Did Reb Moshe Shapiro ever sit down with רבי יואל כהן or any other ליובאוויטשער חסיד?

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So we discussed RMS yesterday, backdating the post to soon after his passing. I got all kinds of messages, both here and in private, how I was asking a silly question re: why did he never mention Chabad. He learned and loved sifrei Chabad but never would he mention them by name in public. The more respectful ones will tell me that it wasn't what he was preaching, so if he did mention Chabad he would use pareve terms like צדיקי אמת or מקובלים. He was a Litvisher, so why mention Chabad. OK. Whatever. Others, those who have big mouths, speak how "today's Chabad" was a "perversion" of the REAL Chabad. As if. As if he knew. As if he ever bothered to speak to anybody in Chabad. I mean it's nice that he discovered a whole new world in Tanya and Likkutei Torah, but just like every other limmud you need to have a Rebbi. Don't think you know just because you have a good head, and then go and dismiss thousands of others who follow a mesorah for 200+ years. Did you ever make an appointment with an "expert" in Sifrei Chabad who has a mesorah and discuss with him, try to learn from/with him? And if you think you can do it on your won what does that say about you?

Then I wanna know why someone like our friend "Litvak from Budapest" (what's that?) who says that the Leshem held that Chabad was megashem lofty concepts and that's why he didn't mention Chabad, so why learn those seforim at all? The Leshem was totally opposed to Toras HaChassidus from the BeSHT on, שרק those that claim to follow his teachings are allowed to learn Sifrei Chabad? שפת אמת? ר' צדוק? שם משמואל? And in Chabad גופא - it's only the later doros that were meGashem? So תניא-ליקוטי תורה is still allowed? like where did it start? the Tzemach Tzedek perhaps? Was he meGashem? Litvak, you consider your self a rational person, is that what you believe? And what does to be MeGashem mean anyway? Where do these people get these ideas, and why do sane, rational people follow them?! Just because he's a little out of the box and speaks of new concepts? II guess so. It seems to me that they've remained very much within the box of anti-Chassidus, despite all the learning.

The answer is very poshut. At least for me. [I was thinking of bringing R' Eli Weintraub into this discussion, because he was a similar person. He learned Chabad and would even mention the source, but he too somehow "understood better."] To learn Chassidus and be a gantze mentsh far zich just doesn't exist. Chassidus is bittul. If you learn and internalize you become bottul. You can teach but it's not about you. The examples are numerous. Too numerous to mention. The examples even go as far as people who do make it about them have a very hard time teaching Chassidus, because it just won't "allow it." So people who become "Gedolim" based on teaching מחשבה and becoming ענקי המחשבה - that doesn't jive with Chassidus Chabad. So much so that they can't even mention sifrei Chabad - almost as if the seforim itself won't ALLOW themselves to be mentioned... Then there's a side issue I have with many of these same personalities, how they all somehow manage to hook up with the adversaries of Chabad Shluchim and become those who put them on the map. Especially in places like the Former Soviet Union, וד"ל. But that's for another time. יש עוד הרבה מה להגיד.

יהי זכרו ברוך