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Dear Yankel,
“The attitude of habad hasidim toward their rebbe exceeds by far , the attitude of other talmidim towards their rebbe , and even the attitude of other hasidim towards their rebbe.”
Completely untrue. Maybe you were born yesterday. Maybe you will be born again tomorrow.
That is the proper attitude of a talmid for a rebbe. Everything the rebbe says is unequivocally the Word of the Torah. (A wise student knows not to retain everything as is.) And it is only half of what was Reb Boruch Ber to Reb Chaim. The difference with Chabad is this. You can be in almost any yeshiva or chassidus and not be a talmid of the rebbe. In most places the people in the group that actually follow the leader are a minority. IN Chabad, you have to follow the rebbe. There is no being Chabad, without being a follower of the rebbe.
Dear Qwerty,
That is more like it. But the honest hardcore truth is that you will find Yidden in every group that belittle great gedolim all the time. Chabad just doesn’t realize that it isn’t smart optics. They don’t care about how it looks to others. They are the same in public and in private. Actually, they are better behaved in private. That beats other groups that will talk about how great everyone else is, and then stab them in the back at the first politically opportunity. The Rebbe did not belittle his contemporaries.
Dear Arso,
“Just look at all the anti chareidi movements that they gave birth to.”
“Would you mind explaining that because I have no idea what you’re talking about?”
It is a huge can of worms. The antiorthodox used former Lubavitchers as a cover to avoid conflict with the actual Chassidic groups that birthed them.
Dear Arso,
Satmar was a low key devout group that focused on positive exposure to wayward yidden. You can still detect this trait in their drashos. But it is laughable to even think about Satmar today as driven to be low key.
Gur in Europe was all in on Chassidus. Seclusion, intense Torah and Tefillah. Then tit was dropped for community building. Then it was dropped for kedushah. Then they remade their yeshivos. And now they are at it again. I’m waiting to see what is next.
Sanz is not from the Baal Shem. It is not even two hundred years old. Yet The Divrei Chaim’s many descendants may make up half of all the Rebbes in the world. Kein Yirbu. I don’t know what it is about their style, but the sons seem to move along with the conditions around them. Groups that were designed to be held together, soon split. Groups that were designed to rely on their own, soon integrate. I think this is good for the larger Jewish Community. But it obscures the leadership and vision of the original scion.
IN Lubavitch The Baal Hatanya and all the Rebbes’ voices still ring. Much like previous Rosh Yeshivos in Mir or Ponvezh. Or the GR”A and his Talmidim.
Dear Arso,
“I’m specifically talking about – and I’ve said this now a number of times – the Lubavich claim that when other non-Lubavich chassidim say the words “the rebbe” they are openly referring only to the Lubavicher rebbe, not to their own rebbe.”
And I knew that. But they think it in a cosmological sense. As opposed to your standard Lakewooder who always thinks of the R”Y ZT”L as Rav Aharon in a literal sense.
Dear Always and Dear Avram,
“We have found ways to deal with these issues already. ”
“I wish it were so.”
I couldn’t decipher which issues are still prevalent. Is this a specific reference that I am missing? It seems like a vague problem to me………
Dear Mods,
Some of what I posted didn’t go through. [Also, two threads disappeared.] Including a post to you about moderation.
What happened?
1) Never received.
2) Went to spam.
3) Moderated.Dear Avira,
Mendelssohn rejecting the Chukim? He explicitly writes that he would reject reason first. But he doesn’t have to as he explains at lentgh.
You know nothing about The Moreh Nevuchim and why it was written.
Dear Ujm,
Haskallah thrived in the frum world until we got too fat from luxuries. It still exists in Eretz Yisrael.
For the record Mendelssohn had six adult children. Two remained extremely devout. Two converted to Christianity. And two assimilated with Protestants.
Dear Avira,
The Chassam Sofer was against Mendelssohn. But he was not outspoken about it. It wouldn’t have been tolerated. Mendelssohn was still a shining paragon for yidden throughout Europe.
Dear Ujm,
Mendelssohn was not the father of the haskallah movement anymore than The Maharal or The Eybschitzer. Many known Maskilim were contemporaries or even older than Mendelssohn.
Dear Choosid,
I only know of the AI ban in two communities. And even there, it is not across the board.
And, Chatbot’s seem to terrible jobs. Besides for art, they seem to have little value and even less of a future.
This thread is evidence that older eligible men are invisible and do not count as a statistic toward potential shidduchim.
Dear Yankel,
The first step of a Navi is that he comes with the Dvar Hashem and says you should do such or not do such and so on. (According to one poster he has to use the words ‘Ko Amar Hashem’.) It is of no consequence to anybody who the navi did not speak to if he is a prophet or not. So even if The Rebbe predicted the Gulf War with prophetic accuracy, he wouldn’t be a prophet since he did not convey Dvar Hashem.
Dear Always,
“This sounds too easy.”
You really get me frustrated. This question and it’s answer is exactly where we expect to be in the Rambam. You can easily learn it instead of making it up. Is that because it is too easy for you?
Dear Qwerty,
In case you misunderstood. This talmid chochom would get the feeling the he was superior to Reb Dovid and he hated himself for feeling that way. When this talmid chochom speaks with any gadol it is with complete self nullification. He couldn’t do it with Reb Dovid.
Dear Qwerty,
I hear you about militant Chabad. But that rabbi sounds tame. Do you know what was really out there?
Know I understand why you were so upset about the anti TV posts. It was too militant for you.
My question is, do you not know any militant Satmar? I don’t think anybody is literally watching their back from Chabad today. [Other than Chabad on Chabad conflict.]
Dear Arso,
Of course I know what you mean when you say ‘The Rebbe’. I assume that Lubavitchers also know what you mean. But it seems like you don’t get what they mean.
Dear Arso,
You misunderstand me. I think you have a point about Chabad. I am following along waiting for it to develop more to see if I agree or not. My issue with your posts is that you are making personal judgements about the Rebbe that are not based on what he was thinking but how his actions/statements are being received by you.
Being chassidish in the footsteps of the Baal Shem requires innovations. The issue with Satmar and Gur is the complete u-turns away from their earlier values. Sanz evolves so rapidly it can’t contain itself. In not even two centuries they have well over a hundred breakoffs.
Dear Mdd,
Chabad has more haters because they don’t try to sell themselves to other groups. They do not violate their values for political benefit. And they don’t spend money to promote their power figures. There is no buying the rebbe’s vote because he doesn’t need the money. A dead leader really avoids political struggle.
Dear Yankel,
I owe you a long response. Though I can’t place my finger on where we disagree. What is your point about Chabad?
If you want to talk about changing hassidic values like socks, than either Gur or Satmar alone have used up all the socks and and left none for Chabad.
Dear Two,
I completely disagree. Chabad is a modernization of what they were in Europe. Amshinov, Gur, Satmar, Stolin, Klausenberg, Munkatch, and most others have abandoned most of what they had in Europe and picked up completely new ideas. Just look at all the anti chareidi movements that they gave birth to.
Dear Yechi,
I don’t think that was me.
Dear Jdf,
Hear! Hear! I am completely blown away by how many people’s life focus is legend, lie, and myth.
Dear 5781,
What would you do instead? I t is vital that bochurim do not spend many hours of their day not using their minds.
I am so bored here, I am getting numb to the nuance. We don’t do this with Gur, Satmar, or any other group, that has way less tradition and is even farther out there. If you want to know about Satmar or Gur, you learn their stuff. You don’t accost some stranger and hold him/her up for answers. It socially unacceptable.
Here is a FAQ:
Q Chabad is kefirah.
R These ideas are mainstream.Q They take it too far.
R Come learn it.Q That is a silly pshat.
R This is our view.Q Nobody can really think that.
R The comprehensive theory sells itself.Q You can’t learn this stuff without…
R We do and did it all the time.Q I am not becoming Chabad.
R We didn’t offer. You asked.Q Chabad is always in my face.
R Everybody is included in our worldview.Q What makes you elitist
R You decided that by not educating yourself.Dear Arso,
“But to say that they are talking about Lubavich when they are clearly not is plain stupid.”
It makes sense to me that you would say that. Because you are totally missing the boat here. You seem to have gone to the airport instead.
Nobody is forced to have a Chabad viewpoint. But it is impossible to make any sense of these statements without putting them in their proper context. Learning from a Chabad viewpoint, does not make one Chabad.
Dear Arso,
“Can anyone here point out a godol beYisroel over the last generations who pushed his greatness to the forefront as much as the Lubavicher rebbe did?”
No comment.
I have a low opinion of your posts. A lot of ‘the eye of the beholder’ judgements.
I know one special talmid chacham who told me that he couldn’t stand being around Rav Dovid Feinstein ZT”L. Because Rav Dovid humbled himself very much and he hated the feeling of being superior to Rav Dovid.
To the one Who Vanquished A Troll: Is this the first time in fifteen years your style is being compared to Joseph?
Dear Two,
Very much agreed. The point is very much to go around in circles and dodge the question of why yidden are hating on each other.
Some of that list yes and some no. The yes ones obscure the fact that they came around to the no group later.
Dear Arso,
The rationale to the Lubavitcher’s mind is that term ‘The Rebbe’ means one who spreads Toras Hachassidus. Since the rebbe of the other chassidim is not doing that, it must be that they are talking about the Chabadtzker Rebbe.
This kind of thinking is much more common in religious groups than people realize. We assume everyone means the same ‘Gedolei Hador’ and ‘Those that brought Torah to America’ and ‘Talmidei Chaachamim’ and ‘Klei Kodesh’. But there is a lot of difference. The more obvious the different meanings, the more we tend to think that the other groupthink is out of the pale. But these labels really carry no weight. You can even refer to your local dropout as the Gadol Hador. It won’t have any effect.
Dear Arso,
NObody said that it means having equal powers to Hashem. But what does it mean?
Dear Cs,
Post #2218595 More about Tzaddikim of today …..
Dear Mdd.
The break over observance came well before their formulation of a comprehensive theology.
Dear Qwerty,
I enjoyed your response.
I don’t think the classical pitfalls of learning Kabbalah apply here. Chabad ignores practical Kabbalah which was the downfall of Sabbtai Tzvi and others. They are not studying the intense devotions that risk ones mental state. It isn’t really much different than other groups hashkafos besides for that it is grounded more in The Rebbe’s persona than the community at large.
Dear Yankel,
You left out 2a 2b 2c 2d 2e 2f 2g and so on. Which is almost all the other Rebbes and other Gedolim putting their weight on the Lubavitcher Rebbe being moshiach. And then they switched sides. Then and only then, did the Rebbe get into his cryptic statements that you called proclamations. You are missing a lot of nuance here. It is not theology. It is anthropology. And you left out the Crown Heights riots. And the battle over the TTY. Plus the current rift among the mechanchim.
Either you know little about Chabad from the inside, or you are deliberately subverting the narrative.
To put my question straight. Who do you think is behind all these machinations? Chabad is a large and loose group. What makes them so organized and who is pulling the strings?
There are Zionists who value Jewish blood.
The anti Zionists who believe that Jewish blood is valueless.
Then there are Jews that accept that Hashem runs the world.
And then there is Sam Klein.
Dear Akuperma,
” …..and we were exempt from (and in fact, banned from) military service.”
The Turk conscripted Jews into their army in WW1.
Dear Cs,
Reb Schneur Kotler was exceptionally fluent in Tanya. (Exceptional; because it was common for the top bochurim in certain Litvishe Yeshivos of Pre War Europe to be fluent in Tanya.) His Yartziet is also Gimmel Tammuz (5742).
Dear Arso,
“It is very much in line with their ludicrous statement – again, I’ve heard this one many times – that when other chassidim say stam “the Rebbe” the mean the Lubavicher rebbe unless they specify a different title.”
Now this is getting real. Other chassidim – especially the more organized groups – know very little Chassidus. The Rebbe in an organized chassidus is more likely to push learning Halachah over Chassidus. So, any mainstream Lubavitcher transposes all their terms into Chabad. This makes perfect sense to me.
Dear Menachem,
As you wrote in the OP, you rarely interact with Frum non Lubavitchers. So let me save you a lot of heartache. When you quote Chabad sounding Torah from mainstream figures (Especially the Chasam Sofer.) be prepared for all kinds of ridiculous responses. The Frum World is not so into learning as much as they claim to be. Talking about what is or isn’t learning, is much more common. It takes an hour to learn Daf Yomi. It takes hours to debate the merits of learning Daf Yomi.
Dear Avira,
It easier for me and you when we can discuss all our differences in one post.
“Menachem, there are many things in medrashim that we don’t understand; this is a great example. The rambam rules that if one believes that Hashem gave over command of a part of the world to a malaach, or a kochav, or anything else, he is an oved avodah zara. That’s halacha lemaysoh. Thinking that Hashem gave over control of the world to a tzadik is the same thing.”
I went back to find the post and couldn’t. But the midrash says that ‘He is a partner with Hashem in the Act of Creation!’ However you understand it, the point stands. These statements are not out of bounds. Not only that, but these statements are the very basis for the teaching of what constitutes boundaries in esoteric and mystical doctrines. Why would anyone think that The Rebbe meant something the Midrash doesn’t. He knew the Rambam better than we did.
The Rambam calls this minus. There is no A”Z without an action. We went through this on this thread. But once it got down to what the Rambam says without any implication on Lubavitch, all the ministers of the holy inquisition lost interest.
[On a side note, I mentioned a Chinuch that says that the Mitzva of listening to a Navi is at any time there is a Navi. Nothing about it not possible in our day. Like he writes in many other places.]
It is not practical halacha until we can read minds. What someone says and what they themselves value are not the same thing. Unless the individual is a man of extreme integrity. It is also not a matter of halacha for the individual. If the person thinks that this is the proper belief, they will understand the Rambam in accordance with their view. Many fanatics of astrology awere all over the Rambam and the Moreh, even though he criticizes astrology extensively.
How did you get that thinking a Tzaddik can completely change reality is the same thing?!? And why is it okay for all other gedolim to teach such a claim?
Dear Mdd,
“So, ….. what is the problem with Christianity? Why did the GR”A put Chassidim into cheirem?”
1) The Christians stopped observing. Why is this so hard for you to realize? Are you not observant?
2) You can read the posters that the Gaon signed for yourself. But that assumes that you realize you are talking about three different things.
Reb Akiva Eiger was listed in the back of a 19th century printing of the Biur as one who subscribed for a copy. The Biur was widely used until the printing of the Malbim Chumash. Most of the commentaries of the first half of the eighteenth century used the Biur and borrowed liberally from it’s content.
Dear Yankel,
“For thousands of years – since matan torah – we had one thing and one thing only- in our public domain. Nigleh . Even though Nistar is an integral part of the torah , it was not in the public domain . this started to change from the time of the publication of the Zohar , the earlier Mekubalim, the Ari and his disciples , but was mainly popularized since the advent of the Baal Shem and his talmidim.”
Farcical, erroneous, pure fiction.
For the first thousand years after Mattan Torah, there was so much Esoteric Torah that the revelation of the Zohar would be nothing but an opaque curtain to hide the Toras Haniglah. The next thousand years was the formation of our classical books. There is only one work that sticks to niglah = The Mishna. There is a parallel work that only sticks to nistar = Sefer Yetzirah. If we had to divide all the works of this period into nistar versus niglah, two thirds of it would be nistar. But that is only what survived. Using historical analysis, we know that while some niglah was lost only some nistar survived.
At that time, there wasn’t anything in the public domain. An individual had to come to Bais Medrash to learn Torah. A rebbe could refuse to teach a talmid that was not up to the material, but there was no ‘hiding’ of esoteric teachings. See the public sermons that have been preserved in the Midrashim.
The major change is the rise in universal literacy. Even when The Zohar was printed, it was not legible to most of the lay people because of unfamiliar terminology and obscure abbreviations. The Baal Shem did not advocate spreading Kabbala any more than most of his contemporaries. His contribution to Lurianic Mysticism was his insistence not to spread the other versions of Kabbalah. The Polish Mekubalim of that era had a potpourri of teachings that were contradictory and of unknown origins that were being widely disseminated. The nearby countries had many kabbala tinged public speakers and books. Germany was going through a downturn in Torah study in general, but the Shelah was already a prominent sefer.
I don’t see why Chabad is the issue when you have complete goyim studying The Zohar and Arizal and publishing in all languages.
Dear Arso,
I don’t see that you are making any point other than that misunderstood concepts easily become misapplied.
It makes no sense to me to judge a group based on it’s reactions to extremists. But if that is true, then Chabad extremists have done less evil than the extremists of other groups….. So maybe start there.
Dear Yossi,
There are many, many, girls looking for an ideal learning boy just back from Eretz Yisroel. These girls are not realistically factoring in their own age and accompanying circumstance or their own apathy towards learning. They see no need in attending single events or even to be known as an eligible.
Dear Avira,
This thread is to krum to correct. It is weird that you are such an authority on someone you never read his writings. I doubt you ever learned Moreh Nevuchim either. And you do not research the ‘history’ that you were fed.
Dear Km,
Learning Tanach had fallen by the wayside well before Mendelssohn. Chumash and to a lesser extent the megillos had a revival. It started in Germany and spread all over. It wasn’t a reaction to Haskalah.