@NonPolitical,
In response to your questions:
(Sorry for the lengthy wait)
“The inference from the Bati L’Ganni speech was sufficient for the Brisker Rov to declare that the Lubavitcher Rebbe thought he was Moshiach. Such an inference is clearly not unreasonable.”
I don’t know the source of this story with the Brisker Rov, but have you actually learned the maamar inside?
If you do, like I’ve done countless times, I think you will fail to come across such an inference. I have never seen it. It’s not worth arguing about this point until you have actually studied the maamar inside, in its entirety.
“take personal offense at the statement made by CS that the Vilna Gaon saw the Alter Rebbe of Lubavich through a key hole, realized that if he would meet him he would have become a chossid and ran away. But this is just a symptom of the above stated problem.”
This story is not the mesora we have in Lubavitch of the meeting between the Gra and Baal HaTanya, (as I discussed earlier in this thread) but rather the version that Rav YB Soleveitchik had received in his family, being a descendant of the Gra. Please refer to my previous comments about this.
“The premise that it is legitimate to hold such a belief undermines the very fabric of the Halachic process itself”
We’ve been through this so many times here…
As I asked earlier, which Halacha does this contradict?
Such a belief has basis in the Gemara,
“ורבי יוחנן אמר למשיח מה שמו דבי רבי שילא אמרי שילה שמו שנאמר (בראשית מט, י) עד כי יבא שילה דבי רבי ינאי אמרי ינון שמו שנאמר (תהלים עב, יז) יהי שמו לעולם לפני שמש ינון שמו דבי רבי חנינה אמר חנינה שמו שנאמר (ירמיהו טז, יג) אשר לא אתן לכם חנינה”
(Basis for believing ones Rebbe is Moshiach)
“אמר רב נחמן אי מן חייא הוא כגון אנא שנאמר (ירמיהו ל, כא) והיה אדירו ממנו ומושלו מקרבו יצא אמר רב אי מן חייא הוא כגון רבינו הקדוש אי מן מתיא הוא כגון דניאל איש חמודות”
(Basis for the possibility of Moshiach min Hameisim)
Also, note what Rav Nachman says…
– Sanhedrin 98b.