the yeshiva world. It definitely made me laugh, so thanks for adding to my simchas adar!
Being frum before bar mitzvah for less than a year, and proceeding to not keep mitzvos afterwards, does not qualify one to be a baal teshuva. He had a fleeting interest, and who knows what could have happened if he had been around the right people…
Messianics, without the ability to show criteria for the lubavitcher Rebbe’s candidacy, point to his alleged ruach hakodesh, miracles, dtories, his photographic memory, etc ..
While of course, the rambam preempts this attitude.
ואל יעלה על דעתך שהמלך המשיח צריך לעשות אותות ומופתים ומחדש דברים בעולם או מחיה מתים וכיוצא בדברים אלו. אין הדבר כך. שהרי רבי עקיבא חכם גדול מחכמי משנה היה. והוא היה נושא כליו של בן כוזיבא המלך. והוא היה אומר עליו שהוא המלך המשיח. ודימה הוא וכל חכמי דורו שהוא המלך המשיח. עד שנהרג בעונות. כיון שנהרג נודע להם שאינו. ולא שאלו ממנו חכמים לא אות ולא מופת
Do not let it enter your mind that Moshiach must do signs and wonders, etc.., the matter is not so. Because look – rebbe akiva supported the king ben kuziba(bar kochva) and said on him the he was moshiach. He and all the chachamim of his time thought he was moshiach until he was killed due to sins. Once he was killed, they knew he was not, but they did not ask of him any signs or wonders.
Also, it’s not even that the lubavitcher rebbe failed to accomplish all of the rambams criteria; he didn’t fulfill a single one. He did not “coercd all of yisroel to torah” – not even close, not even close to being close. There are 13 million jews in the world, of which, only about 15% are Orthodox. In the rebbes time, fewer than that were.
During his time as rebbe, for every intermarriage he may have prevented with his kiruv workers, countless others happened.
Most jews had nothing to do with lubavitch and his reach was hyped up in orthodox circles, particularly in chabad, where they’d have you think that every jew in the world knew the rebbe and became frum because of him. They made a huge deal out of him, for instance, appearing briefly on a television show once…as if “the whole world” saw him…in reality, 99% or more just saw him snd went on to watch whatever came next. Ask goyim if they “remember” him being on tv and they’ll look at you like you’re from Mars. TV is on 24/7 and it’s forgotten as soon as it’s over.
But to chabad, this is some monumental achievement.
I was on TV once when i was a kid. I was 10, and i made a demonstration in front of an ice cream truck that frequented my playground, because they sold fake cigarettes. I and a few friends protested, and for some reason a local TV station put me on for like 5 minutes. I felt like a million bucks, but do you think anyone in the world remembers that? I barely remember it myself!
If anything, numbers of Orthodox jews trended up after he passed away. I’m not in any way saying that the two are linked, but my point is that he did not bring all, most, or even 1/4 of jews back to yiddishkeit.
He didn’t bring Jews back to Eretz yisroel, he didn’t fight with the neighboring countries, he didn’t build the beis hamikdash, he didn’t fix up shmiras hamitzvos any more than, say, the tzelemer rov or rav moshe… Nothing
Actually, there was one criteria that he may have fulfilled. The rambam says that if a messianic candidate is megaleh ponim batorah, or says that a certain Mitzvah is not applicable, he definitely is not moshiach.
And… The lubavitcher rebbe said that in our time there’s basically no Mitzvah to sleep in a sukkah.
Now you’ll say, no, he didn’t say there’s no Mitzvah, just if you’re mitztayer because you’re not mitztayer that you don’t feel a kabbalistic concept in the sukkah, then you’re patur.
And on that, the rambam says that a false moshiach can “take a Mitzvah out of its simple meaning”
The simple meaning is, if you’re cold, you’re patur. He comes and says that “spiritual” pain about not being in pain is enough.
He’s a false Messiah, and this was known early on. When he first became rebbe, the brisker rov said “dehr meshugah meint as ehr is moshiach”
Also, that shitah in the gemara says that if moshiach will be from the meisim, he will be like Daniel….meaning it’ll be someone from those generations; not someone who lived after the time of the achronim who fulfilled none, literally none, of the criteria necessary (aside from his being an ainikel of the maharal)
Ben, do you really think that the prime minister has the din of a melech? Even the most fanatical zionists don’t say that. They don’t make a bracha on Netanyahu.
A king must be annointed, too.
Anyways, the abarbanel does not advocate for that shitah in the gemara; you misread. And where is this supposed sdei chemed? The rambam clearly paskened not like that shitah, that if a messianic candidate dies, he is disqualified.
Aaq, “ashkenazi” teshuvos deal with anything and everything; no *change” happened in the frequency of shailos – also do you think poskim publish every answer they gave to every question? Shu”t is a style of writing a sefer; they pick which ones they use, and some even “asked” themselves shailos to get into the sugya – if there was, in fact, a dirth of questions in a certain area, they’d just write about them stam.
Whole premise just shows that this “talmid chacham” probably is not interested in normative halacha, and prefers ethical discourse: it’s a lot easier to pontificate and give synagogue sermons to Sabbath attendees about ethics, philosophy, current events, and other things that they and the rabbi want to hear, than it is to learn halacha b’iyun.
And what is meant by “ashkenaz” – does he mean that Hungarian, German, Lithuanian, polish, galician, Russian, Latvian jews all changed wholesale into chicken shailoh based judaism, and, let me guess, the sefardim somehow didn’t, and contributed more towards business questions? Has this person ever learned kaf hachaim, ben ish chai, sdei Chemed… Anything? The topics are all the same whenever you look .
He probably just likes that sefardim are generally more meikil.
Nom, i think moshiach must be coming soon, because you wrote something that i actually agree with!
I don’t think it depends on yichus though; i think people who look down on others would do so in a different context, i.e. if they were rich, they’d look down on the poor, etc… it’s a bad middah, like any other. Truly frum people who have worked on their middos don’t look down on other jews.
Actually, among the people I’ve seen who actually look down on others, I’ve only seen it by heimishe people who aren’t particularly knowledgeable who feel like they have to grab on to their yiddish or minhagim that they have, and look askance at someone solely because they’re sefardi or a BT; I’m talking about sefardim and BTs who are just as frum, if not moreso, talk with yeshivish language, dress like everyone else, etc…
An example of this is the fact that roshei yeshiva of chaim berlin and torah vodaas had no issue taking sons in law who were sefardi, and those are just the ones i can think of off the top of my head.
I do agree that newcomers can be more insecure and will lash out more because they feel threatened, and aren’t sure that they are in the right, because if you can’t learn shulchan aruch yourself, and you’re just going by what your rebbe told you, maybe there really isn’t a halacha against the things less frum people do?
For all my online rhetoric, many here would be surprised at how i interact with other jews who aren’t frum or less frum. The same way, and I’m in no way comparing myself, people are surprised to know of a certain rosh yeshiva who was among the most anti-chabad voices in the world, who housed a yechi-nik and his family, some of whom were disabled and had a very difficult life.