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“The problem with Jews for J is what he did by leaving.”
What does this even mean? Left what? He never stopped identifying as a Jew. Christianity wasn’t spread to the goyim until Paul. It started out as a sect within Judaism that was considered heretical. Were you under the impression that chazal added the birkas haminim to refer only to non-Jewish religions?
How people self-identify is completely meaningless. The Essenes, Tzadokim, Early Christians all identified as Jews (and halachically were). Ironically, the only group who’s name implies an act of leaving or separating was the Perushim.
“I think you misunderstood my position.”
Would you eat the food of a polytheist who still identifies and acts as Jewish? Your opinion seems to be that unless there is some official “leaving Judaism” ceremony, then everyone is still considered fine.
“I give up trying to get any answers out of you. You are the toughest poster I ever interacted with on this site.”
We “argue from authority” in the Orthodox world; that authority being our poskim. He seems to be wanting to engage in a rational debate in which such arguments are considered a logical fallacy. He wants this to be purely his knowledge of eruvin vs. your’s, whereas we are used to arguing by bringing down lists of poskim who agree with us.
I don’t think anyone actually cares whether he knows more about eruvin than the rest of us combined (well, he cares). At the end of the day, it’s not how the world works. We can’t just ignore our poskim and claim they were “mislead” or didn’t know what they were talking about every time they say stuff we don’t like. He’s clearly very frustrated that the Orthodox world doesn’t work this way, and will start calling everyone am haartzim when they point it out. This thread has been a roller coster of emotions, and I’m actually at the point where I feel kind of bad for him.
“More than that. We are allowed to ignore their opinions. Especially if it absurd.”
This is in direct contradiction to what you say earlier in the post. If he makes his beliefs public like in the case of Jews for J, it’s an issue that you can’t just ignore. If you’re dining at someone’s table for a Shabbos meal, and he admits “I actually believe there are 5 gods and 3 goddesses that created the world,” you can’t just label that as “absurd” and continue eating his food a pretending he’s acceptable in the frum world.
I’m not answering your questions about Chabad, as I stated earlier I don’t want to be a part of the Chabad war on this thread anymore. What you’re implying at face value has the potential to be far more problematic than anything Chabad does or believes. However, you only seem to apply to Chabad exclusively and no other group or belief-system.
“I have never been shy about this topic and nobody felt required to stop me at all costs.”
I’ve had people say insanely kefiradik stuff around me in-person, and I don’t stop them either, but right now you’re on the internet, so you get to hear what all those people who “didn’t try to stop you” actually think of your shittos.
“Roshei yeshiva aren’t going to blast something which is flawed but gets people to learn, because it’s not as if they’re going to drop it and leatn sugyos biyun slowly, covering maybe an amud a week due to their work schedules.
Also, a large amount of baalei batim simply lack the ability to learn sugyos biyun. Many can and do, as kolel yungeleit transition to the working world.”Doesn’t sound like something I would say has “little value,” so I’m not really sure where we even differ. Nobody is saying that learning Daf Yomi is as good as learning b’iyun in yeshiva all day. The comment that started this digression was the assertion that it’s of little to no value in general.
“t’s true that rav belsky held that the shavers the litvishe world uses were perfectly kosher, but many of his talmidim, including me, were strict, and he held that using trimmers instead was a good chumra to practice.”
The never-shavers on this thread do not make a distinction between trimmers and shavers as far as I can tell. They might not even make a distinction for scissors.
“Anybody who takes one poster’s statements and applies it to the group that poster speaks for will end up being wrong.”
Welcome to the real world, buddy. People make generalizations based on experiences. Anyone with more than one week of experience on the CR should know that.
Other than just that, this particular thread was addressed to the Yeshivish oilam in general, so people responding are claiming to represent their community.
“Regarding the Nusach haGra, most people don’t follow it.”
I know, but that’s not the point. My point was that you were being critical of the changes made by the Baal Hatanya, but would be unwilling to criticize those made by the Gra.
“It clearly shows what his Mesorah was for the changes.”
It shows reasoning, not mesora. He removed the “baruch hashem l’olam amein v’amein” by maariv for halachic reasoning of not being mafsik between geula and tefilla (same reason as the Baal Hatanya). Neither of them did it because they had a long-standing mesora to do so.
It seems like poskim in Lita were just more willing to “correct” the mesora. It doesn’t seem like it has anything to do with Chassidus.
“this is how most roshei yeshiva speak when talking to non-baalei batim.”
So they’re either pretending while talking to balhabatim or while talking to students. Don’t you think it might be more likely that someone would be doing a little more acting when interacting with students than they would be when interacting with mature, working adults?
n0mesora:
I don’t want to get pulled back into the Chabad debate, but what you’re saying completely transcends it. If you want to say Chabad’s beliefs are fine and kosher, then go ahead, but you’re actually claiming that the halachah has no concept of kefira whatsoever. Other than being completely untrue, this line of reasoning should offend both sides of this thread.Someone absolutely can be pasul from aidus on the basis of beliefs alone if they make them public. Would you eat the food of Jew for Jesus as long as he otherwise kept halacha? Judaism doesn’t care about belief according to you, right, so why not? What about an openly proud atheist who happens to keep halacha out of a sense of tradition (like the original idea of Reconstructionism)?
We don’t have to put people under a microscope and try to figure out their beliefs. It sounds like someone probably told you this at one point and you erroneously assumed it to mean that people can believe whatever they want and it doesn’t matter.
“If you really go into the sticks down south”
I have.“you would see what real hatred is.”
Not really. Pre-2016, it truly wasn’t a big issue. In NYC, however, there has always been a massive amount of Antisemitism that people seem to just tolerate. You’re much more likely to see “real hatred” there than anywhere else.“I thought the point of these surveys are to understand the makeup of Jewish Communities. As in what the people are actually like. Not what the definitions are. I feel lost on this thread.”
If a poll was designed to give you insights on the Black community, but 50% of the people they polled were just White people who choose to identify as Black, would that really be very educational? I get it, a secular institution will consider someone Jewish if there paternal grandfather was, but if they’re going to ask about intermarriage anyway, it seems like they could have asked responders which of there parents was Jewish so that we could end up with a statistic like “blank % of American Jews have non-Jewish mothers” to put it in perspective. Otherwise, we’re just guessing here and the results seem kind of meaningless.
SACT5:
Thanks for looking into it. Given that all the “not in top ten” cities are in the midwest, if you add them to Chicago, it massively beats out the South and gets very close to the west. I can believe that the west beats out the midwest, just not by as much as this poll claimed.““Keser” is mentioned in rishonim. Putting baruch sheamar in the middle [of shabbos psukei dezimra] is brought down in the Tur.”
I never said they had no basis in the rishonim, just that they weren’t the Ashkenazi minhag before. I’d be happy to be proven wrong, but I haven’t seen any evidence of it.
n0m:
” Do you think that the Shelah could change the nusach but not The Baal Hatanya? ”No, and I made the same point about the Gra’s changes to nusach. Why do you think I’m disagreeing with you on this? Was I really that unclear on this thread, or are you just assuming based on other threads that I always take the anti-Chabad position?
My stance is nuanced because that’s the historical reality. Many people think all Chassidishe minhagim are innovations when they are, in reality, just reflecting regional differences in Europe that would have existed even without Chassidus. This seems to be the point n0mesora is making, and I agree. However, to take it a step further and claim that NO chassidishe minhagim are innovations would be false. It’s very rational to have a problem with some but not with others.
“As far as I know, those minhagim where more regional, and are not specific to Chabad.”
100% agree. This is probably why there’s so much overlap between the stances of the Gra and the Baal Hatanya. I was criticized by Gra-fans for making this point here years ago. This being said, “those minhagim” are not the ones people are criticizing Chabad for.
mdd:
“very many Litvishe ba’alei battim learnt all of Shas — by learning Daf ha’yomi. I hope you understand that it is not worth a lot.”Sigh, ok, it’s time for us to collectively disavow of mdd’s crazy, unhinged statements again. Yes, it’s a big deal to learn all of shas. It is not the normative stance of the yeshivish world that learning all of shas is “not worth a lot.”
“The Litvishe Mesorah does not go back thousands of years.”
The Ashkenazi mesora does. As I’ve pointed out before, nobody other than wikipedia editors actually mean “Lithuanian” when they say Litvish; it just means non-Chassidishe Ashkenaz.
“But the more we go back through the last millenium, the more we find even larger differences among the European Congregations.”
This is an important point. Many of the differences between what we consider nusach Ashkenaz and Sphard were just pre-existing differences in Europe. Eg. saying “sim shalom” not “shalom rav” is brought down by Ashkenazi poskim, the placement of shir shel yom before aleinu, the inclusion of “Hashem melech” in psukei d’zimra. The only major chiddushim were changing the nusach of kedusha, and placing baruch sheamar in the middle rather than the beginning. Most of the other things have a basis in some version of the Ashkenazi mesora.
All this being said, I think I still agree with DaMoshe’s underlying point: just because there were divergences between towns in Europe doesn’t mean people can just go and start inventing their own minhagim based on sectarian hashkafa. The minhagim that people have criticized on these forums are exactly that.
n0mesora: Neither of your “easy points” are necessarily true. The only big community in the entire south is Miami, which is probably cancelled out and then some by Chicago. The second largest community in the south would be dwarfed by Cleveland. That statistic is just observably untrue. And this is all without even considering that the midwest would actually have a sizable non-Orthodox population, whereas I doubt the south does given that most liberal Jews are irrationally terrified of southerners.
“If someone is part of an Orthodox Shul and drives on Shabbos to eat in a Burger KIng, then for the purposes of this survey he is Orthodox.”
We get that. We’re saying that makes it a pretty useless or at least flawed survey.
The poll honestly just feel extremely inaccurate, and I’m guessing the biggest cause for the faulty proportions is them included tons of non-Jews as others have pointed out.
Only 10% of Jews live in the midwest? The region which includes Cleveland, Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Columbus, Cincinnati, etc. There’s no way it has less than half of the “west” which is basically just LA and San Francisco, or the “south” which is basically just Florida.
If 75% of non-Orthodox Jews marry goyim, then at least half of those are producing non-Jewish kids. The proportions of non-Orthodox young people are being massively overestimated.
“Fifth, an educated consumer is the best customer, and rabbanim need to step up to the plate, and learn hilchos eruvin, prior to just following what others say.”
If this is your approach then we essentially aren’t arguing within the same religion. I’ve certainly met people who have become disenchanted and convinced that the rabbis don’t know enough and that they can posken for themselves, but it doesn’t end well.
I don’t know what we can tell you at this point; you seem frustrated with how the Orthodox world works. You could theoretically know more about eruvin than anyone else on Earth, but if you can’t bring any contemporary poskim who back up what you’re saying, nobody is going to agree to it. That’s just the way things work, and it would be catastrophic otherwise.
“Hafotzas hamaayonos (spreading chassidic teachings) was always a key element in Chabad.”
The story in question involves another chassidishe community. This has nothing to do with “spreading chassidic teachings.” This is about spreading Chabad. The accusation of proselytizing is accurate, but the reaction was obviously unjust. Nonetheless, surely you can understand why people would take issue.
“Why would any Lubavitcher deny this?”
Probably in the course of when they’re pretending to respect other communities and deny the fact that their goal is to make everyone Lubavitch. I do genuinely appreciate the fact that you aren’t trying to conceal it like most seem to do.
I think I’m going to step away from this thread. People seem to say the quiet parts out loud on these forums now (just like the YU threads where MO posters were opening condoning homosexuality). The Chabad side immediately and clearly made their stance, so there’s nothing left to discuss. I assume when qwerty says he can “checkmate” Lubavitchers, he means ask questions that will force them to admit to being meshichists, but they’ve already done that about a thousand posts ago, so he’s late to the game.
Menachem, you seem like a perfectly fine guy. Sincerely sorry if I said anything over the line.
DaMoshe:
To be fair, the Gra also made changes to minhagim, nusach, and zmanim. On those specific issues, [non-Chabad] chassidim end up keeping the old Ashkenazi mesora better than most Litvishers.
I agree with parts of what you’re saying, but focusing on nusach changes made by the Baal Hatanya is kind of throwing stones in a glass house.
“This is the true story.”
Yet there is seemingly no record of it. I’m not saying you’re in the wrong, but I’ve looked into this before and can’t find a reliable account.“Menachem, that was not the story as I heard it from Korf’s son…”
The mere fact that this is being passed around like a Chassidishe Maaseh rather than having official police records is in itself fishy. This thread is actually the first time I’ve seen people defend either side. Usually Lubavitchers admit that other frum communities are off-limits for proselytizing, and the other side usually admits the reaction was disproportionate.“I don’t know why you think that random Chabadtzkers owe us some official declarations.”
They can’t complain about us accusing them of having controversial beliefs then also refuse to deny those beliefs.“If you know what crazy is then you understand the reference.”
We consider all meshichists to be crazy, so we’re trying to understand why Menachem draws the line at a seemingly arbitrary point. It’s a totally legitimate question, and he still hasn’t clarified. It’s essentially the same as Avram’s question of why should they need to conceal the belief. Also unanswered.“Why do you see new laws as a possible threat to freedom?”
Generally, by definition, a law restricts one from doing something, meaning you are no longer free to do that thing. Seems pretty pashut.“This is the actually the first time I’ve seen anyone argue in favor of the supreme court with an argument that borders on anarchy.”
Doesn’t seem like it should be such a stretch. The whole point of judicial branch is the curb government overreach. It seems like it was only a few years back when that was considered a conservative ideal. Now I guess anyone who isn’t pro-authoritarian is an anarchist.“They strike down a law based on a “reasonableness” standard.”
That’s pretty stupid; they should have a constitution. Is that what these reforms would seek to do?“I’ve found Menachem’s explanation about the Israelis quite clear. I don’t see anything else he could add to what he already explained.”
He could explain why it’s suddenly considered crazy to go around screaming that the Rebbe is moshiach when he himself admits to holding that belief as well. Why is it considered a chiyuv in Chabad to go out of one’s way to conceal what might be the most integral belief in their philosophy, to the point that anyone who publicizes it is considered “crazy?”
“a noose to hang Mike Pence – is that a weapon or a toy? Duh !”
A toy. For some reason I feel like you wanted the other answer.
I’m confused, does the court in Israel have the power to create new laws, or is it just like America where they just strike down laws? My instinct as someone who likes freedom is that it should be as difficult as possible to make news laws, so I’m confused as to why people (especially what appears to be the conservative side) would oppose a strong judicial branch.
“So if the litvishe recognized after the Lubavitcher rebbe that it was necessary, that’s not something to criticize”
He wasn’t criticizing it; he was questioning the historical accuracy of my claim that the yeshivish world was involved in the BT movement first. This is something I had heard, but I can’t find any evidence to back it up, so I retract that statement.
sechel:
“i realized recently that litvaks and others too look a[t] judaism as groups.”Don’t even try to start this nonsense. There ARE different groups and different mesoras. Whenever a Lubavitcher starts talking about how there should be no groups, and how it should just be stam yiddishkeit, what you really mean is that you want everyone to be Chabad. Don’t think we’re going to fall for it.
“if you see soome random lubavitcher do something obviously he speaks for the whole lubavitch.”
We’ve given you about a thousand opportunities to disavow the problematic things, yet you do not, so what else are we supposed to conclude? Menachem has been pretty open about which things are mainstream and which aren’t, and I have no reason to doubt him. It’s a migu. If he were going to lie, he would just deny meshichism altogether.
“I know how to checkmate Lubavichers.”
I almost guarantee that you don’t. You surely know you’ll never get them to change their beliefs, so the only way of “winning” with them is to come out looking better to the neutral onlookers, which is also highly unlikely. To the audience, this thread probably looks like a bunch of stuck-up Litvishers getting riled up over nothing (myself included in that). In part because it kind of is, but mostly because 90% of the context is missing for those who aren’t well versed in the frum world.
“However, he said that if there were pants that were completely tznius, it would not be a problem for a woman to wear them.”
Nobody actually seems to posken this way; I think your rav was probably talking in a purely academic sense. Pants do exist that cover everything they need to and are very loose-fitting, but there’s still a das yehudis issue (not a beged ish issue).
“Another important safeguard is that they keep outsiders out.”
I would like to disavow this comment on behalf of the non-Chabad side of this thread. I’ve met Chassidish BT’s and gerim. Belz, for example, actively pursues kiruv in Israel. Not to mention the massive kiruv efforts that go on in the yeshivish world (where the BT movement actually started).
When you make this argument, you’re almost excusing the issues, as if to say “these problems in Chabad are a side effect of their success in kiruv.” Others have had plenty of success without these issues, so I don’t think it’s a good point to make. Other organizations usually weed out the BTs who aren’t going to be able to get rid of their ideological baggage. Edited do agree that a lot of these issues are due to new people coming in, but the issues aren’t inherent to kiruv. They are inherent to poorly-done, sloppy, quantity-obsessed kiruv.
“My standards don’t change according to party affiliation”
Pfft, you can’t be serious. If Trump had even half of these accusations with one third the evidence you would be calling for him to be publicly beheaded.
Liberals were frolicking with joy when these so-called “lowlifes” made accusations about Trump. Now that you all have hindsight you want to act like you never trusted them, but I don’t buy that for a second.
AAQ: Reservists are not volunteers in Israel. They’re basically the actual IDF. Albeit, it is functionally different for them to refuse. You could theoretically make the argument that it’s worse to join an army then refuse to serve rather than just never join it in the first place (for the record, I’m not actually making that argument).
I’ve also noticed that when I accidentally catch a glimpse of the dumpster fire that is the home page before I quickly click on the “Coffee Room” button in the upper right to save my eternal soul.
Calling them anarchists makes them sound way cooler than they actually are. When I first noticed a headline use it, I thought there was actually a real anarchist movement in Israel, and I was like “woah sweet!” But, then it was just disappointingly about boring-old, government-loving liberals.
Isn’t YWN being just as hypocritical in the other direction now by slamming the leftists?
“Is it the Ashkenazi mesorah for over 200 years ago to shave their beards?”
Yes, trimming beards is the long-standing halacha. We have the technology to trim extremely close today; if they’d had the ability 1000 years ago, they would have used it too.
“No. It was simply a cruel accusation where he expressed his anger against Chabad.”
I was trying to defend you, but I guess you’d rather deny the problem wholesale.“The accusation that Chabad refuses to admonish their own due to their “elitism” is nonsense”
I never said elitism. You have consistently refused to criticize the branches of Chabad with more out-there beliefs. My point is, that you might criticize behind closed-doors, but when talking to outsiders you will never criticize anything about Chabad. This is observably true. Look at this discussion. Why not just say: “those women aren’t really Chabad, they’re MO women who happen to keep some Chabad minhagim.” Once somebody identifies as Chabad, they are above criticism for you, even if they run around in a mini-skirt and short sleeves.“I cannot give you a theory as to why people in Crown Heights have this yetzer harah more than people in Williamsburg”
Nobody is asking for a theory, we all know the reason: because you guys tolerate it. His question is WHY do you tolerate it?
If you’re going to accuse me (and presumably anyone who isn’t Lubavitch) of being a hater no matter what we say, then I’ll just be up front: feminism is probably the biggest ideological threat to yiddishkeit today. In EVERY community (not just Chabad), when people slide to the religious left, tznius is the first thing to go. Due to kiruv interests, Chabad hasn’t properly addressed this, and has even taken quotes from the Rebbe out of context to make it sound like he was “pro-feminism.” You reap what you sow, and now your community is full of probably thousands of women who think it’s acceptable to dress that way. I’m done feeling bad for you guys about it.
“While DeSantis has already alienated the populist wing”
He never did anything to isolate Trump’s base; Trump just ordered his followers to hate DeSantis and they did so. He’ll do the same thing with the other names you mention once they’re also threats.
If anything, it seems like DeSantis is isolating all the sane people by pandering to the populists lately.
1) Rabbi Kanievsky is not the Litvish equivalent of the Rebbe. America has its own poskim.
2) Are you suggesting this is a bad thing to have kavana while davening? I don’t see your point.
3) We’re at the mercy of what the yeshivos decide to do. Most American yeshivas (not all) tend to follow some variation of the Slabodka derech halimud. Nonetheless, most places have both a seder b’iyun and b’kius. Are you suggesting people should do away in learning b’iyun altogether?
4) Not without controversy even within the Litvish community. Many if not most Yeshivos don’t do this, but it’s popular in Chofetz Chaim communities which is what many people see.“i know some will answer, that thats “our minhag/ mesora”, ok so why do you guys criticize chabad”
Because Ashkenaz and Sphard are real mesoras based on poskim of previous generations. Chabad is an invented mesora based on hashkafa and the whims of its Rebbes. I know you were probably baiting one of us to say this, but why shouldn’t we? It’s just the historical reality.
“after 4 years, Trump only build 54 miles of wall, and where was Mexico paying for that”
And all of that wall was where there was already pre-existing fence, so Trump didn’t actually add an inch. He replaced some fence with steel slats which don’t functionally seem much better. All just smoke and mirrors that unfortunately a big chunk of his base continues to fall for.
In any case, if Christie’s only qualification is pointing out Trumps failures, there should be plenty of other candidates similarly qualified and without any past scandals.
UJM:
In other communities, if a woman doesn’t keep tznius we just label her as Modern Orthodox, and voila, our community no longer has a tznius issue because she isn’t “part of our community” anymore. I personally am totally fine with this system, but Chabad doesn’t seem to do it. They seem to have this “us against the world” sense of solidarity where they never internally criticize, as you can see on this thread. The result ends up being that Chabad women who are by anyone’s estimation Modern or Conservadox get to go around calling themselves “chasidish” and nobody in their own community calls them out on it. Maybe they do privately among themselves.
My point is, the Ashkenazi world has created a clear cut divide between women to care about tznius and those who don’t thanks to contemporary sectarian labels. If you included the MO as part of our tzibbur the same way you include Chabad-Lite as part of Chabad, then I’m not sure our stats would be any better on this issue.
“Why shouldn’t the plaintiff who filed a baseless and frivolous lawsuit”
Because there’s no objective definition of “frivolous and baseless” and it could lead to the little guy who can’t afford a fancy lawyer getting victimized twice.
Common Seychel: That was my whole point… I was saying that insurance companies would be pro-tort reform because it would drive down their costs. I reread my comment to make sure I wasn’t unclear, and I definitely wasn’t. You might want to work on not getting so worked up and lashing out at others over your inability to understand basic rhetoric.
Menachem:
I hear your point, but the tone still comes off as defensive when you say “so what?” (albeit understandably so). The issue that people keep driving at is that if you really have such a problem with these sub-groups, why are you so unwilling to directly criticize them? You saw on this thread how willing Avram and I were to criticize another Yeshivish person who was claiming that elitism is okay. The view on various Chabad sub-groups does not seem to include any disapproval. What seems to be the mainstream approach would be to say “we believe moshiach can come from the dead, others believe the Rebbe is literally still alive in the flesh and can never die; both are legitimate shittos in Chabad.” Am I wrong about this?
“I responded that no one denies that there are many Lubavitchers with these beliefs that you mentioned.”
I would challenge this. There’s very clearly a concentrated effort to hide Chabad’s beliefs about the Rebbe from the masses. The topic is meticulously censored from Chabad dot org, shluchim clearly have a policy of staying away from it, etc. Maybe it’s not so much “denying” the beliefs so much as concealing.
Avram:
“if indeed the mainstream majority of Chabad thinks these “crazies” are wrong, and even falling into avoda zara”
The simplest explanation is that they don’t hold it’s wrong and certainly don’t hold it’s avoda zara. They’re just embarrassed at how flashy some people are with it.
As far as the Rebbe picture thing, part of my point was that Yserbius could have just seen it in a Chabadnik davening in the living room situation. I felt it was necessary to mention the practice of putting a picture of him on every wall, otherwise it sounded like he was accusing them of putting it davka on the eastern wall.
So, just like with anything in this country, you need the other side to have more money to sway the oligarchy. There should be some big financial interests on the pro-tort-reform side; I would imagine insurance companies for example.
“Menachem Shmei didn’t “admit” to having these beliefs”
Untrue. He admitted on one of these threads to the belief that Moshiach will be the Rebbe. He [seemingly] defended those who believe the Rebbe is alive at the front of 770 after another poster explicitly defended it.
“I doubt it.”
Why? I didn’t even mean that as an attack, just a practical matter. If Lubavitchers put Rebbe pictures on all house walls, and the house serves as the shul, then there’s going to be one on the eastern wall. I personally don’t care, nor do I see why anyone else does.
“It’s forbidden to daven in front of a picture (or even a mirror)”
That wasn’t Yserbius’ point, clearly. If that were the only problem, it wouldn’t matter if it were a painting of a landscape. In any case, people seem to be meikel when davening in their own homes (i.e. I’ve never seen anyone leave their eastern wall undecorated on purpose), so I wouldn’t call it a “big accusation” to claim that they’re among these meikelim.
“he acknowledged that there may be “crazies” who hold these beliefs.”
The fundamental difference is the following: what bothers him about the “crazies” is that they make Chabad look silly. What bothers the other side is that they actually hold l’halacha that those beliefs are kefira. That’s a huge difference, and we can’t pretend they have common ground built around criticizing the vocal “crazies” in Chabad.
Ujm:
Why are you challenging him on this? This stuff is common knowledge. A person could try and say that all Yeshivish gedolim are just being mean and misnagdish or something, but nobody can seriously doubt the consensus on this. Even the Lubavitchers on here have never tried to argue that Rav Shach was a daas yochid among Litvishers.
Menachem:
It’s going to pretty much be guaranteed to happen in any Chabad that’s a house-shul like I mentioned. Admittedly, I don’t know that I’ve seen it in an actual beis medrash, but I wouldn’t have really noticed it. I’ve never jumped to the assumption that anyone’s kavana was to bow down to the picture as a replacement for Hashem; Chabad just likes putting Rebbe pictures everywhere. Seems like a strange thing for either side of this conversation to make a big deal of.
To everyone else:
You’ve gotten the Lubavitchers either on this thread or elsewhere to admit that they believe the Rebbe is/will be moshiach. You’ve gotten them to admit that they don’t see anything theologically wrong with someone believing the Rebbe is literally alive and sitting in the empty chair in 770. What more are you looking for? If the neutral parties reading this thread still have no objections to Chabad even with those things out in the open, then they never will, no matter how many Litvish gedolim you bring in who say they should.
Menachem:
Serious question, what’s the big deal (from your viewpoint) with having a Rebbe picture on the eastern wall? Most Lubavitcher’s houses seem to have at least one picture of him on each wall. Should they avoid the eastern wall, or are you talking about only in an actual beis medrash? Would it be a problem for the Chabad houses where the rabbi’s house doubles as the shul?
This just seems like an arbitrary point to draw the line for someone who’s otherwise fine with meshichism.
How did the OP get an outside link through? Was it decided that the blog it leads to is an obvious enough troll that it fits thematically with the YWN Coffee Room?
AAQ:
My problem isn’t that I didn’t understand your analogy. My problem is that you are very wrong in what you’re saying and absolutely no frum yid with any integrity would even pretend to agree with you.
The topic of other groups being good about bikur cholim in the same way that Chabad is good at kiruv is what sparked this. You immediately insinuated that those groups focusing on mitzvos other than kuriv are chosid shotehs.
“Did I say that? I am saying I highly value what they do here, despite whatever other issues are there.”
No, not letting you off this easy; you literally said someone who goes and does mitzvas bikur cholim is a chosid shoteh. You can retract what you said and own up to it, but you can’t pretend you didn’t say it. It’s right here in black and white for all of the world to see.
Ujm:
Avram doesn’t live under a rock, and neither do I. We know full well how the word misnaged is used in contemporary contexts. I think the point he made about the word “Pharisee” better demonstrates what we’re trying to say than anything else.
“I would extend this: the chosid might say – I am on the way to the hospital for bikur cholim or on the way to kollel and learning is keneged kulam.”
So we should stop practicing our religion so we can focus all energy on attracting people back to our religion which we don’t actually practice? I think you’re mixed up on who the “chosid shoteh” is here.
I know you’re not going to listen to me, so maybe talk to whoever in Chabad is clearly influencing you, because even they would object to what you’re saying. Nobody says everyone should be mevatel other mitzvos to focus solely on kiruv.
“Chasam Sofer did not live there.”
He lived between France and Russia, and he presumably didn’t think Napoleon was going to jump over central Europe to reach Russia. Stopping his advance in central Europe means stopping before Russia. Anyway, as I said, I’m sure there are exceptions. I have no idea why it is so important to some people to believe that the Baal Hatanya was a daas yochid on this issue, especially given that it isn’t so cut and dry that Napoleon would have been the worse outcome for the Jews.
“No one said anything about an irrational hatred of anyone… Nor did anyone say anything about sitting around and bashing people.”
You said, and I quote: “You will hear the same pejoratives in all my misnagdish familiy homes, just in the reverse.”
“we all prefer our own minhagim and to an extent look down on the minhagim”
No. Non-psychotic people don’t do that. Do you also use pejoratives for Sphardim? They also have different minhagim that you presumably look down on.
“I (and CT) are the non chassidim defending the other side here.”
It didn’t escape me. The part of this argument which Avram and I are are involved in is the issue of certain Chabadniks having hatred towards large groups of frum yidden. You are providing a general, non-partisan defense of hatred, which is why we’re arguing with you as well. For the record, I do NOT think CTLawyer is still with you, but I can’t speak for him any more than you can. All he said is that he had ancestors who identified as misnagdim. He never said we should look down on other minhagim and use pejoratives for other groups.
“Yet you are being pretty persistent about calling out others on there beliefs.”
When? I don’t think I’ve really been involved in the philosophical part of this.
“If we can be elitist, why can’t they?
I don’t care if they use it pejoratively. I don’t care if I am the boogie man of their stories. You will hear the same pejoratives in all my misnagdish familiy homes, just in the reverse.”“We” shouldn’t be allowed to either. If your only objection towards Chabad is an irrational hatred of Chassidim then I have more common ground with the Lubavitchers than I do with you. And, for the benefit of any ignorant onlookers: it is not normal for people to sit around bashing on Chassidim. Mentsh1’s situation is not common.
“This seems to be a daas yachid, as other misnagdim and chasidim welcomed liberation from the Russian empire.”
This is untrue, but I’ve heard many in Chabad circles who also have this misconception. The Chasam Sofer was also anti-Napoleon (as it pertained to Austria-Hungary) as were many what we would now call “chareidi” rabbis. The neologues and reform Jews were the ones who more gleefully supported Napoleon. There might be exceptions, but he definitely was not a “daas yochid.”
“On comparing “kiruv” with “bikur cholim” as just a group’s mitzva.”
You didn’t understand the analogy, and you are downplaying the mitzva of bikur cholim even given your attempt to word it as though you aren’t. In any case, the point was not that they are of equal value. The point was that different groups have different shticks.
“Also, “kiruv” is not a Chabad term”
Kiruv is the term for outreach. I couldn’t care less if Chabad doesn’t like it.
“Neville, re, doing mitzvos for the sake of their rebbe”
I think I largely agree with the underlying theme that you’re criticizing, so I don’t even know why I’m about to counter this, but I’m bored…
I think it’s possible that the pamphlets you mention are singling out certain mitzvos which were singled out by the Rebbe. The proof given of the importance of Lubavitchers doing those particular mitzvos is something along the lines of “the Rebbe said so.” Albeit, maybe it would be more satisfying to an outsider if they explained the reasoning behind stressing those mitzvos in more detail, but to the target audience, it’s a good enough proof. The point is, I still think it goes without saying that mitzvos are for Hashem; even in really culty Chabad circles I’ve never doubted that. They just stress some over others because the Rebbe told them to, which in and of itself is not that unusual for Chassidim.
If I’m wrong, and the pamphlets were not talking about SPECIFIC mitzvos mentioned by the Rebbe, but rather saying the the idea of mitzvos in GENERAL is done to please the Rebbe, that’s a different story.
“you have to admit that there is an issue with people doing mitzvos because they make their rebbe happy, doing kiruv because the Lubavitcher rebbe said to do it”
I think I’m officially on “your side” in these threads, but I wouldn’t even agree to that. If their kavana when doing a mitzvah (eg. tefillin) was that it was for the Rebbe rather than Hashem, then obviously that would be wrong, but are you really alleging that to be the case?
It seems like he just decided that kiruv would be modern Chabad’s primary avoda, or niche to fill much like bikur cholim is with Satmar. I don’t see why having a certain mitzvah be extremely encouraged in one’s community would make it any less lishma when done by members of that community.
SACT5:
I’ve seen enough wikipedia talk pages not to trust anything written about Chabad or Litvishers. There are a lot of extremely active Chabad-biased editors, as well as anti-Chabad-biased editors.
Also, are we really supposed to trust the terminology on a page which continues to be titled “Lithuanian Jews,” a term which is never actually used to describe the group about which it’s written?