The other day, I came upon a Hasidic pamphlet ("The Way of Emunah", which was referenced in a prior post) on the Shabbos Torah reading, and saw a piece there related to the discussion we had. Citing a work בית יהודה, it says that R. Zev Wolf, son of the Zlotchover Maggid, a Rebbe in the early generations of Hasidism, would call every Jew "tzadik", even wicked people (see attached images for more). So evidently that was a chiddush then. But even he realized the limits of such rhetoric, and declined a shidduch proposal from an unsuitable person who presented himself as a tzadik along such lines, and therefore an appropriate match for him.
Nowadays, in the era of great inflation that we live in, evidently R. Zev Wolf's chiddush doesn't suffice, however, and the "tzadik" of yesteryear has become the "big tzadik" of today.
Those who follow old Torah ways and are not in favor of flattery and inflation, on the other hand, hew to the words of the Torah that we recently read, ולא תחניפו את הארץ, which, according to one of our great authorities, is a Biblical prohibition of flattery, as well as to those of שלמה המלך ע"ה, the wisest of men, who taught אמר לרשע צדיק אתה יקבהו עמים יזעמוהו לאמים, the one who tells a רשע that he is a צדיק will be cursed.
See here how Rav Avigdor Miller zt"l put it in a Toras Avigdor Q&A from not long ago - the attitude that 'there are no reshaim' is unacceptable. Such extreme liberalism is not in accordance with our holy Torah.
In the zechus of אמת, and avoiding flattery, may we merit גאולה בקרוב.
This is a subject near and dear to my heart. About a decade ago this fellow started coming to shul to say Kaddish for his parents who died a few months apart. One day he comes over to tell me that the Rabbi (Chabad) told him he's a Tzaddik(he's a Mechallel Yom Kippur BIfarhesia). When I questioned the Rabbi he said,"To me every Jew is a Tzaddik." But to be fair this attitude is also found in Kiruv. In 1995 I was a mentor on partners on Torah on the LES. One week the Rabbi was away so he asked me to speak on his place and to talk about Shabbos. I said that Shabbos represents the bond between Hashem and the Jewish people and the Talmud says that if a gentile keeps Shabbos he's liable to die. One woman jumped up and said angrily, "Do you think that's fair?" I told her that I didn't write the Talmud. The next weekthe Rabbi criticized me for hurting her feelings and he's Litvish. There's an attitude that anything is permitted Leshem Kiruv and this goes beyond Chabad.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment. I think that there are multiple issues involved. One with regard to correctness in theology, and another related to presentation. Re the second anecdote - I think the situation might have been defused by explaining that while on the surface it seems extremely harsh and severe, in reality, such a case does not come to pass, as it entails a very high level of mimicry, following a myriad of Jewish details typically unknown to outsiders. It seems to be like certain laws which were "on the books", but not applied, according to Chazal, like בן סורר ומורה, the wayward son.
ReplyDeleteI got into hot water in Shul for making the heretical statement that the Rebbe wasn't a Novi. One of the Rabbis challenged me to prove he's not a prophet, but I saw how scared he was so Idropped the subject. On a related note, I was a guest last Shabbos at someone's home and her daughter in law was there. The daughter in law is an ex Chabad. She said that her five brothers also have no connection to Chabad, but they're all frum.The hostess tried to defend Chabad, she and her husband are very wealthy so they travel a lot and they rely on Chabad. I told this woman that my biggest problem with Chabad is that they think they're better than all other Jews. She thought I was crazy for saying this but her daughter in law backed me up.
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