Friday, March 12, 2010

Maybe it's me...


(Chosson saying al cheit BeYom HaChasunah.) Mottel's blog

Maybe I am too sensitive, but that's what makes me the person I am. It's not the most perfect makeup of a person ever created but it's a lot better than some of the other nasty, bitter, unkind and rude creations out there on G-d's green earth. Maybe I do owe RYGB an apology, especially after he opened his home to me, albeit only for some watermelon on a Shabbos afternoon. Maybe it was the fact that his comment came at the heels of the other ones who were poking and prodding at the Rosh's time of grief and sorrow. I know RYG is a great, warm-hearted guy, so to him I'll definitely apologize. As far as the other nosey bodies who couldn't help but ask if he's Lubavitch, his wife, his kids, how much? All I can say is get a life, a life of your own, that is, not based on other people's ups and downs, but based on your doings and accomplishments. Yes, people can make life's changes 50 years ago and still stand by their decisions, even if some of the circumstances have changed.

Oh, and I attended another non-hesped levaya today. I think the rules need to be changed, Lubavitchers. There's No time to mourn, and people want and need to be inspired. The Rosh did it in a very non-hesped way, why can't it be done other niftorim as well?!


Oh! and for your Shabbos table; a mayseh with the Modzitzer Rebbe and Reb Chaim Ayzer zt"l about kashes affen eybershten..

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

In the pre world war generation the Lithuanian and Russian Jewry were lucky to have Manhigim as Reb Chaim (according to the Zevin version)Reb Chaim Oizer and The Chofetz Chaim, that had Ahavas Yisroel for every Jew in any shape or form. But after the war all of them are maybe great talmidie chachomim but no klal Yisroel leadership qualification, I saw lately in a biography of the Reb Avrhom Shapira the late Chief Rabbi a real Litvak, that Klal Yisroel as a whole can only be lead by Admorim, Roshie Yeshivahs are not qualified for that, they are good for their Koslie Beis hamedrash, but that doesn"t resemble Keneseth Yisroel.

Anonymous said...

Now i know why there is no hesped in lubavitch,
one opportunity less to complain against Hashem
HoIdu Lashem Kirei Bishmoi

Anonymous said...

HT,
Why don't you focus more on Reb Ezra, what made him become Lubavitch, when did he discover his Lubavitchness, and how that did or did not affect his relationship with all of those Litvoks.

If Reb Ahron said he was the BIGGEST eylu he ever met and he still went for the REbbe, thaat means the Rebbe is such a big genious, no? simple arithmatic.

ok ok.... just cheperen.

didn't you make choizek of RYB some while back? could be that was before the watermellon, who knows. he thinks he understands Chabad Torah, look what he does with Reb Shimon and all the lumdisheh mehalchim, he makes a mashal with a tea and a spoon and a sugar and poof! we now have a taste of all the mehalchim

really he is a kal who was never michunech (not saying people weren't mechanech him; but he isn't michunech) one can tell that right away. Plus, he thinks big concepts are within his grasp. They are somewhat within his grasp, he means well and is intelligent, but his toyes -and this were his kalus shtelt zich oys - is he thinks he has the whole picture when he only is skimming the surface. Not because he has a healthy ego (which I suspect he does) but because he doesn't have chashivus for the breidkeit and depth of the inyanim and of Teyreh; it's like a 15 year old Snag bucher who thinks he is a velt's lamdon when he never heard of a tzurus erva; it's a very big katnus that he is koyllel in zich.

Not the pshat he thinks he knows the whole mehlach, but the pshat, that he thinks that whatever he knows - is the whole mehalch, vedal

Fech.

Hirshel Tzig - הירשל ציג said...

I realize that the Goyim are the ones with the taynes here, but still.

gedalya said...

"Maybe I do owe RYGB an apology, especially after he opened his home to me, albeit only for some watermelon on a Shabbos afternoon."

I find this comment to be snide and frankly quite silly.You owe YGB an apology because you posted a nasty remark about him for no reason.

Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer said...

Hey! At least provide the URL for the cup of tea thing!

http://www.aishdas.org/rygb/derachim.htm

It was a sidebar to my essay on Telshe:

http://www.aishdas.org/rygb/telshe.htm

Anonymous said...

HT,
I assume u were @ the Bassie Palace levaya. What a loss. A woman who always had a kind word, never complained, and for the last few yrs was mikabel yissurim b'ahava. I know the family quite well, and the aibishter should give koichos to her husband YB"LCH Moishe to bring up the children as she would have wanted.

Abt hespeidim, @ my father's levaya there wasn't a single word spoken, and this was per his instruction a yr earlier to my older brother. Afterwards, some chosive litvishe rabbonim came to be menachem ovel, and they said it was a genius move. Either u can go on for hours and barely scratch the surface of who the person was or u got a rov hacking a cheinik and making a tzaddik out of some guy who barely showed up in shul, a baal chessed out of the town miser and a tzaddekes out of the town nafka. I've been to levayas and seen this over and over.

I'm not sure why we don't make hespeidim. IIRC, it's related to what's brought down in seforim that men mont fun di neshama things that are said abt him/her that can't be substantiated. This is also the maiseh with the Shpole Zaide(?) that he came to a town and used an ax to destroy a matzeiva bec he said the neshama has no peace bec of what they wrote on him. Outside NY, it seems lubabs r making some speeches if not a fullblown hesped.

Anonymous said...

"Maybe I do owe RYGB an apology, especially after he opened his home to me, albeit only for some watermelon on a Shabbos afternoon."
That has nothing to do with the fight it is RYGB Yekkiness=Watermelon and the
Tzig's Hungarianess=Full meal or at lest some Kokosh or other Hungarian Pastries as a requirement for any social meeting.

Anonymous said...

Hirshel,
Sorry but you didn"t read it well, they write that the jew is asking questions too

Anonymous said...

YGB and his Svengali Micha Berger are baalei machloikes of the lowest order.

YGB's video on Lubavitch was pure sinas chinom.

HE should go to the Ohel and apologize, but really he is not even important enough outside of his own mind that anyone except the Berger Aish Das coterie and whoever he is paid to teach any given year listens to him.

Yakov said...

Anon. is dead wrong. YGB and Michah are NOT ba'alei machlokes. Both mean well. Both are fine bnei Torah. Their basic problem is that each of them thinks hismelf to be "ish ho'eshkolot" - that they have mastered and know all different derochim, including chassidut, and therefore set out to pontifictae about them.

Their understanding of pnimiyut haTorah and chasidut is at best superficial (including YGB's constant references to R. Tzodok's writings in which he regards himself an authority). They don't realize that the texts of pnimiyut haTorah and chassidut are not like mussar-seforim which are all written "al pi sechel enushi" etc., nor are they anthologies of incisive insights and insopiring vertlech, but are highly nuanced and their proper understanding demands a grasp of basic premises in kabalah (kisvei Arizal,Shaloh, Megaleh Amukos, sifrei Ibn Gabbai etc.). They read and cite them like baalei batim and therefore often miss the ultimate point, and think they can draw analogies to their personal notions. This applies especially to Toras Habesht, the Maggid, Bnei Yisoschor and sifrei Chabad. Hence their non-mischievous but still mistaken readings.

The only thing that disturbs me about these two is their presumptuousness in thinking that they can speak authoritatively aout these matters - where anyone familiar with and well-versed in chassidic tradition would sit at least shivo nekiyim on every vort and diyuk of gedolei hachassidus. (The same criticism applies to YGB's hero RA"A Kaplan (Telz-Berlin) who also was way off the mark in his understanding of these texts.)

So let's cut them some slack. They mean well but are mentally challenged in their very approach.

Anonymous said...

Anon,9:39
Its amazing how thin skinned certain people are, but they are big Machers on others, especially on Gedolie Yisroel that are dear and holy in the eyes of tens of thousands of Yiddishe Kinder. I don"t see the need for apology, its the opposite, we have to do the possuk Vehokai Oisoim ... I remember vaguely seeing years ago a Kesef Hokodoshim on Shulchan Orech that if someone beats up another Yid that was provoked by degrading his Rebbe then he is poter,I don"t believe in violence but you see how far the halacha goes on that matter.

Anonymous said...

Micha Berger is a real Misnagid.
YGB is a nice guy beneath his
klipah.

Shimon said...

"(The same criticism applies to YGB's hero RA"A Kaplan (Telz-Berlin) who also was way off the mark in his understanding of these texts.)"

Well, this did it for me!
Now someone like yourself Yakov,is criticizing a brilliant person like R'Avrohom Eliyohu Kaplan as "not understanding" chasiduth.
What are your credentials,Yakov?
p.s, you sound like a really ignorant BT who has been "taught" some chasduth in English .

Yakov said...

Shimon - you ask for my credentials? Just what are yours to dispute what i said? I at least have read RAEK's essay, and I am familiar with Chabad. Neither of these - most obviously - apply to you. RAAK was indeed a brilliant individual, but being expert in his areas of "Rabbinics" and Mussar does not make him an expert on chassidus. Just read his essay and see the extremely limited knowledge he had of it - including the principal sources of Baal Hatanya and the Temach Tzedek, never mind the Mitteler Rebbe.

YGB, because of his justified admiration of RAEK, commits the basic logical fallacy of relying on him for everything he wrote - even if that was not his expertise.

thanbo said...

Whenever I've been to a funeral on a no-hesped day, Lubavitch rav or not, the rav has always said "today we don't say hespedim, because it's ROsh CHodehs/Isru Chag/whatever, but the children would like to say a few words.

It strikes me as yet another disclaimer situation, like shabbos hi milizok, but we're still praying for the sick.

I didn't know Lubavitch didn't say hespedim, funerals in my old community always had people speaking about the deceased. Of course, it wasn't technically a Lubavitch shul, just a Lubavitch rav.