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2.12.2007

LUBAVITCH-----atzmus umehus

Shragy Posted - 28 January 2002 17:38

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What exactly is wrong with the proof that the Lubavitcher Rebbe said in his sichah about Atzmus U'mehus? He wasn't even speaking about himself; rather he was speaking about the previous Rebbe.

He, in fact also said, that this is not being said as the opinion of chassidus, rather it was his feeling to his Rebbe, who was a connection bringing him closer to Hashem. Also, he didn't say that the previous Rebbe IS G-d, only that he is like G-d. Do not leave out vital info. I myself am not a chossid, just a person who is disgusted by what other Jews are doing.


MODERATOR Posted - 28 January 2002 22:14

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His father in law was still a human being. That makes it avodah zorah. And for the record, he said it applies to any Rebbe that people go to for praying to Hashem. The reason that a Rebbe - in general he said - is not a go-between, is because a Rebbe - generically - is G-d in a body.

The fact that this has no source is not surprising, but makes it worse, not better. Regardless of where the Lubavitcher Rebbe dug this tidbit up from - his heart, mind, or dreams - if he believes it, it is still avodah zorah. Makes no diff where it comes from.

And no. He did not say a Rebbe is "like" G-d. (Although one of the 13 Ikarim is that "There is nothing like Him at all".) He said a Rebbe is "atzmuso umahuso alein, vi ehr hut zich areingeshtelt in a guf" - quote: "The essence and self of G-d Himself, placed in a physical body."

Nothing was left out, and all this info doesn’t change the fact that this is still idolatry.


mo Posted - 04 February 2002 2:09

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Dear Moderator!

Is it OK if I would print out the contents of this forum and give to the friend of mine ?

It will not be sold or used for some other purposes.

Another question : what do you think about compiling a FAQ from this

forum and putting it on your site? People keep on repeating same questions and it's a waste of time to answer again and again the same answers.


MODERATOR Posted - 04 February 2002 2:12

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Yes, its not a problem, you can print it out, as long as you don’t mass reproduce it or sell it or anything like that. And please tell the person you’re giving it to where you got it from.

But I would suggest you wait a little while, I have numerous backlogged posts on this forum that I will get to shortly.

FAQs are a good idea, but I don’t have the time, honestly. If someone was to collect FAQs and the location of the answers, I would gladly post it.


Beautman Posted - 06 February 2002 15:30

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The views you expressed that Lubavitch is wrong to send shluchim out from a makom torah seemed to make sense.

But now I just read an editorial by Rabbi Avi Sharfman (for those who don't know, he's a Director of Agudath Israel of America) advocating for the creating an organization to send kollel guys from the New York area off to small towns without observant residents. He calls it a "holy opportunity to be a magnet for local Jewish neshomas."

Other than that Rabbi Sharfman's plan envisions sending a couple minyanim of people en masse to the out of town communities, why would this be qualitatively different and more acceptable than what Lubavitch has been criticized for doing?


MODERATOR Posted - 06 February 2002 15:43

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It's Rabbi Shafran.

This was discussed. That is talking about sending clusters of creating Torah communities in diff places by sending groups of Torah families there. It does not endorse sending a single family out without any support group to live themselves without a minyan of shomer shabbos Jews among the Goyim.


BenZvi Posted - 13 February 2002 19:13

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Moderator, thank you for everything you have said about Lubavitch and the late Rebbe. Thirty years ago this Purim, I first knowingly spoke to an Orthodox Jew, a shaliach from Lubavitch House in Minnesota. After a few visits I got the feeling that they wanted me to become not just a shomer shabbos, but a Lubavitcher. Had I not met a family of misnagdishe Western European Jews, I doubt I would have become a ba’al teshuva.

I now understand many things which puzzled me over the years. For example, why Satmar and Belz send their finest talmidim to Lakewood and Mir, but not Lubavitch. Why there are virtually no Lubavitchers who denounce the meshichistim. (The Rebbe was obviously a meshichist himself.) Why they alone insist that the Rebbe was infallible. Why they can even say his body has not decayed. (Perhaps they should put him on display at 770, just like Lenin in Red Square.) Why they put their minhagim above halacha. Why the Rebbe didn't appoint a successor.

"The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones." I hope that won't be the case with the Rebbe. I am grateful to him for having brought me and thousands of others to Torah, even if his motivation was impure.

Gedolei Torah saw through the Rebbe from the very start. Rav Kotler said, "Here is one who will appear to do great things for Yiddishkeit, but he's the most dangerous man in America." However, the Moderator is the first person I know who explained in detail how the Rebbe had perverted Chassidus and engaged in downright kefirah. Why didn't you say something sooner? Even Rabbi Berger doesn't come right out and show how the Rebbe was himself a meshichist. Perhaps it's like Enron. So long as it's successful, nobody wants to rock the boat.


Shragy Posted - 14 February 2002 18:44

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Thank you, I suppose Shimon Bar Yochai was also an Apikores, cause he said that he himself was G-d!! Don't even say that you can't compare the Friediker Rebbe to Shimon Bar Yochai or Moshe Rabbenu, the fact is that they too, are human being of flesh and blood. The only conclusion to draw is that a person that is Bottul to Hashem and is doing a Shlichus of Hashem is, in fact, a manifestation of G-d in a body. Let's not sit here and decide who is, and who isn't bottul and let's just take it like this!


Writing Posted - 14 February 2002 18:44

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What a gross misinterpretation of a statement of Chassidus!

Let's clarify: Chassidus, specifically Chabad Chassidus, states that the Neshamah which every Jew has is a Chelek Elokah MiMaal Mamosh, an exact reflection of G-dliness. Which could mean, in one way of looking at it, just as when you look in a mirror and see yourself, that reflection is not you, yet is has all of your mannerisms etc. So too the Neshamah, while obviously not Hashem himself, has all of the "characteristics" of Hashem. And Chassidus goes on to explain what we know through Kabbalah, that lower levels of G-dliness have 10 Sefiros, and there are higher levels, and all are included, reflected in the Neshamah.

What that means, sort of practically, as practical as spirituality can be, is that a person can either let their Neshamah shine through, by letting their body do only what Hashem wants, or Chas Vesholem conceal the Neshamah and the Neshamah will not shine through.

Moshe Rabbeinu, however, was higher on 2 counts. He A) was a complete Tzaddik, and therefore his Neshamah shined through and was completely noticeable. Everything he did was based on the Neshamah. B) His Neshamah itself was of a higher level. So that your average Joe's, or Jew's, Neshamah even when completely revealed, only reveals a lower level of G-dliness. However, when Moshe Rabbeinu revealed his Neshamah, it was a revelation of the ultimate of Hashem coming through a human body.

On an aside: Chassidus does not look at Tzaddikim as being made in the sense that anyone can just work hard enough, do everything right, and become a Tzaddik. You would then be a Tzaddik in the sense of doing everything B'Tzedek, but not necessarily turning in to a different person. This is called a Benoni in Chassidus. A true Tzaddik is someone who was given a special Neshamah and always acts in accordance with his Neshamah. This is the basis of Tanya, and is based on Gemarah.

So the Rebbe's statement was merely that the Previous Rebbe, being a continuation of Moshe Rabbeinu, as Kabbalah states that every generation has a representation of Moshe Rabbeinu, has a Neshamah which is based on Atsmus UMehus of Hashem, and not an average Neshamah. So that his entire being was attuned to the ultimate will of Hashem and expressed that will.

It seems interesting that one can give an opinion on Atsmus UMehus without having studied it in depth. It's similar to when this issue was first spread through Israeli secular papers, with those of hate to Lubavitch stating that the Lubavitcher Rebbe said that he is Atsmus Umehus Melubash Beguf Gashmi, and this is idol worship.

It was interesting that those ads had to add vowels, Nekudos, to the words that were in a huge typeset. Could it be because not only did those paying for the ad not know what Atsmus Umehus is, they assumed that your average Israeli wouldn't even be able to read it properly without vowels? Perhaps as Atzamot? The Rebbe is bones? I would certainly hope he had bones! And perhaps they themselves had not been able to read it originally, and therefore felt a need to spell it out with vowels!


MODERATOR Posted - 15 February 2002 17:57

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Shragy,

What the Lubavitcher Rebbe said has nothing to do with RSHB"I or any other source. Even though the Lubavitcher Rebbe did quote those Chazals as support, they do not provide any such thing.

The RSHB"I statement, as well as others where a human being (including Yaakov Avinu) is referred to with the title "G-d" is explained by Rabbeinu Bachya, a Rishon, to mean not that the human is G-d at all. Chas V'SHolom. But merely, he is entitled to be referred to with G-d's name, since he is doing G-d's work.

Like if someone is reading a message from the President, you may say "The President is delivering a message to the people". This does not make the speaker into the President. It means that he represents the President.

Or if an American ambassador in the UN votes a certain way, you might say "America voted like this..." even though it was the ambassador, not America, who voted.

So too, when someone does G-d's work, he can be referred to as "G-d". This does not mean he is G-d at all, no more than the reader of the President's message is the President.

But now comes the Lubavitcher Rebbe and claims that these statements mean that the human is G-d Himself. Chas v’sholom! They say no such thing.

And as far as his other "source", where Moshe says he will provide rain etc., that too, does not mean c"v that Moshe is G-d, but rather that shefa (blessing) comes to the world using the Tzadik as a conduit. This is a common idea in Kabbalah and Chasidus. Moshe is like the pipeline where Hashem's Brachah reaches the world. It does not mean Moshe is the giver of rain c"v.

It's like where you might say "The mailman came today with my paycheck". You don’t mean that mailman is the on who gave you the money but merely that he delivered it.

So to when Moshe says he will give rain, it means he is the delivery person, not that he is G-d.

Writing,

What the Lubavitcher Rebbe said has nothing to do with any of the teachings you mentioned.

Part of the problem with Lubavitch is that they have no idea what is Chasidus, and what is plain Judaism. To say "Chasidus teaches" that every Jew has a chelek elokah mima'al is like saying "Chasidus teaches that G-d created the world in 7 days, the last of which was Shabbos."

Uh, no. This is not Chasidus, this is plain Judaism. The statement is in the Zohar, and quoted in all Misnagdishe writings, as well as Chasidic. If we don’t know what Chasidus is, it is not likely we will be able to understand its intricacies.

(And by the way, when the Tanya quotes a source for this from the Zohar, commenting on the posuk "And G-d blew into his nostrils a breath of life", that "He Who blows, blows from Himself", it is still a mystery to this day where in the Zohar it says this. It is nowhere in the Zohar to be found. The statement is in the Sefer HaPliah, but not in the Zohar. Another Chasidishe Sefer wants to interpret a different Zohar to arrive at the same conclusion, but as a quote, it is nowhere to be found. One of the big mysteries of the Tanya is where he got this Zohar from. Of course, the Baal HaTanya surely had something in mind when he wrote this, but what it is, is a big mystery.)

The difference between what these teachings say versus what the Lubavitcher Rebbe says is as follows:

If Reuven donates his kidney to Shimon, Shimon has a piece of Reuven in him, but he does not become Reuven. he is still Shimon with a piece of Reuven inside.

So too whatever piece of Hashem we have in us - on whatever level - it does not change us into Hashem. We are still us. Just with a part of Hashem inside.

But in order for the Lubavitcher Rebbe's point to be valid, this would not be enough. For even if you have the highest level of soul in you, part of Hashem Himself, since you are still you and not Hashem, bringing requests to you as a Rebbe would still constitute a memutza (go between), which the Lubavitcher Rebbe wants to be untrue.

So he has to make the Rebbe not just a Rebbe with a part of Hashem inside him, but he has to transform the identity of the Rebbe from Rebbe to G-d Himself. That is the only way he will not be a go-between. That is clear from his "sources" (sic) where he would like Tzadikim to be called "G-d" or Moshe Rabbeinu referring to himself as G-d. The Tzadik is NOT merely identified as a Tzadik with G-d inside, but he is identified as G-d Himself, merely clothed in the body of a Tzadik. There is a big, big difference.

This is why, as is recorded in David Berger's book, a Chabad Mashpia in a certain school in Crown Heights had a poster of the Rebbe hung on the Mizrach wall of the classroom, towards which the students pray. When asked about the clear violation of Halachah involved - it is prohibited to pray toward a picture - the Mashpia answered that that Halachah only applies to regular humans. But the Rebbe is actually G-d in a body, so it is really G-d they are praying towards, not a human.

You should also be aware that there are Lubavithcers who understand the Rebbe's statement of Atzmus Umahus in a body completely different than you do - even though you are mistaken as well. They take it to refer to the Lubavitcher Rebbe only and nobody else in history - not Moshe, not David HaMelech - nobody. The following is a quote from a booklet authored by a Rabbi Zushe Rivkin "In honor of the Rebbe shlita - Melech HaMoshiach":

"This is what Moshiach is, as the Rebbe shlita said at the beginning of his reign, 'that a Rebbe is G-d clothed in a physical body" [atzmus ain sof hislavesh b'guf gashmi!!!] This concept appeared in our generation only, since that is Moshiach...for all the Tzadikim beginning from Adam HaRishon reached high levels of connections with Hashem, but in Moshiach will be completed the purpose of the world, namely, 'G-d wanted to find a place to live in the lower realm', and therefore only in him [Moshiach] does He [G-d] clothe His self and His essence, just as a person lives with his whole essence and self in a house, so too the created existence is a home for the Real Existence [i.e. G-d], and this concept happens in actuality with regard to Moshiach. This is what is meant by the phrase "A Rebbi is the self of the Ain Sof clothed in a physical body."

Feh.

BenZvi,

I just read Rabbi Berger's book yesterday. He does blame the Rebbe for the Meshichists but very apologetically. He refers to the Rebbe's statements, which clearly indicate that he is Moshiach, as hard to believe and disturbing, but he stops short of calling the Rebbe a Meshichist, for whatever reason.

Rabbi Berger seems to be an expert in Jewish-Christian theological relationships, contrasts and interaction, and is tackling the Meshichist problem from the vantage point of its similarity to Christianity. His book does not seem to intend on explaining where Lubavitch veered away from Chasidus or how Chabad can be vulnerable to such blasphemous beliefs.

1 comment:

cmbc said...

i dont believe that story with the mashpia... know why? because i go to the largest lubavitch girls school in the US... and we have no picture of the Rebbe in our shul where we daven. a girl once asked the principal why not.. and u know wat she said?
because its ossur to pray in front of an image.
please.
stop generalizing.
in every sect their are extremist. no matter where u go.