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Always_Ask_Questions,
“Rav suggested not to refuse at all, but “give a dollar”. Then, I realized why he is always getting money out of the same drawer to give – this is where he had single dollars.”
I think this is an excellent practice.
Artscroll is crisp, clear, and easy to follow, and the siddurs are well made with strong paper and a binding that can take years of use yet allows you to lay the siddur open flat on a table and keep your page. I davened from the Yitzchak Yair until several years ago when I switched to…
Siddur Tefillas Shai. It matches Artscroll’s crisp clearness, and uses a beautiful, unassuming font that’s my favorite I’ve seen. Unlike my argument here, I have completely come around to having vehi noam tucked right into the weekday maariv before aleinu. The binding is strong, but unfortunately it doesn’t lay flat so well, so I lose my page when gathering the tzitzis for Shema. Also, only the tiny 5″ size is seemingly still in print. I managed to get a larger version a year ago, and hopefully over time it will start to lie flat on the table or shtender. This is my favorite siddur at the moment. Other than not lying flat, my only quibble is that some of the text is very small, which is difficult to read in poor lighting.
Aliyos Eliyahu – I grab this siddur in shul when I don’t have my own on hand. It has large, readable text, and stretches letters rather than spacing to achieve column uniformity, similar to a sefer Torah, which is a fun touch. It uses a different, neat looking font for pesukim, which clearly identifies them. It also lies perfectly flat on the table or shtender. It follows the nusach of the Gra, so there are some differences from how I daven nusach Ashkenaz.
Tefillas Kol Peh – I have a pocket sized version. It has an old fashioned feel to it which is nice, and I like the font, though sometimes words run together with no spacing. Rightwriter mentioned how the font size changes from paragraph to paragraph, and this feature is really nice in some places such as enlarging the 4th brachos in each of the Shabbos tefillos, but on the downside there are a lot of important tefillos that get squeezed in with tiny, hard to read font sizes, even paragraphs of krias Shema. Also, while I understand space saving, I personally don’t like when mincha and maariv are squished together with the ashrei of mincha spread out over like 10 pages with 2 lines on each page, with maariv underneath. Others may prefer this.
For someone new to davening, I would recommend Artscroll’s “Kol Yaakov” English/Hebrew siddur. It’s a lot of page turning, but it includes a bunch of helpful instructions (where/how to bow, when to say amein or not, etc.) and it marks out the points in each paragraph where the shaliach tzibbur usually picks up. It also marks where the shva na’s are (so do the Yitzchak Yair, Tefillas Shai, and Aliyos Eliyahu).
Always_Ask_Questions,
“I encountered one at a simcha, where there was a specific request to only have vaccinated people (due to a medical condition of the baalas simcha, that many might not have known about) – that, at the time, meant no children. Hundreds of people followed the request, while generally not adhering to any precautions, including ambushing the lady who was trying to avoid that. Then, I see a family with a kid.”
The baalas simcha was in more danger from the hundreds of vaccinated people milling about than the lone kid at the buffet. And honestly I find it hard to believe that you were in attendance at an event with hundreds of people prior to October 2021, when such gatherings were strongly discouraged. Maybe you should’ve stayed home and watched via Zoom.
Always_Ask_Questions,
“I think mandates is a manufactured political topic.”
Incorrect. Mandates are a real life policy implemented by those who have more power on those who have less, and I am asking what your opinion of it is. Sure, politics may be the motivating factor behind the mandates, but it doesn’t make them any less real. You carry yourself as an expert on every single topic under the sun on the CR, with an opinion on each one of them. Why does this question make you wriggle?
“It is an unfortunate side-effect of democracy that politicians are using every issue to their advantage.”
So what do you propose in its stead?
“USA lost 2x more people comparing with similar developed countries, mostly due to slow government and inability of the society to focus on what is important.”
Slow government response I’ll agree with, but not your criticism of “society”. That’s an opinion promulgated primarily on the left, who have tried to blame the citizenry for this virus at every turn. The demographic and societal makeup of the United States is quite different from the European countries you use as a comparison. A few examples: the U.S. has large Hispanic and African American populations, and the risk of hospitalization and death in those communities are roughly twice that of the white, non-Hispanic populations. Access to quality healthcare varies significantly in the U.S. depending on where you live and how much money you have. So perhaps more time should be spent addressing these structural inequalities than screaming at Jews or DeSantis.
Participant,
“I achieve the same thing with about a twelfth of those words.”
Do you yell, “AIYEEEEE!!” and then shoot staples at them?
Always_Ask_Questions,
“I don’t have an opinion on mandates. I am blessed not to be a congressman, a policeman, or a school principal, so I don’t have to make decisions on that.”
Balderdash. You’ve expressed opinions about almost every single topic here on the CR, including many topics that don’t pertain directly to you (e.g., full time learners in kollel). Why the sudden reticence with respect to mandates?
“Enforcing rules is a very delicate area and there are a lot of gemoras discussing whether society will accept, whether people will be confused or negligent as a result.”
Sounds very relevant.
Always_Ask_Questions,
“If you are forced to be in a place with strangers, maybe think about them as family, and count time you are talking with them as [chessed] ( and talk accordingly)”
I agree with you to a point. Greeting people is a mitzva and I think a few minutes at the start of a work day or during breaks exchanging pleasantries with those around you is reasonable, expected by normal managers, and is good for productivity. I think Participant is dealing with frequent interruptions while he is deep in the flow of his work (e.g., when I’m working I call it a coding trance or the coding zone), which not only wastes time during the interaction itself, but also the recovery time afterwards where he has to pick up where he left off. This can be very challenging. I like your idea about putting on headphones, but it seems that Participant’s co-occupants aren’t getting that hint. In that case, I’d add a humorous sign to the back of the chair letting people know you’re busy and would prefer not to be interrupted. One of my favorites I use when working from home came from a cartoon I like: “Hush, I’m coding. You ate yesterday.”
“One of the baalei musar was overheard asking a farmer about his chicken and at the same time murmuring gemora to himself”
Here’s the problem: the vast and overwhelming majority of us do not have the brain power of a gadol, and we cannot effectively do multiple things at once. If I’m thinking about learning or work while trying to talk to someone, either the thoughts or the words coming out of my mouth will end up nonsensical.
Also, I can’t resist asking a question about your consistency in halachic application. I’m wondering why you seem so makpid about the time and resources a learner spends when he is supported, to the point that someone supported in kollel should ask permission to get gas, etc., yet here by an employee who is on the clock, you seem unconcerned about geneiva, even when the OP states that the interruptions are reaching the level of harming his expected productivity.
Always_Ask_Questions,
“I am glad you are getting on board!”
So I take it from this response that you are a supporter of draconian mandates imposed with little to no information on their effectiveness, citizens informing on each other to the authorities to uphold the mandates, groupthink, crushing dissent, and the veneration of a single issue at the expense of all others?
Always_Ask_Questions,
Oooh, clumsy analogies, what fun! I can do it too!
Vehicular accidents kill people. We are implementing a Zero Vehicular Accident policy. Effective immediately and for an indeterminate length of time, a walking-only mandate is in effect. Nobody is allowed to use a vehicle. Citizens are encouraged to call the cops on anybody they see and think may be violating this new mandate, because a nation of informants is a happy nation! See that group of people over there who disagree with this mandate and want to find different solutions to reduce accidents? EVERYTHING THAT IS WRONG IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE IS THEIR FAULT! BE ANGRY WITH THEM! HATE THEM! BAN THEM FROM SOCIETY! Nobody would die ever if they didn’t exist. Because the Holy Venerated Experts Say that if nobody drove vehicles, nobody would die in vehicular accidents, and the most important thing in the entire universe is to make sure there are no vehicular accidents. Nothing else matters, because we are talking about LIVES HERE! LIFE AND DEATH! And if you disagree, you are pro-death and must love accidents.
Well I hope it comes back up soon…
ujm,
“Wearing a Talis 7 days a week, 354 days a (Jewish) year, you’d surely notice it on yourself”
Try wearing a real tallis instead of the little Reform scarf thingy, and you’ll see it does slip off the shoulders a lot.
😈
Stop trying to sow discord here.
AviraDeArah,
“i didn’t mean blood and guts stam azoi, i meant they can talk about sugyos like zerikah, shechita, simanim, and tons more”
Understood, sorry for misunderstanding before.
ujm,
“A small minority of them. Additionally, I’ve started very many more threads on Zionism (among many more topics) than this; should I supply that number as well?”
Nah, whatever. OPs aren’t very representative of participation in any given topic, my comment was in jest, and if you’ve got time to compile random CR posting statistics, I do not.
“Why is it that this particular topic makes people nervous?”
I’m not nervous about the topic at all. There are appropriate times and ways to discuss certain things, and there are inappropriate times and ways to discuss certain things. This thread falls into the latter category. If you bring your tefillin into the bathroom, I will object to you having your tefillin in there, and it isn’t because I don’t think tefillin are an important mitzvah and that you should have tefillin.
“I submit that this is directly because the difficulty many have (both female and well as male head of households who carry the sacred obligation of enforcing them) in complying with the laws on the issue of tznius. And that’s all the more reason to discuss it.”
And I submit that the manner in which you bring up this topic is itself a breach of tznius. When I see rabbonim talk about tznius, it is to men or women separately, and there’s no exhaustive review of all the problematic garments. When I see flyers or signs, the positive (dress this way) is emphasized, not the negative (don’t wear this or that). To do otherwise lacks eidelkeit.
” “In my experience, men in the real world do not sit and schmooze together about this.”
I can’t speak about your experience, but in the densely populated centers of Judaism, such as in Eretz Yisroel, New York and elsewhere, this topic is very much and often raised by Rabbonim in droshos to both men and women, as well as reminders placed on posted notices in the communities”
Drashos and signs are not sitting and schmoozing. Those are appropriate venues. And I bet the signs describe the appropriate way of dressing, not the inappropriate, which you have done. There is a world of difference.
“and is certainly often discussed among the Klal and Yeshivaleit as a topic of Halacha and Limud Torah.”
If you think this thread is an example of a halachic discussion or proper limud Torah, then I don’t know what to tell you.
“I don’t recall you objecting to discussions here of other halachic topics.”
I’ll let you do the research on that for me.
AviraDeArah,
“Bored; men talk about blood and guts while eating supper in yeshivos, and plenty of other stuff that would shock you”
We’re not talking about teenagers here. And if my sons were to start talking about gross or inappropriate things at the table I would correct them. And Yeshiva boys speaking inappropriately at the table or in the beis medrash or at any other time should also be corrected by their rebbes/menahels.
“gemara snd halacha discussions don’t phase people who are learning. I understand that it’s something that can make you feel uncomfortable, but in the context of everything else lomdei torah talk about”
We are not learning maseches Brachos on this thread. This is not a beis medrash, and this is not talking in learning. We are on a public internet forum with a mixed audience of various ages and backgrounds. And the idea that lomdei Torah would speak in a way that makes others uncomfortable is motzi shem ra.
“it isn’t necessarily creepy. “
Creepy to the max.
bored_teen,
“I barely read ant of this but I’m totally creeped out that this is a topic that men sit and schmooze about.”
In my experience, men in the real world do not sit and schmooze together about this. There are a select few male posters on the CR who really like to bring these topics up.
n0mesorah,
“When I cross the street, I attempt to keep my mind on crossing the street”
“Driving on rural roads, NYPD horse patrols are far from my mind.”
“Definitely possible. Father and brother too. What they would be doing out here, is anybody’s guess”
These are some good examples of anecdotal argumentative fallacies. Not everyone requires all of their brain power to cross a street. Not everyone lives in a rural area. And you should probably be paying more attention to what’s around you while behind the wheel or you may blow past a flagger at a construction site and CV”S kill a construction worker, or be one one of those drivers who doesn’t help someone who’s in distress.
Also, passing someone on the street is only one example of everyday human interaction, so it’s interesting to me how that becomes the de facto tznius paradigm on the CR.
ujm,
“I just counted the tznius threads in the coffee room. In the over 13 years the coffee room has existed, there is less than one thread per year, on average. “
What percentage of those tznius threads did you start, not necessarily as ujm?
Always_Ask_Questions,
“Logically speaking, yes. First time this would be a shogeg, but if I continue, it would be mazid.”
What aveira would it be that was committed, and how can a Jew who is a baal hanefesh function in the world at all when the random reactions of strangers cannot be predicted and can cause him to become a shogeig?
Always_Ask_Questions,
“I am not “against the Jews”, I am simply trying to extract a lesson for us from this to grow”
And I am simply trying to extract a lesson about dan l’kaf zechus and regarding your fellow Jews with basic respect. How can you declaim any of the lessons you think the Jewish people need to learn from you when you can’t even get the facts of the case straight?
“rather than getting warm satisfaction from how good we all are against a hostile world”
I haven’t written or read anything self-congratulatory in this thread. The discussion is what constitutes a kiddush Hashem, specifically whether the simple public performance of a mitzvah is a kiddush Hashem even if bystanders are bothered by it. Some posters are insistent on finding faults surrounding the mitzvah observance to show it is really a chillul Hashem and the basic question went unanswered, so I tried to clarify the question by presenting a case where those faults were absent. Like an undergrad physics student working Newton’s Laws on a uniform frictionless plane. This seemingly blew such a fuse in your mind that it took several posts to get you to stop inserting imaginary faults onto the Jew in the example, and even then you couldn’t accept the example as stated and give a straight answer to the question I asked. Well, I guess you begrudgingly did in the end after declaring that the flight attendant must be evil or deranged and that the example was not plausible anyway.
“And again, taking your description at face value, I am not even sure why he is being arrested – he is not doing anything, he is simply not replying. I don’t think this is illegal.”
Fine, say rather he was removed from the flight, questioned, and then released without charges. That better matches the real-world case I based my example on.
“As to people reacting to tefilin, whenever I had to daven shaharis before an early flight, I either did it in the car at the airport or spent several minutes looking for an empty corner, so never encountered strong reaction.”
And if someone saw you “acting suspiciously” in the parking garage or a quiet corner of the terminal, reported it, and a security brouhaha ensued, would you declare that being secretive about praying was an aveira and you should’ve done it more publicly so as to not look suspicious?
commonsaychel,
“none of those are trying to compete with old st nick, I started this tread because I find those actions cringworthy, I dont care if it was Satmar, Brisk or Breslov its way too in you face.”
All of those examples are very “in your face”, but you only have a problem by Chanukah. The local Chabad here even did a loud music drive by through the neighborhood last year on Lag Baomer, so the motorcades aren’t an imitation of some sort of Xmas ritual. Xians don’t even do motorcades to celebrate Xmas. They frustrate themselves untangling strings of lights, slip on ladders, and then go fight in the malls. It’s too bad that Chanukah falls in close proximity to a major non-Jewish holiday, but is that Chabad’s fault?
“I find those beyond repulsive but this is a natural next step in the progression downward, so thank you minivans.”
Natural next step? Seems incongruous to me.
“I still cant understand the purpose of the motorcade driving in Manhattan, was it to be in your face? I am serious I am trying to understand the thought process.”
No dice. By the political minivan motorcade you simply asked for the purpose and thought process. By the Chanukah minivan motorcades you called it “idioticy” (sic) and presumed the purpose (who are we competing with?). My question to you still stands. Maybe you cringed a little by the Trump motorcades, but Chabad’s Chanukah shtick really gets your blood boiling. Why?
From the back and forth it seems that a likely reason is you perceive it as an imitation of Xmas. So why not make that the focus of the conversation if that’s the biggest deal? I personally fail to see it as imitation. Those who “motorcade” for Chanukah (*cough Chabad *cough) “motorcade” for every Jewish holiday. And those frum Jews who do not go all in-your-face for Jewish holidays don’t for Chanukah either. If you were to ask me, it’s the involvement of politicians in the Chanukah “motorcades” that makes me cringe.
Always_Ask_Questions,
“I am saying that if there is a trace of inappropriate behavior in the man, that he is doing some aveira, however slight. Even if he is in a window seat.
If you are suggesting a Zeresh character … “
You condemn the Jew and absolve the Gentile to the point where it must be the Jew’s fault unless the Gentile in the example is literally akin to one of the most evil people in history or deranged. This is Olympic level contortion. We are commanded to dan Jews lkaf zechus.
“Look up my posts above and review references therein of multiple gedolim pointing various nekudos what can be inappropriate”
Yeah, and my example preemptively fulfilled all of them yet you still cannot bring yourself to side with the Jew.
“but you seem to be more interested in a hypothetical crazt flight attendant rather than in typical cases.”
The case I described is fairly similar to an actual incident that happened a number of years ago involving a frum teenager. I have also personally encountered strong reactions to my tefillin from non-Jews when I’ve donned them outside of shul or home.
“Again, this presumes I understood the halakha properly that it is ok/desirable to sit down.”
Again, the man in my example was davening in his seat, which presumes sitting. How can you judge correctly if you cannot even ingest the basic facts of the case? Your prejudice against Jews is astonishing given that you seem to be Jewish and know a lot about Judaism.
“That is why I brought those quotes.”
They were irrelevant.
“Also, everyone, his name is Avram.”
😎
commonsaychel,
“I hope this thead does not morph into a anti Chabad forum”
Yet you started a thread attacking what they almost exclusively do. Troll meet thyself.
“my issue is with people competing with santa and xmas tree lighting that was never done since we established chanuka, not Chabad per se.”
So go after the people who put those giant blow-up bears with kippas and dreydels in their front yards, or those who do the laser light magen davids dancing on their houses under twinkly snowflake decorations next door to the houses with Xmas lights. I’ve never had the sense that the Chabad menoras on minivans shtick is competition with Xmas. They do sukkos on pickup trucks, lag baomer barbecues with bounce houses and loud music, and they stand outside sports stadiums with tefillin. They make a pretty big spectacle about everything.
“FYI I wrote quite a number of post negitive of the need to have frum people make a motorcade for trump and frankly that is a few people gping overboard in voicing an opinon for a political candidate.”
Can you show me links to these posts? Must’ve been somewhere other than the thread you started to specifically talk about the level of support for Trump.
commonsaychel,
“@avrahm in md, I was puzzzled by the level of support and I said so in the post, I also wrote in a other post I found the frum trump motorcades cringe worthy.”
No dice. You didn’t speak out against the “motorcades” once in that thread, and even downplayed them as “beeping minivans”. Nowhere in that thread do I see any criticism of the motorcades from you. Yet here you utilize strong language: absurd, dorf, guise, ragtag, hollering, and then finally you get to the minivans. Even if somewhere else you called the political motorcades cringeworthy, that is paltry compared to the rhetorical condemnations you brought here against Chanukah motorcades. My question to you stands.
Always_Ask_Questions,
“ou should not eat and talk at the same time”
Good catch – I did not write that one clearly. Part of the subconscious reasons for eating quickly is a combination of social fear of being engaged in conversation while you have food in your mouth and a fear of the food being taken away or the meal ending before you have a chance to eat. So you warf it down. What I was trying to suggest was eating a little from the plate, pausing the eating to talk or sing, then resume eating. No need to have an empty plate before conversation, which then leads to mindlessly refilling the plate when the conversation lags and others resume eating.
I tried to head off the kvetching, but it happened anyway. Note in my example I said the man was davka davening in his seat. I even made it a window seat to ensure nobody was being blocked from going to the washroom, etc.
charliehall,
“That is almost essential if you want to have a successful academic career. Whatever name you publish under first, you need to keep it for the rest of your life … she has been married to a man with a different surname now for 40 years. But she still uses her ex-husband’s surname.”
Do you think there should be a push to change this sexist rigidity in the academic world, given that even a highly successful woman can feel compelled to remain chained to her ex-husband’s name for the entirety of her professional life?
commonsaychel,
“Eidelkiet is the hallmark of the Jewish nations”
Why didn’t you make this same point when referencing the flag waving motorcades here: https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/affinity-for-donald-trump
Are loud motorcades ok for a goyish politician, but not for Chanukah?
Always_Ask_Questions,
“Seriously, we discussed already how these chabadnikim are almost the only ones doing something for the millions of disappearing Jews, so let’s discuss whether they are has vesholom doing too much.”
AviraDeArah,
“Being concerned more with making a” kidush chabad” than actually helping others is something that needs to be rooted out and acknowledged as a chisaron that’s being avoided.”
Both of these statements are highly unfair. Chabad certainly is not the only group doing kiruv, and while reasonable discussion here on the CR is frequently lacking, there are real questions that do merit thoughtful discussion. For example, safety of highly public displays when Chabad menoras are being R”L trashed by antisemites, challenges of raising frum children outside of religious communities and surrounded by non-frum college students, etc.
And chesed is a primary motivator in Chabad’s mission. I have personally benefited from the chesed of chabad shluchim and have great hakaras hatov. The goal was helping with mitzvah observance on a practical level, not promoting Chabad ideology.
Participant,
“It’s all because I eat too fast.
But I have zero motivation to slow down.”I also have an inclination to eat too fast and too much, probably due to childhood experiences. It’s a surprisingly tough habit to break. Some things that I try:
1. Have kavanah when making the bracha rishona that you are eating to serve the Borei Olam and that the food is a special gift from Him just for you. Say the bracha slowly and out loud. A rushed, furtive bracha leads to rushed, furtive eating. For motivation, think of how you’re turning the meal or snack into a great avodah.
2. Be mindful when chewing food. I’ve heard some say to chew 30 times before swallowing. This may be helpful with GERD and indigestion issues as well.
3. Scan the table and make a mental decision of what and how much you plan to eat, or make up a plate of your food beforehand. Stick to that plan or plate and take nothing else.
4. Compliment your wife or hosts for the food after a bite or two. Try to notice details. If you cooked the food yourself, try to detect the taste of the individual ingredients.
5. Don’t try to finish all your food before divrei Torah, zemiros, conversation, etc. Mix them into the eating.
6. Try to time your eating with someone who eats more slowly.Edited
Scenario: A man is davening shacharis on a plane. To avoid kvetching let’s say he’s davening unobtrusively in a window seat. A flight attendant comes by with the drink cart and asks what he is doing and what those things he’s wearing are. His wife in the aisle seat explains that he is praying and since he is speaking with G-d he cannot interrupt the prayers to answer. The flight attendant refuses to listen to her and demands again that he answer. He is in the middle of shemoneh esrei and does not. The flight arrives at its destination and is met with police, who escort the shocked frum family off the plane in front of everyone. Kiddush Hashem or chillul Hashem?
Yserbius123,
“we had better daven for an extremely socialist government to support all those thousands of new babies so that they don’t get killed by their mothers, nor grow up to be violent criminals.”
Thanks for the masterclass on casual racism. I guess this means your support for abortion goes beyond ubiquitin’s desire to protect cases that are halachically sanctioned, and into the realm of which humans deserve to exist on this planet and which don’t?
charliehall,
“Fetuses are not bables”
You must have a problem with every pregnancy book ever published. Pregnant women have babies in their wombs, and if that makes you squeamish then no matter your position you are addressing abortion with intellectual dishonesty. It’s telling how a fetus is denied the status of “baby” only when he or she is not wanted. Classic dehumanization.
ujm,
“It doesn’t pas to have a goyishe hand-food like pizza for a heilige melave malka.”
1. Pizza is a Jewish food. The Italians yielded it and swaths of Brooklyn to us as part of the Armistice of Mulberry and Grand Streets almost 70 years ago. That’s why Italians snootily say there wasn’t pizza in Italy.
2. When you are 40 we can teach you the secrets of why heilige Yidden eat pizza together with french fries amidst the deafening screeches of children on motzei Shabbos, though it may be too weighty for this forum.Yabia Omer and Gadolhadorah,
I think you both are taking this thread way too seriously, and I bet you’re both well aware of that. Just in case not, a reminder that this is the CR, and DY’s thread is just some motzei Shabbos humor to go with the pizza. If you think poverty or some other weighty issue needs more discussion here, donate one of your Ashkenazim are awful or Trumpkopf is awful posts to the cause.
Always_Ask_Questions,
“FWIW, I started avoiding crowded places and hugs last Purim”
Why on earth did you only start doing this last Purim, more than a year into the pandemic response?
“and a number of choshuve people tried to make a light joke of it or tried to kiss me in an embrace.”
You must to to a shul with some strange folks. I’ve never had someone try to kiss me in shul, nor have I seen anyone kiss anyone else. Pandemic or no pandemic. And strangely enough, in my shul people tend to be respectful of others’ comfort levels.
“I think we just deep down do not respect that Hashem continuously runs the world and we need to listen to his messages.”
It seems that you are the only person in the world who truly respects Hashem and understands His messages. Very lucky.
Duvidf,
“In New Zealand people wear masks and keep social distancing when necessary and they have 40 dead to date.”
New Zealand is doing a whole lot more than masks and social distancing.
farbycoffee,
“we do tend to know about our personal Rebbes because they are our rebbes.”
That is fine, and given my family’s background and location, my children do/will tend to know more about our personal poskim, and gedolim such as Rav Moshe Feinstein and the Chofetz Chaim, than say the dayan in Kalamazoo, the Baba Sali or the Skulener Rebbe. But relative familiarity is not what I’m talking about. From my perspective, it seems that many in Chabad give little to no acknowledgement of any contemporaneous Yiddishkeit or Torah outside of Chabad at all, almost as if they are sundered from the rest of the Jewish world and we’re actually two separate religious groups. I think that situation is accentuated in Syag’s community, and more muted in mine. And I know that many in Chabad will say that is because of misnagdus, and many outside of Chabad will say that is because Chabad believes non-Chabad Torah is inferior and unworthy of attention. But this communal situation is why I think simply saying the mishichists are nuts is not ending the debate.
Always_Ask_Questions,
“We need a list. It is important to know who is and is not a real gadol”
I suspect that unfortunately most who bring up specific names here do so knowing there’s controversy.
So my community seems to be on the other end of the spectrum from Syag’s. The Chabad shuls are well integrated with the rest of the frum community, the rabbonim generally work together on major communal issues, and I have never seen a yellow flag or heard “Yechi” around here.
One question I have about Chabad culture and achdus in general – it seems from my perspective that Chabad gives very little weight to gedolim and Jews outside of Chabad in chinuch. I’ve heard drashos in my shul that bring stories of Lubavitch rebbes, and one of my young children’s favorite gedolim stories is R’ Schneur Zalman of Liadi and the miser who would only offer an old green copper coin. But even in the well integrated Chabad community here, in drashos, stories, and publications, I really only see Chabad rebbes or Jews mentioned (and gedolim who pre-date Chabad). Why is there no mention of non-Chabad gedolim and Jews?