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TS, perhaps if moshe Kotlarsky would indeed make such remarks, ruffle some feathers…the shluchim who you mention would takeh leave, and make chabad a healthier community? Would the “antis” miss the messianics? Wouldn’t distancing themselves from the supposed “fringes” strengthen the community and show what they “actually” believe, that the messianics are a small but vocal and cooky minority?
Or, the alternatives are that the “antis” don’t think it’s such a big deal if many believe in the mesiahood of the lubavitcher rebbe, or if they accept atzmus ideology.
Yet another alternative is that “anti” isn’t really all that anti, and that there’s a subtle distinction between those who proclaim the messiah’s reign openly and those who believe it’s best to hide it until he returns and redeems them.
I’m inclined to think it’s the latter.
Dbs, thank you for this most relevant and insightful post – it bothers me a lot when people get attached to goyim, quote their slogans, identify as one כת or another and get involved in fights that aren’t our concern. The Torah tells us to be loyal citizens, but that is not dependant on the party in power.
I’m curious, perhaps one of our pre millennial posters can tell us if yeshivos ever had students say the pledge of allegiance? I would feel positively about it, but of course I’d never suggest a change to chinuch without the advice of gedolei yisroel
What syag and avram (and myself) are saying is that there is an inordinate amount of chabad-centricism, much more than in other groups, wherein other gedolim are completely ignored and unheard-of.
Any satmar yingel can rattle off a list of rebbes who were not satmar, and they know there was a rav aharon kotler and a rav moshe feinstein. So can a bobover, or a litvishe, who can name many chasidishe rebbes. The only times (rarely) I’ve heard chabad speak about other rabbis, it’s only been about how they met the lubavitcher rebbe, or were related to chabad in some way. They also only mention rav Moshe, the satmar rov, rav chaim brisker (who some mistakenly call the brisker rov, a name used for his son rav yitzchok zeev) or rabbi yoshe ber Soloveitchik; I’ve never heard them mention the steipler, chazon ish, rav shlomo zalman, rav elyashiv, rav aharon kotler, or anyone else.
Huju, yidalgu ay ahavah is said regarding am haaratzim. While the soul of prayer is the intention, the body of it is correctly saying the words. If one davens in his mind or by his own personal prayers, he has not satisfied the mitzvah of davening. If one mouths the words and merely knows the translation of the first parsha of shema and the first bracha of shemoneh esrei, he has fulfilled that mitzvah
.Two people go to shomayim. One prayed everyday with tears in his eyes without following the siddur. The other paid lip service. We both know what the halacha would be in such a case and who would be rewarded and punished.
Hashem tells us how he wants us to serve him; it is beyond chutzpah to say what we think he “cares” about if we are minimizing a halacha. Irreligious jews say the same illogical things about tefilin, tzitzis, etc..they say “I’m a good person, isn’t that really what Hashem cares about?. do you really think Hashem cares about putting cow skin on your arms?
It’s coming from the same yatzer hora
TS, if you’d like to see the non-messianic issues that have been raised about neo-chabad, there are other threads on here where we’ve had discussions of such things as negating the mitzvah of sleeping in a sukkah, shalosh seudos, public display menoras with a bracha haven’t been talked about yet, but they should be (i might start a thread on this one)… teaching kabalah to people who don’t know aleph bais, tolerating the likes of steinsaltz, and many other issues that I’ll probably remember tomorrow after a good night’s sleep
TS, you’re mixing up sefard with sefardi nuschaos – sefard was started exclusively by Ashkenazim, specifically talmidei habaal shem tov. The maggid was, as I’ve heard, the most involved in establishing the nusach. The changes in davening were based on kabalah, often mimicking sefardi nusach. The name sefard comes, i believe, from the fact that the mekubalim the talmidei habesht were learning from were almost all sefardi.
There is a time and place for evaluating and understanding who the roshei revavos alfei yisroel are. Adhering to gedolei yisroel is the road to both national and personal success. It is the only way for the mesorah to be perpetuated, because even though much is written down, the aynay ha’eidah are the ones who transmit the body of torah tradition in its proper understanding and application. If we were to say that the “speaker rabbis” are links in that unbroken chain, we would be doing a disservice to the future lf torah in klal yisroel.
Not everyone who is prominent is a gadol, nor is everyone who influences irreligious jews even on a relatively large scale (90% aee still not frum).
I’m only mentioning the lubavitcher rebbe’s status because it’s been claimed that he’s this messianic figure of biblical proportions. I wanted to show how this is myopic and false. You can’t make massive claims about the lubavitcher rebbe and then accuse someone of “gedolim olympics” if they point out why this isn’t true.
AAQ – chasidim use the term sefard because they’re basing it on mekubalim who were almost completely sefardi. Chabad calls its nusach Ari for the same reason.
Mesivta; you might want to ask a shailoh about what the correct course of action is for you. Davening Ashkenaz for the duration of your time in that yeshiva is something many rabbonim would encourage.
Farby, so… American halacha standards, kashrus, yeshivos, kollelim, educated baalei batim, bais yaakovs, massive communities with full infrastructure…. all of this was only in the lifetime of the gedolei yisroel and it all stopped when they were niftar?
100 years ago, could the current state of affairs have been predicted?
If the OP is a bochur in a yeshiva that davens sefard, then it makes a lot of sense to daven the way the Yeshiva is davening. My rebbe rav belsky almost never davened his actual nusach because Torah Vodaas davens sefard, and he was there his entire life.
Sefard as a whole is the product of an immense labor undertaken by the early chasidishe rebbes, especially the maggid.
AAQ – shma bekolah was said to Avrohom about this particular event. Don’t forget that she was a navi’ah too, and bigger in nevuah than Avrohom at that.
Avrohom isnt a “guy”.
Chazal say ishah keshereh osah ratzon baalah, not the other way around. They also say bina yeserah, that they are better judges lf character for guests, etc, that husbands should take seriously what their wives say and advise.
TS, I was careful in my post to stress that he was not in the top tier of influencers among the already religious. He did a lot for kiruv, that i agree with, but the fact that there is an infrastructure and a thriving community of observant jews is the result of others’ work.
By the time the lubavitcher rebbe became rebbe (nasi? Of who? He’s not my nasi. Some chabad chasidim also didn’t accept him, such as Rav Nesanel Quinn) there already existed numerous important organizations. Agudah, tzeirei, young israel, the OU, Torah umesorah, and many others. When he became rebbe, there already were many yeshivos, chadorim and beis yaakovs. Torah umesorah was already involved in its herculean efforts to establish day schools across the country. Yeshivos included Torah vodaas, chofetz chaim, yeshiva of Brooklyn, chaim berlin, bais hatalmud, Mir, breuers ( i should have mentioned rav yosef breur in my list earlier) yeshiva university and its schools, etz chaim cheder, yeshiva of eastern parkway, yeshivas rabbeinu yaakov yosef (RJJ), the many chasidish/oberlander mosdos of the bluzhever rebbe, the satmar rov, rav yonsan shteif, bobov,, and many others were at near full capacity.
To say that he came to an empty landscape and established lubavitch schools in a place where there were no others is false, and myopic. It’s a part of chabad mythology where the lubavitcher rebbe is the central figure of the Jewish world when he in fact occupied a relatively modest position in its leadership.
Halevi – you’re the first to articulate a defense for some of what we see from chabad, and i appreciate it. I can only be confirmed by emotional tirades so much before it gets boring, so thank you!
I don’t think the two ideas are unequal. If a person lived in an area where there were no computers, learned about them from a tech professional who happened to be travelling by, and wanted to share his newfound knowledge with his brethren, that is not superiority. Imagine if everyone in the town were already using computers, and he found one that he felt was a better model than what everyone else had. He undertook to teach the town how to use the model he believed to be better. But the townspeople weren’t interested, because to them, the new one wasn’t any better than the old one. Still, the townsman had a valid point, but think of an outsider who doesn’t even know what kind og computers the town is using were to come in and try to get everyone to use his type of computer. He’s assuming arrogantly that he alone knows what’s best and that it’s not possible that the town has a system that even is close to being as good as his. If he didn’t feel that way, he wouldn’t travel about from place to place trying to push his computer.
What chabad is doing is not sharing, because the other “towns” already have “computers” which they’ve been successfully using for generations. To try and get people to their ways is assuming that they don’t already have something good enough for them.
Re, moshiach; if someone privately thinks that their rebbe was a candidate for moshiach, that wouldn’t bother me. But they should understand that their rebbe is one among many others. The world doesn’t revolve around them, and in terms of influence among orthodox jews, the lubavitcher rebbe was not in the top 3 of post-war influential figures. Not by a long shot. The effects of rav moshe, rav aharon, the satmar rov, and others were far greater among the already religious.
I think farby is coming beikvei the video from the BT Yeshiva in eretz yisroel which was making fun of people who go off, called “the aveirah song”. I think he also might be thinking about how try as a person might, they’re always a yid and will never really be cut off.
I don’t think it’s in good taste though, ואין רוח חכמים נוחה בה
You would have a hard time finding two yeshivos that are any more different in my opinion. I’m guessing you’ve been to ohr shraga, as both yeshivos go there in the summer. If so, you know which rebbeim to speak to from both places. If I’m off base and you haven’t been there, I’d suggest talking to your own rebbe who knows you and would know which kind of environment you’d do best in. Perhaps there are other options you haven’t considered?
Ujm – when a community is distant from gedolei torah and yeshivos, this will be their unfortunate fate. The same thing happened to the keifeng chinese Jews… I don’t personally see how their claim of being from the 10 shevatim makes sense. Eldad hadani testifies a lot about them and doesn’t mention anything about an Ethiopian community that was one of them.
I’ve met Pakistani people in Brooklyn who’ve told me that they’re from shevet Dan…they have certain minahgim and simanei yisroel, but have no yichus and no ability to verify who they are.
Many goyim in the time of bayis rishon and sheni believed in judaism but fell short of converting; yosifon writes about how a million goyim believe in the mesorah of klal yisroel in his time. Lulai divrei haradvaz i would think that’s what happened here and in Pakistan.
Coffee, mark Levine and other conservatives (who are not as ardently anti LGBT as we are – they don’t believe it to be a capital offense and many are alright with civil unions) are not appreciated by reform and conservative rabbis/congregations at all – they constantly berate conservatives and think that they’re all like alex jones.
Ujm, id love to but it would be a serious chilul Hashem unless i used a ton of yeshivishe shprach…kulei hai ve’ulai.
Do Ethiopians have the “cohen” gene? Also, I don’t like involving genes in yichus discussions…the Ethiopian population has chashashos that made most gedolei yisroel not go with the radvaz’s shitoh in our time, except for rav ovadia yosef. They don’t have a mesorah, they have tremendous errors in their torahs, have no gemara, and many other issues. The chances that an individual Ethiopian is Jewish is about the same as people who claim to be marranos…we do a gerus, and don’t assume that they sre Jewish.
Sanhedrin 100a. רב פפא אמר כגון דאמר הני רבנן
Rashi: כגון דאמר הנהו רבנן. כאדם שאומר אותו ת”ח דלשון בזוי הוא זה שהיה לו לומר רבותינו שבמקום פלוני ל”א כגון דאמר הני רבנן דכשהוא מספר שום דבר מרבנן אומר הני ולשון גנאי הוא הני אבל הנהו רבנן אינו גנא
Yserbius, racism is indeed something i have a lot to say about
Philosopher, they have achdus because all of them hold pretty much the same way about the issues that are most important to them. They all believe in LGBT, but they may differ on say, davening in Hebrew or English. So a conservative can accept a reform davening in Hebrew, but would never accept an orthodox who’s anti LGBT, because achdus only goes so far as the point where you start caring about an issue, then it’s discrimination and excommuniation time!
Farby, why would they be assumed to be the moshiach of their generation if you truly think that all parts of klal yisroel have equal authenticity and are equally beloved by Hashem? Why would Rav Moshe feinstein not be the moshiach of his generation? Or the gerrer rebbe? Or rav betzion abba shaul? You just admitted to a lubavitcher superiority complex.
Shimon, i wasn’t saying i think that – i was saying that the same way one can make a comparison to birds which is unfounded, one can make an equally unfounded comparison the other way to insects. Neither is valid because “mah inyan shmitah etzel har sinai”, as the expression goes – goyim would say you’re comparing apples and oranges.
Also i don’t think zionism is used up. There are many issues that i don’t think are discussed often which I’ve found to be very convincing to people I’ve had discussions with.
Yep, i misread – at least it got me to look up the pasuk
I’d add
the scourge of television/movies
Politics having an influence on one’s hashkofa
What if any non Jewish culture is acceptable
Kiruv
If it’s important to teach children proper English
If yiddish is still importantThis is why i mentioned that if artscroll made a rambam, it would be on par with their shas and mishnayos, etc. Artscroll doesn’t just translate things, they make the material accessible and explain it the way a good mesivta rebbe would. They’ve had unique success in their work.
I never accused chabad of not having ahavah to other jews. They do. They also think that they are superior and thar chasidus, especially chabad chasidus, is the only true Torah path. They refer to things that glorify their movement as a kiddush chabad, and things that make it look bad as a chilul chabad. To them their movement is Judaism, one and the same. No other part of klal yisroel looks at themselves this way.
Like i said, I’m not trying to convince anyone to listen to me – do your own research and look past the “love every Jew (and never marry them if you’re a gazan!) part and look at what they have to say about other groups of jews. Have a discussion with a lubavitcher and see if they don’t try to link wherever you come from to chabad. Read their educational material (not the kiruv stuff). Talk to some lubavitcher bochurim. Puk chazi!
Also, chabad has plenty of answers as to farbys question about what jews did until chasidus. They say that the earlier generations didn’t need it / it wasn’t the time for hisgalus hakabalah. I actually agree with this to an extent, that the rishonim didn’t see kabalah seforim for the most part, but Hashem knows that klal yisroel needed some aspects of kabalah to be accessible for later generations. Where they go off is that they’ll say that the lubavitcher rebbe was greater than the rambam because the former learned kabalah…. it’s disturbing but you’ll definitely hear it.
TS, ask any expatriate or someone like me who has had dealings with their missionaries who they send all over non-chabad communities on yat kislev, Purim, simchas torah and other times. Take a look at their internal educational material. Do your own research and you’ll see that to chabad, you’re not good enough if you’re not at least somewhat involved in chasidus, preferably chabad itself.
Nearest dollar? Sounds like it would be rounded to the nearest 5 cents. Israel did this with agurot; it’s not unheard of.
Also, the satmar rov didn’t refrain from saying over maysohs. His chinuch platform stresses chasidish maysos as bread and butter – they are definitely part of his Torah rubric. That being said, the satmar roc had a sharp point of view about a lot of things; he would say that a gadol batorah can still be naive. He also said that one who believes all maysos is a fool, but one who doesn’t believe in them at all is an apikores.
Re, zera shimshon – they are responding to the wave of interest people have and the many stories that are circulating over yeshuos that have happenee to people who learn the sefer. If it gets people to learn more, what’s the issue? Derashos ho’ran i really don’t understand….but an artscroll-worthy translation, annotated and explained in their standard is a project that would take probably as long as their Shas.
My main consternation was the use of the term “these rabbis” – the gemara says that only a certain type of person uses the phrase “הני רבנן”, and looking up what that title is will be preferable to me saying it outright.
I’m not referring to stories passed through the grapevine; I’m referring to claims made directly by tzadikim themselves. There’s a huge difference.
I’m also looking at the core and what bodes for the future if one focuses on the superficial; the state “saved” us mainly from itself, having effectively closed off the sefardi lands and ignited the hatred of the Arabs. At its core it undermines all that we hold dear in its incessant, nauseating chilul Hashem every single second of every day that it proclaims that there is no Torah by klal yisroel cv”s. Chabad at its core is a personality cult which harbors avodah zara, whatever good is being done cannot erase that. It’s not a fine point of theology, it’s the very essence of Torah that is at stake.
In a very limited situation, where a man’s mother asks him to bring her food, and his wife asks for his help….yesh ladun. It might be expected that nowadays parents are mochel on their kovod and that the mother would probably be happier if the son acts like a good husband.
Ujm, i think what yehudis might mean is that when there are sholom bayis issues, no rov would tell the woman to pipe down, look at her husband as a king, and move on. I hope you’d agree to that. Being a king doesn’t mean that a woman bows and is completely mevatel herself. Also, a woman’s mitzvah of kibuv av veaim isn’t nullified, it’s just that her duties to her husband come first – “reshus acherim alehah”. But as much as a rov will tell a woman that her responsibility to her husband comes first, he will also tell a man to prioritize his wife over his other family members.
Yehudis, ishah keshereh osah ratzon baalah is definitely taught to kallos in the yeshiva and chadidish world, as it should be. What’s also taught is self respect and having zero tolerance for verbal, emotional, or physical abuse. The ideal dynamic is not oppressive at all.
The attitude of looking at a husband as a king is a two way street; he is to look at her as a queen, duly consider her counsel, and honor her more than himself, amid the myriad other responsibilities a “kingly” husband has to his wife. A king is not a dictator; he is a king because he is accepted as such and his authority is the result of deserving it. If he acts like an idiot, he can’t expect his wife to have much respect for him. Rabbonim advise men to earn their wives’ respect by not getting angry, learning in the house, being careful about minyan, and many other things. They don’t tell the husband “yeah, your wife is breaking halacha…she should jump in a lake”.
Breslov has some things that appear “strange” to an outsider. Lelov used to give their rebbe an aliyah after he was niftar. Those don’t disqualify someone from being part of klal yisroel. The above issues do.
Comparisons between neo-chabad and Christianity are not merely a debating tactic, they are apparent, real and require us to evaluate how we view their positions of prominence in kashrus, giur, gitten, and tons more
AAQ. – marbin sholom means that they’re “motzi” the world tue shiur of how much fighting there’s supposed to be through their milchamta Shel Torah
Metzudls Dovid teitches it umitzur….divash asbieka. From a rock, honey i shall satisfy you. He says it’s a moshol for how much bounty there will be even in dry areas.
None of my opposition to chabad is affected by the kiruv or other “beautiful” things common in the chabad community. That is an emotional tactic to deflect criticism by saying – “how can you say a word against chabad, when we do so much good?” Shabsai tzvi initiated a massive BT movement as well…it really doesn’t matter if there’s bonafide avodah zara in the midst.
I was using the lubavitcher rebbe’s shift on an important issue – zionism – as an example of how he changed the mesorah, while claiming to be a direct chain from the besht, compared with the satmar rov who did no such thing.
Syag, honestly my nose has been stuffed up for weeks
Halevi, when i say “bothered by” I’m using the yeshivishe expression. As in, “what’s bothering rashi?”. Meaning i thought i understood what prompted you to say whar you said. After your clarification i think i get what you were saying earlier.
Re, iyov – Iyov was a tzadik who we learn lessons from, not to mean that we follow all of his hava aminas. The fact that he may have been unsure or originally mistaken regarding a certain idea can be explained by the fact that he wasn’t even Jewish according to many shitos. The seforim say that yaakov avinu had “hava aminas” as well regarding hashgocha as being strictly from the top down, until he saw the malachim “olim veyordim bo”, olim first from this eorld, that our actions impact the celestial realms. That maskana is what we go by.
I think every generation of teachers says that they have the most disrespectful generation ever… And they’re all right! It just keeps getting worse and worse. My students say and do things that the worst of my classmates never would have dreamt of
Also, the satmar rov followed a long shalsheles of rebbes without breaking off from their mesorah one iota…the lubavitcher rebbe changed things like shifting from ardent anti zionism to non-zionism. You will see an occasional zionist chabadsker as well, nostly those who are unfamiliar with the writings of the rashab on the matter – they may as well have been written by the satmar rov or the mukatcher rov.
The satmar rov’s statement about the derech of the besh”t being lost nowadays isn’t so hard to understand. In context, the chofetz chaim said thet the hisnagdus of the Gaon would only apply in his time to chabad and breslov. The rest of the chadidish world adopted a post-kotzk, down to earth approach which emphasized the themes of the talmidei habesh”t without a kabalah centered approach for the hamon am. What the satmar rov is saying is that kotzk, hungarian rebbes, beis Chernobyl, and others are not practicing the original mahalach of the besh”t, and i think that’s pretty universally accepted. He’s adding that those who claim to be a total shalsheles, that the besh”t’s original mahalach is still the way we should “fir zich” nowadays, are mistaken and do not understand the chadidus that they so fervently study. I’m not sure if the statement was meant to be against chabad… it’s entirely possible, as chabad is basically the only group left who emphasizes the study of chasidus as “maskilim” and not “ovdim” to use chabad lingo. They call the last half of the tanya the “poilisher prakim” for a reason.
Ober chochom – i had no issue with the part about his presence being here in either the statement of moshe Kotlarsky nor the story of the rebbetzin – the same could he said of regular relatives or tzadikim. My issue is that he said that the rebbe should “grant our requests”. It is not implying, it is saying outright, that the rebbe answers prayers and requests and that one should pray to him, as he apparently does. He is known on record as an “anti”, but atzmus ideology isn’t dependent on messianism directly.
Re, the rebbetzin – she was asking the rebbe; not Hashem, to save her. That’s against the rambams ikkarim that we only pray to Hashem. And lest one say that she was davening bzchus the rebbe…she didn’t say “Hashem please save me in the zchus of my hiskashrus to the rebbe”, or even “rebbe please daven for me to Hashem to save me”, but rather she asked the lubavitcher rebbe directly to save her. Moshe Kotlarsky asked the rebbe to grant the shluchim’s requests. That’s the issue at hand, i apologize if i wasn’t clear about it earlier.
Jude, the apter rov was among the greatest rebbehs – your comment is not respectful. If you’re not into chasidish stories and torah, then don’t participate in discussions pertaining to it