Lubavitch XI
The reason for the volume of information here is because is it proportionate to the veritable unending posts I receive almost daily from Lubavitchers trying to answer of justify their and their Rebbe's behavior. There isn’t another single thread - not the existence of G-d, not seminaries, eating disorders, or Zionism - which attracts so many men women and children emphatically loyal to nonsense who believe they are expert enough at halachah and hashkafa and chasidus to explain the absurd. Scroll up. We have actual women teaching high school who requested to reprint the material here so that she and her class of HS girls can find the answers together in class to claims against their actions that the greatest Torah authorities have already said have no answer.
There is no other area where young saplings -teenage boys and girls are taught from birth, distorted versions of Torah and plain lies about opposing Tzadikim (including that they are murders) and history in order for them to grow up to be crooked and deformed giant oak trees in an entire forest of such deformed tress that all think they are THE main source for joy to God in all of Klall Yisroel, and that everyone else - the Lubavitcher Rebbe said this - when Moshiach finally comes, will be sitting in the back of the Chabad Chasidim.
There does not exist in Klall Yisroel such brainwashing and distortion for reality as there does in Lubavitch. Here’s an example of how these people are brought up. This is from a Chabad website designed for very young children (the comments in the brackets are mine)http://www.rabbiriddle.org/rabbi-riddle/03-15.htm
"This week's Torah Portion, V'Yechi, contains the passing of our forefather Jacob. However, our Sages say, "Jacob our Father did not die. Just as his children are alive, so is he alive!" This teaches us that the soul continues even after the body passes away." {No, it does not. All it teaches is that Yaakov - and only Yaakov - even after his passing from this world, is as alive as his children who are still here. They are learning teaching just opposite - that just as Yaakov was alive his children are too. The Chazal say Yaakov exclusively lo meis. They just extended it to everyone. Look where this is headed...}
Our Sages teach that only the body returns to dust. The Jewish soul (as well as the soul of a righteous non-Jew) According to most opinions, never "dies" or is destroyed. {This is just not true at all, and misleading even according to what they want to say. But it is not the particular point of brainwashing that I want to point out here, so it will have to wait for another time. } When it has finished its job in this world, it simply continues in the next! Righteous people (tzaddikim) in the next world can continue to help people in this world. Even after he passed way, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi returned to his home and made Kiddush for his family on Shabbos!" {This is where their distortions are designed to lead. Rav Yehuda Hanasi was resurrected in a body and returned to this world as a physical human being, like everyone else. In such a case, he was able to make Kiddush. But this does NOT apply to tzadikim who are not resurrected from the dead in physical bodies.}
The idea here is obvious - teach little kids that the Lubavitcher Rebbe, like Yaakov Avinu, is still alive, and like Rav Yehuda HaNasi, returns to "continue to help his people."
This is what little kids are taught. And there is much, much more. It is no wonder that by the time they are teenagers, and you explain to them that hello, your rebbe is dead, you don't say shlita, he is not moshiach, he is not g-d in a body, the bais hamikdash will not be built first in 770 and then shipped to eretz yisroel (their rebbe said that too), they act as if you are going against the entire Torah. Their torah, true. But that's not the same Torah that was taught for the past 3,000 years since Har Sinai, including chasidus.
This material is not to show someone is wrong, but rather, in the interest of not ignoring the misguidedness of our fellow Jews, to correct the endless stream of distortions that have been fed to innocent fellow Jews.
Would you rather we gave up on them?
---
Nobody said Rav Nachman ZTL is still alive; they merely follow his teachings. There are those in Breslov who are a bit over the edge and they are indeed considered crazy. And the main difference is that Rav Nachman himself never caused such behavior. Whereas the Lubavitcher Rebbe did. Rav Nachman insisted that they don’t even refer to him as an official "Rebbe" (you will never heard him be called The Breslover Rebbe); whereas the Lubavitcher Rebbe said that a Rebbe is G-d clothed in a body. Rav Nachman never twisted the Halacha or Hashkafa, whereas the Lubavitcher Rebbe did.
---
There is no such Gemora that says "when you have a choice to be mehudar in mitzvot or do some-thing very bidieved because your Rebbe told you to, you should follow your Rebbe to show you respect him." Even the Lubavitcher Rebbe did not quote any such thing in his sichah when he tried to explain this. There is no Halachah anywhere. Acting like your rebbe, honoring your rebbe, or any of that is no heter not to sleep in the sukkah.
---
If you will concede that "learned rabbis" are making no sense when they say the rebbe is alive then clearly they CAN say something stupid. These are the same people who once gave us "logical" reasons that the rebbe will definitely not die. They are also the same ones whose "logical" reasons for saying the rebbe is moshiach included the fact that moshiach "is a regular living person" (remember when they used to say that?).
There is no logic in this whole thing. There is only wishful thinking.
What makes you think that a learned rabbi cannot end up in la la land? Throughout history, most deviant groups were started by seriously learned rabbis. From Korach to Yeravam ben Nevat, down. Do you think they were less learned, less "ehrlich", or more vulnerable to going off track than these rabbis are? All our lives we learn that what's right is right and what's wrong is wrong, and the Yetzer Horah can win over even learned people, and if people are saying things that are wrong, then there's nothing to discuss, no matter who says them.
Sometimes it may be difficult for the average Jew to know what’s wrong and right, but this time it's a no-brainer.
And nobody has a right to believe things about Judaism unless it is part of Judaism. We have no right to mix our own wishful thinking into our religion. Once we start down that path, we travel straight down, with no end in sight. And, this wrong attitude of "let them believe what they want" is what allowed the next step to happen, where they believe that a dead person is alive.
If someone has a messed up belief in Judaism you do him no favors by letting him believe it. False religious beliefs can do only harm. And sometimes they can be deadly.
Among other things, they prevent Moshiach from coming. As the Baal HaTanya said, when they asked him "If so many Jews are waiting for Moshiach, why hasn't he come yet?" ... said the Baal HaTanya,
... "Well maybe the Moshiach that they are waiting for is not the same Moshiach that Hashem wants to send."
An important lesson.
One more thing. This issue is NOT dividing "The Jewish People," which means all of Klall Yisroel as a whole. To those outside Lubavitch, including Chassidim, this is not an issue. It never was. If this issue is "dividing" anyone, it is only Lubavitch that it is dividing. Please do not think that the whole world is thinking it. And, it is important to note, not all of Lubavitch believes it themselves.
Instead of giving credence to bad beliefs, we should be learning Mussar from this whole debacle. What caused this mess? What COULD cause it? Soul searching is what should be done now, so that such a thing never happens again.
---
You see, I do not doubt that there is sinas chinam in the world - against Lubavitch like against anyone else. I've been to the websites, and I've read the Seforim. I've asked all the questions. There are no justifications for what is happening in certain circles of Lubavitch that any Torah scholar would take seriously. I can understand why you perhaps cannot differentiate between real and concocted Torah, but you do have a responsibility to at least say "I don't know" rather than accuse others of sinas chinam because you cannot answer their questions.
It’s like the guy who gets a traffic ticket and goes into court telling the judge that the police officer is an anti-semite, and goes on and on about all the prejudices he has been subject to because he is a Jew.
"That's all very nice," says the judge. "But DID YOU pass the red light, or not?"
If let's say someone would say "it doesn't sit well with me that the Lubavitcher Rebbe said higiyah zman geulaschem - your time of redemption has arrived - so therefore I decided he's wrong!", what would you say?
Or if someone said, "You know, this whole Kiruv rechokim thing disturbs me. Therefore I say it's wrong". Would that make sense to you?
If one of the Meforshim - we'll take the Ohr HaChaim as a random example - says something that to you is disturbing, don't you think that whatever disturbed you he was already aware of and if it didn't disturb him he had a reason why not?
The Teshuvos Divrei Chaim (The Sanzer Rav ZT"L -- considered one of the greatest, or the greatest - depends who you ask - Chassidishe Rebbe and Torah giant of his time) YD 105 writes about a certain teacher in a school who said that the commentary of the Ohr HaCham HaKodosh was not written with Ruach HaKodesh, that if he really said such a thing, he is an Apikores!
When a doctor tells someone that r"l they have cancer, and they say "Well I don't like that, so I will say it's not true", does that make sense? Or even if there is a disagreement and one doctor says it's cancer and the other says it's not, do you think it makes sense for someone to say "I like the 'not' diagnosis better, so I will go with that"?
Unless you're a doctor, or you've seriously researched the issue at hand, you gotta be crazy to ignore what an expert says, even if you don't like it. Same thing here.
You cannot just decide which Meforshim are right or wrong without either solid proof and authority to do so. It's silly.
---
The Yismach Moshe writes in his commentary on Tehillim that if you point out a specific person as being Moshiach you are violating the oath that G-d made the Jews swear in Gemora kesuvos 111a not to "push" the Geulah in before its time [rather, we must wait for the proper time], the punishment for which, says the Gemora is that Hashem will allow the Jews to be hunted down and killed as if they were animals in the field!
---
If a large group of people come together and name Mashiach, he is not Halachicly considered Mashiach. Although I have heard this from meshichistin, there is no such thing anywhere. It's just another forgery, out of thin air.
---
It’s ridiculous to say "Well I say the Rebbe is Moshiach and you can't prove him not!" because by that logic, we can say I am Moshiach and you can prove me not! The psychoness here is that they invented out of thin air without any reason whatsoever that the Rebbe is moshiach. Now the fact is everyone is NOT Moshiach until you determine that he is. The onus is NOT on those who say anybody is NOT Moshiach but on those who say he IS Moshiach. This is not a scientific theory that works with theorizing and falsification. Even a theory has to have some backing. But these guys aren’t even theorizing, they declared their Rebbe to be the King Redeemer of all Jews.
To do so, before Moshiach is really known, is a terrible sin. As the Yismach Moshe said (quoted above), it is in violation of Hashem's demand that we not begin the end of the Golus until He says so. The punishment for declaring a specific person Moshiach before the real revelation, it says, is that Jews all over the world will be hunted down like animals (that’s a quote) and killed by the Goyim.
Also, it prevents Moshiach's arrival.
So if someone has a fantasy that he WANTS his Rebbe to be Moshiach, that's his business. But to declare him to really be Moshiach, which what these people have done, is a terrible sin, not to mention foolishness.
---
Lubavitch has often ran around making up stories, and purposely misinform Rabbis in order to try to get their support. If the rabbis ever find out what Lubavitch is really doing - as opposed to what they said they are doing - the support is retracted. This happens all the time, but with all the retractions and he-said-he-said rumors flying around confusion still reigns, and that's how these rumors survive.
Example: The following is a translation of a letter written by the Debreciner Rav ZT"L dated Bechukosai 5748:
"Regarding what I wrote on Sunday, Parshas Shemini 5748 supporting the [Chabad] Lag BaOmer parade, and that the honor of Hashem will be enhanced by it, since I have seen that not a single Chareidi rabbi supports the parade, and that the messengers from Lubavitch lied to me about it, and specifically since I subsequently found out that at the parade there will be men and women mixed, and who are not dressed Tzniusdik ... and that the backers of the parade refused to heed the summons to go to a din Torah by the daughter of the Rebbe Rayatz of Lubavitch ZT"L, and they also added sin upon sin by going to secular court without permission of Bais Din, in which they committed an overwhelming and terrible sin, which causes the ears of anyone who hears it to tremble ... therefore, I want nothing to do with them, and I hereby retract what I wrote previously (i.e. my letter of support), and I hereby convey my Torah opinion that where there was supposed to be an increase in the honor of Hashem there will be instead a public desecration of Hashem's name and Bitul Torah, and Cholilah that anybody - man or woman, adult or child - should go to the [Chabad] Lag BaOmer parade...
[Rabbi] Moshe Stern
Debreciner Rav"
And the Satmar Rebbe ZT"L was vehemently opposed to Lubavitch. He said that after he's done with exposing Zionism, his next project is to write a Sefer exposing Lubavitch. In his Divrei Yoel (Tzav) he calls them - including the Rebbe - "idiots" (tipshim) for the idea that because Moshiach told the Baal Shem Tov that in his generation that the spreading of Chasidus is what is needed to bring Moshiach, that today, in our generation, the same thing applies. This, of course, is the Lubavitcher Rebbe's main reason for his Kiruv project. That since the Baal Shem Tov was told that spreading Chasidus would bring Moshaich, so we have to teach Tanya to all the Jews in the world and then Moshiach will come today. Oy. Is there any question why Lubavitch was so opposed by a great Tzadik like that if they have such ideas?? "Tipshim" he calls them. And that's not the worst thing he had to say about contemporary Chabad. He told the Bochurim in his Yeshiva that they may learn Tanya - for it is a holy sefer - but nowadays they have to be very careful since the Lubavitchers today twist the Tanya into ideas that are similar to Zionism (i.e. Meshichism, which, like Zionism, is the ushering in of Geulah behaviors before the proper time).
---
Jacob Neusner is a well-known big Apikores and ignoramus. Almost nothing he says ever makes sense. (And he's written like 100 books - I am not exaggerating - so that's quite a feat!)
His position on Chabad Messianism takes the entire thing much too seriously. It is not a "danger to Judaism", certainly not one of the biggest we face. It is - and was, for much damage is already done - a danger to Chabad and its followers. They also distort Chabad's position, though it's bad enough without any distortions.
That having been said, the book is correct in saying that the Chabad Messianism is an absolutely outrageous distortion of Judaism.
---
If someone believes that the Lubavitcher Rebbe is G-d in a body, like the Rebbe writes, or like that Rabbi Rifkin (quoted elsewhere) writes, then clearly he is an idol worshiper. Even though he thinks he’s following the Torah.
Believing the Rebbe is Moshiach is wrong but does not disqualify a shchita. I know numerous Roshei Yeshiva and Talmidei Chachamim who will not eat Lubavitch shchitah because of the massive amount of Lubavitchers who believe in idol worship. Not all do, but the only reason we are allowed to rely on a shochet in general is because there is not even a prominent minority of disqualified ones. The pokim say explicitly that in a place where there is a prominent minority (miut hamatzui) of unsuited shochtim, you cannot eat from the shchita unless you know that the shochet is not one of them. Certainly if the majority are posul.
So the answer is, it depends on the "metzius". If there is a good chance - even if not a majority - that a given shochet from a given place believes that the Rebbe is G-d, then you cannot eat from that schitah without investigation. If the overwhelming majority do not believe that, then you may rely on it.
---
A lot of Lubavitchers don't eat from Meshichist shechitah. Of course, I can’t tell you what's going on in Shamayim, but its hard to miss the Midah K'neged Midah, where first Lubavitch illegitimately slandered and prohibited someone else's shechitah, and now, they are the only Orthodox group in the world where so many of them won't even eat from their own shechitah.
----
There is no other area where young saplings -teenage boys and girls are taught from birth, distorted versions of Torah and plain lies about opposing Tzadikim (including that they are murders) and history in order for them to grow up to be crooked and deformed giant oak trees in an entire forest of such deformed tress that all think they are THE main source for joy to God in all of Klall Yisroel, and that everyone else - the Lubavitcher Rebbe said this - when Moshiach finally comes, will be sitting in the back of the Chabad Chasidim.
There does not exist in Klall Yisroel such brainwashing and distortion for reality as there does in Lubavitch. Here’s an example of how these people are brought up. This is from a Chabad website designed for very young children (the comments in the brackets are mine)http://www.rabbiriddle.org/rabbi-riddle/03-15.htm
"This week's Torah Portion, V'Yechi, contains the passing of our forefather Jacob. However, our Sages say, "Jacob our Father did not die. Just as his children are alive, so is he alive!" This teaches us that the soul continues even after the body passes away." {No, it does not. All it teaches is that Yaakov - and only Yaakov - even after his passing from this world, is as alive as his children who are still here. They are learning teaching just opposite - that just as Yaakov was alive his children are too. The Chazal say Yaakov exclusively lo meis. They just extended it to everyone. Look where this is headed...}
Our Sages teach that only the body returns to dust. The Jewish soul (as well as the soul of a righteous non-Jew) According to most opinions, never "dies" or is destroyed. {This is just not true at all, and misleading even according to what they want to say. But it is not the particular point of brainwashing that I want to point out here, so it will have to wait for another time. } When it has finished its job in this world, it simply continues in the next! Righteous people (tzaddikim) in the next world can continue to help people in this world. Even after he passed way, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi returned to his home and made Kiddush for his family on Shabbos!" {This is where their distortions are designed to lead. Rav Yehuda Hanasi was resurrected in a body and returned to this world as a physical human being, like everyone else. In such a case, he was able to make Kiddush. But this does NOT apply to tzadikim who are not resurrected from the dead in physical bodies.}
The idea here is obvious - teach little kids that the Lubavitcher Rebbe, like Yaakov Avinu, is still alive, and like Rav Yehuda HaNasi, returns to "continue to help his people."
This is what little kids are taught. And there is much, much more. It is no wonder that by the time they are teenagers, and you explain to them that hello, your rebbe is dead, you don't say shlita, he is not moshiach, he is not g-d in a body, the bais hamikdash will not be built first in 770 and then shipped to eretz yisroel (their rebbe said that too), they act as if you are going against the entire Torah. Their torah, true. But that's not the same Torah that was taught for the past 3,000 years since Har Sinai, including chasidus.
This material is not to show someone is wrong, but rather, in the interest of not ignoring the misguidedness of our fellow Jews, to correct the endless stream of distortions that have been fed to innocent fellow Jews.
Would you rather we gave up on them?
---
Nobody said Rav Nachman ZTL is still alive; they merely follow his teachings. There are those in Breslov who are a bit over the edge and they are indeed considered crazy. And the main difference is that Rav Nachman himself never caused such behavior. Whereas the Lubavitcher Rebbe did. Rav Nachman insisted that they don’t even refer to him as an official "Rebbe" (you will never heard him be called The Breslover Rebbe); whereas the Lubavitcher Rebbe said that a Rebbe is G-d clothed in a body. Rav Nachman never twisted the Halacha or Hashkafa, whereas the Lubavitcher Rebbe did.
---
There is no such Gemora that says "when you have a choice to be mehudar in mitzvot or do some-thing very bidieved because your Rebbe told you to, you should follow your Rebbe to show you respect him." Even the Lubavitcher Rebbe did not quote any such thing in his sichah when he tried to explain this. There is no Halachah anywhere. Acting like your rebbe, honoring your rebbe, or any of that is no heter not to sleep in the sukkah.
---
If you will concede that "learned rabbis" are making no sense when they say the rebbe is alive then clearly they CAN say something stupid. These are the same people who once gave us "logical" reasons that the rebbe will definitely not die. They are also the same ones whose "logical" reasons for saying the rebbe is moshiach included the fact that moshiach "is a regular living person" (remember when they used to say that?).
There is no logic in this whole thing. There is only wishful thinking.
What makes you think that a learned rabbi cannot end up in la la land? Throughout history, most deviant groups were started by seriously learned rabbis. From Korach to Yeravam ben Nevat, down. Do you think they were less learned, less "ehrlich", or more vulnerable to going off track than these rabbis are? All our lives we learn that what's right is right and what's wrong is wrong, and the Yetzer Horah can win over even learned people, and if people are saying things that are wrong, then there's nothing to discuss, no matter who says them.
Sometimes it may be difficult for the average Jew to know what’s wrong and right, but this time it's a no-brainer.
And nobody has a right to believe things about Judaism unless it is part of Judaism. We have no right to mix our own wishful thinking into our religion. Once we start down that path, we travel straight down, with no end in sight. And, this wrong attitude of "let them believe what they want" is what allowed the next step to happen, where they believe that a dead person is alive.
If someone has a messed up belief in Judaism you do him no favors by letting him believe it. False religious beliefs can do only harm. And sometimes they can be deadly.
Among other things, they prevent Moshiach from coming. As the Baal HaTanya said, when they asked him "If so many Jews are waiting for Moshiach, why hasn't he come yet?" ... said the Baal HaTanya,
... "Well maybe the Moshiach that they are waiting for is not the same Moshiach that Hashem wants to send."
An important lesson.
One more thing. This issue is NOT dividing "The Jewish People," which means all of Klall Yisroel as a whole. To those outside Lubavitch, including Chassidim, this is not an issue. It never was. If this issue is "dividing" anyone, it is only Lubavitch that it is dividing. Please do not think that the whole world is thinking it. And, it is important to note, not all of Lubavitch believes it themselves.
Instead of giving credence to bad beliefs, we should be learning Mussar from this whole debacle. What caused this mess? What COULD cause it? Soul searching is what should be done now, so that such a thing never happens again.
---
You see, I do not doubt that there is sinas chinam in the world - against Lubavitch like against anyone else. I've been to the websites, and I've read the Seforim. I've asked all the questions. There are no justifications for what is happening in certain circles of Lubavitch that any Torah scholar would take seriously. I can understand why you perhaps cannot differentiate between real and concocted Torah, but you do have a responsibility to at least say "I don't know" rather than accuse others of sinas chinam because you cannot answer their questions.
It’s like the guy who gets a traffic ticket and goes into court telling the judge that the police officer is an anti-semite, and goes on and on about all the prejudices he has been subject to because he is a Jew.
"That's all very nice," says the judge. "But DID YOU pass the red light, or not?"
If let's say someone would say "it doesn't sit well with me that the Lubavitcher Rebbe said higiyah zman geulaschem - your time of redemption has arrived - so therefore I decided he's wrong!", what would you say?
Or if someone said, "You know, this whole Kiruv rechokim thing disturbs me. Therefore I say it's wrong". Would that make sense to you?
If one of the Meforshim - we'll take the Ohr HaChaim as a random example - says something that to you is disturbing, don't you think that whatever disturbed you he was already aware of and if it didn't disturb him he had a reason why not?
The Teshuvos Divrei Chaim (The Sanzer Rav ZT"L -- considered one of the greatest, or the greatest - depends who you ask - Chassidishe Rebbe and Torah giant of his time) YD 105 writes about a certain teacher in a school who said that the commentary of the Ohr HaCham HaKodosh was not written with Ruach HaKodesh, that if he really said such a thing, he is an Apikores!
When a doctor tells someone that r"l they have cancer, and they say "Well I don't like that, so I will say it's not true", does that make sense? Or even if there is a disagreement and one doctor says it's cancer and the other says it's not, do you think it makes sense for someone to say "I like the 'not' diagnosis better, so I will go with that"?
Unless you're a doctor, or you've seriously researched the issue at hand, you gotta be crazy to ignore what an expert says, even if you don't like it. Same thing here.
You cannot just decide which Meforshim are right or wrong without either solid proof and authority to do so. It's silly.
---
The Yismach Moshe writes in his commentary on Tehillim that if you point out a specific person as being Moshiach you are violating the oath that G-d made the Jews swear in Gemora kesuvos 111a not to "push" the Geulah in before its time [rather, we must wait for the proper time], the punishment for which, says the Gemora is that Hashem will allow the Jews to be hunted down and killed as if they were animals in the field!
---
If a large group of people come together and name Mashiach, he is not Halachicly considered Mashiach. Although I have heard this from meshichistin, there is no such thing anywhere. It's just another forgery, out of thin air.
---
It’s ridiculous to say "Well I say the Rebbe is Moshiach and you can't prove him not!" because by that logic, we can say I am Moshiach and you can prove me not! The psychoness here is that they invented out of thin air without any reason whatsoever that the Rebbe is moshiach. Now the fact is everyone is NOT Moshiach until you determine that he is. The onus is NOT on those who say anybody is NOT Moshiach but on those who say he IS Moshiach. This is not a scientific theory that works with theorizing and falsification. Even a theory has to have some backing. But these guys aren’t even theorizing, they declared their Rebbe to be the King Redeemer of all Jews.
To do so, before Moshiach is really known, is a terrible sin. As the Yismach Moshe said (quoted above), it is in violation of Hashem's demand that we not begin the end of the Golus until He says so. The punishment for declaring a specific person Moshiach before the real revelation, it says, is that Jews all over the world will be hunted down like animals (that’s a quote) and killed by the Goyim.
Also, it prevents Moshiach's arrival.
So if someone has a fantasy that he WANTS his Rebbe to be Moshiach, that's his business. But to declare him to really be Moshiach, which what these people have done, is a terrible sin, not to mention foolishness.
---
Lubavitch has often ran around making up stories, and purposely misinform Rabbis in order to try to get their support. If the rabbis ever find out what Lubavitch is really doing - as opposed to what they said they are doing - the support is retracted. This happens all the time, but with all the retractions and he-said-he-said rumors flying around confusion still reigns, and that's how these rumors survive.
Example: The following is a translation of a letter written by the Debreciner Rav ZT"L dated Bechukosai 5748:
"Regarding what I wrote on Sunday, Parshas Shemini 5748 supporting the [Chabad] Lag BaOmer parade, and that the honor of Hashem will be enhanced by it, since I have seen that not a single Chareidi rabbi supports the parade, and that the messengers from Lubavitch lied to me about it, and specifically since I subsequently found out that at the parade there will be men and women mixed, and who are not dressed Tzniusdik ... and that the backers of the parade refused to heed the summons to go to a din Torah by the daughter of the Rebbe Rayatz of Lubavitch ZT"L, and they also added sin upon sin by going to secular court without permission of Bais Din, in which they committed an overwhelming and terrible sin, which causes the ears of anyone who hears it to tremble ... therefore, I want nothing to do with them, and I hereby retract what I wrote previously (i.e. my letter of support), and I hereby convey my Torah opinion that where there was supposed to be an increase in the honor of Hashem there will be instead a public desecration of Hashem's name and Bitul Torah, and Cholilah that anybody - man or woman, adult or child - should go to the [Chabad] Lag BaOmer parade...
[Rabbi] Moshe Stern
Debreciner Rav"
And the Satmar Rebbe ZT"L was vehemently opposed to Lubavitch. He said that after he's done with exposing Zionism, his next project is to write a Sefer exposing Lubavitch. In his Divrei Yoel (Tzav) he calls them - including the Rebbe - "idiots" (tipshim) for the idea that because Moshiach told the Baal Shem Tov that in his generation that the spreading of Chasidus is what is needed to bring Moshiach, that today, in our generation, the same thing applies. This, of course, is the Lubavitcher Rebbe's main reason for his Kiruv project. That since the Baal Shem Tov was told that spreading Chasidus would bring Moshaich, so we have to teach Tanya to all the Jews in the world and then Moshiach will come today. Oy. Is there any question why Lubavitch was so opposed by a great Tzadik like that if they have such ideas?? "Tipshim" he calls them. And that's not the worst thing he had to say about contemporary Chabad. He told the Bochurim in his Yeshiva that they may learn Tanya - for it is a holy sefer - but nowadays they have to be very careful since the Lubavitchers today twist the Tanya into ideas that are similar to Zionism (i.e. Meshichism, which, like Zionism, is the ushering in of Geulah behaviors before the proper time).
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Jacob Neusner is a well-known big Apikores and ignoramus. Almost nothing he says ever makes sense. (And he's written like 100 books - I am not exaggerating - so that's quite a feat!)
His position on Chabad Messianism takes the entire thing much too seriously. It is not a "danger to Judaism", certainly not one of the biggest we face. It is - and was, for much damage is already done - a danger to Chabad and its followers. They also distort Chabad's position, though it's bad enough without any distortions.
That having been said, the book is correct in saying that the Chabad Messianism is an absolutely outrageous distortion of Judaism.
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If someone believes that the Lubavitcher Rebbe is G-d in a body, like the Rebbe writes, or like that Rabbi Rifkin (quoted elsewhere) writes, then clearly he is an idol worshiper. Even though he thinks he’s following the Torah.
Believing the Rebbe is Moshiach is wrong but does not disqualify a shchita. I know numerous Roshei Yeshiva and Talmidei Chachamim who will not eat Lubavitch shchitah because of the massive amount of Lubavitchers who believe in idol worship. Not all do, but the only reason we are allowed to rely on a shochet in general is because there is not even a prominent minority of disqualified ones. The pokim say explicitly that in a place where there is a prominent minority (miut hamatzui) of unsuited shochtim, you cannot eat from the shchita unless you know that the shochet is not one of them. Certainly if the majority are posul.
So the answer is, it depends on the "metzius". If there is a good chance - even if not a majority - that a given shochet from a given place believes that the Rebbe is G-d, then you cannot eat from that schitah without investigation. If the overwhelming majority do not believe that, then you may rely on it.
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A lot of Lubavitchers don't eat from Meshichist shechitah. Of course, I can’t tell you what's going on in Shamayim, but its hard to miss the Midah K'neged Midah, where first Lubavitch illegitimately slandered and prohibited someone else's shechitah, and now, they are the only Orthodox group in the world where so many of them won't even eat from their own shechitah.
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Labels: Lubavitch
posted by Moderator at 1:32 PM
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