CS: “If you give weight to an individual who had a strong agenda against lubavitch and knowing the story of hei teves etc. and cite that as an acceptable source, all that shows is how your bias against lubavitch is negatively affecting your objectivity. (No I haven’t read it nor have I am interest in it)”
I have to admit that I did not explain myself well in that post. I wasn’t saying that I believe everything your rebbe’s nephew said about your rebbe – I certainly don’t – and I wasn’t clear in that. What I was trying to say is that just as you justifiably wouldn’t believe what he wrote because he had an agenda to discredit your rebbe, I don’t believe what lubavicher chassidim write because they have an agenda to promote their rebbe.
So I DID go directly to the sources – many times many years ago when he was alive and many times after he was niftar. I read hanochos (transcripts, for the uninitiated) of farbrengens, sichos, letters and lubavich publications such as Kfar Chabad and Beis Mashiach. All of my investigation from primary sources – not the ravings of some crazy who claims the lubavicher rebbe is G-d – led me to become thoroughly disenchanted with your rebbe and his hashkofos.
His initial work in kiruv was innovative and fantastic, but then it degenerated into self-serving messianism and chauvinism. As an example, I once heard a prominent lubavicher speaking to a lubavicher audience (he probably didn’t realize that I was there as a spy 🙂 ) saying that the rebbe told Rabbi Hecht that the purpose of having the rebbe’s pictures on the side of mitzvah tanks is so that people would know who the Mashiach was. Perhaps the story is untrue. Can you either confirm or deny it?
And you didn’t address my latest challenge: Based on the rule you brought that “im rishonim …” do lubavichers agree that the Rashba was greater than your rebbe?