Since I joined another well-known but much smaller chassidus about a year after Gimel Tamuz I have witnessed less than twenty cases of drunkenness. But when I go to a Lubavitch wedding of one of my relatives there are always at least two drunks. And they are not the town drunks as they seem to rotate the honor.
Yes. The Rebbe explicitly tried stopping that. Many times. It just has an extremely old history (it’s been going on back in Russia for a long time). And while it’s hard to break old habits, there is definitely a growing awareness among that drinking more than 4 is simply not Chassidish. So while it’s wrong, we all know it’s wrong.
In category 2 we have “drinking is not a problem in Lubavitch” “proper tznius is not lacking in Luvabitch” “there are no real major fights between Lubavitchers” “shluchim don’t act in a selfish manner” and others.
So out of those points, it’s simply not true that we don’t realize these things. The “no more than 4” Takana is there and Mashpiyim talk about it. People who care what the Rebbe said, won’t drink more than 4, and those who don’t care, do whatever they want anyways.
The thing with Tznius is that I’m a guy, so I don’t know the details. But what I’ve heard from someone who’s hanging out with Lubavitch and Litvish is that it really depends on which circles within Chabad you frequent.
The thing with Lubavitch is that there’s no such thing as “membership ID”. You have people who aren’t shomer Shabbbos yet who come to a Chabad house and call themselves “Chabad”. I don’t know how this works in other Chassidic circles, but practically anyone can walk into a Chabad shul and eat the herring, and no one will check if you put on Rabbeinu Tam that morning. So you have people that aren’t careful about Tznius who can call themselves Chabad, you have people that aren’t careful about anything who can call themselves Chabad.
So it’s true that in other communities, someone who, say, has a TV at home will be asked to leave the school system and will be made uncomfortable in the community. I’m not blaming those communities, it makes sense – you don’t want to give a Hechsher to their behavior.
But when you compare Crown Height to something, you can’t just compare it to Lakewood. You really have to compare it to Lakewood + Flatbush + Modern Orthodox, and it’s not fair to blame Chabad for Chabad lite and not blame Brisk for YU.
But the truth is that there are plenty of Frum Lubavitchers. I mean, beards, Pas Yisroel and Chalav Yisroel is a baseline. I don’t think I ever walked into a Chabad house serving not Pas Yisrael or Chalav Yisrael foods. The most popular boys Cheder, by far, in Crown Heights doesn’t teach Limmudei Chol (and Man Dachar Shmei teaching Greek Mythology or novels), Kal Vachomer college is totally and completely forbidden in any Lubavitch Yeshiva. I can just imagine the look on Rabbi Labkovsky’s (the Rosh Yeshiva in 770) or Reb Yoel Kahan (the Mashpiya (Lubavitch equivalent of Mashgiach) of 770) face if you tell him that you want to go to college while in 770, or Rabbi Heller (the Rosh Kollel in Crown Heights) for that matter. Even after Kollel it’s heavily frowned at, and I don’t just mean secular college. I’m talking about places like Touro. The people who can, speak Yiddish to their children, and many send their children to Chadarim where the Melamdim teach only in Yiddish. Those who can’t (because they’re Israelis or because they’re BTs) obviously don’t. But it’s not out of the norm. And yes, there are many Lubavitch families without internet, or with heavily filtered internet, who won’t even go to Frum news sites because of Bittul Zman (which is why there are so few of us here, and the ones that do come here tend to be on the lighter side). All the more so that it’s a normal thing that Movies (old, clean, kosher, children’s. Doesn’t matter. Still Traif), sports, non-Jewish/not-Frum music (doesn’t matter if it’s clean or classical. Still Traif.) and non-Jewish/not-Frum books is completely Mufrach, and even regular Frum novels are “Ehh – it’s borderline.”
In terms of Kashrus, being Makpid of Heimisher Hashgachos is quite common, and in Israel there are plenty of people who’ll only eat Badatz Eidah HaChareidis and Rav Landau Bnei Brak.
There are plenty of people in Lubavitch who finish Shas. Some of them made big events for their Siyum which showed up online. I knew quite a few who didn’t. And remember that Lubavitch is a relatively small movement. Crown Heights has what, a few thousand families? And that’s the largest Chabad community in North America.
We don’t rely on big-city Eiruvin, and only the litest of the lite Crown Heightsers rely on its Eiruv. And the same applies to other cities.
And while I do admit that all this is fairly normal in the Chassidisher world, it definitely isn’t in the (American) Litvishe world, and definitely not by many of those who criticize us for not being Frum enough.