I know I’m going to get into BIG trouble for this one, but note that Sefer HaSichos 5699 was said by the Rayatz who, as I have said before, was very “creative” in telling us history.
He is also the one who told us the story about Moshe Rabbeinu sending malachim to get esrogim from Calabria, and once again he cited the Baal Hatanya as the source.
Has anyone ever heard of the expression that ends “ירחיק עדיו”? (I told you I’d get into trouble for this.
1. I did respond to your earlier sunidal post. Also, the story doesn’t say what time of year it took place, and for how long was it broken. It could have been broken for a few weeks in the middle of the winter.
2. Even Leshitascha, there’s a big difference between writing fiction, as you like to call it euphemistically, and this. Writing a novel how the Brisker Rov went back in time to fight with the Chashmonaim is fiction. Writing how he ate Basar BeChalav and found a hetter isn’t fiction. It’s either true, or false. If it’s false, it could be that he trusted a person who made a mistake, or whatever. But you hold that he made it up. The thing is, that making up these things isn’t “fiction”, it’s much worse. So maybe you think that the Frierdiker Rebbe wanted to stop Chassidim from sleeping in a Sukkah, so he made up the thing that the the Mitteler Rebbe told Chassidim not to sleep in a Sukkah. Maybe you think that the Frierdiker Rebbe was to lazy to eat Seudah Shlishis, so he made that his father often didn’t eat Seudah Shlishis. But it isn’t fiction.
3. But here, this is all irrelevant. No one argues that the Frierdiker Rebbe said that Sicha, and the Minhag was already established long before the Rebbe became Rebbe. So even Leshitascha, the blame should be on the Frierdiker Rebbe (if he invented it), not the Rebbe, and on the Mitteler Rebbe otherwise. But the way people talk about the Sicha is a strawman.
4. The thing is, as I pointed out earlier, many communities have minhagim which violate Halacha. There’s no debate that early Chassidim Davened late (after Zman Tefilla), and there’s absolutely nowhere in Shulchan Aruch which lets you daven late for the sake of Kavana. Or, as SHY pointed out, many other communities didn’t sleep in a Sukkah. Or, as I pointed out earlier, many Litvish Yeshivas do a Heicha Kedusha. Yet, I never heard a peep from anyone against those Rebbes or Roshei Yeshivas. Yes, some Poskim said that a Heicha Kedusha is wrong and shouldn’t be done, but I’ve never heard anyone say that whichever Rosh Yeshiva started it, or Reb Yaakov Kaminetzky who legitimatized it, isn’t a Gadol because of that.