I first encountered Chabad back in the early ’70s as a college student. They were instrumental in my evolution as a ba’al teshuva, and for that I will be forever grateful. However, once they saw I was committed to shmiras mitzvos, they put increasing pressure on me to become not just a frum Jew, but a Lubavitcher. The last straw was when they told me, “the Rebbe wants you to put on tefillen.” I didn’t know much, but I knew that directive was from someone much more important than the Rebbe. Had I not become close with a Yekkishe family, I’m not sure I would have stayed the course.
I had a number of Lubavitchers as work colleagues in the following years. One claim I heard repeatedly from them and from online forums was that the Rebbe is/was infallible. Whenever he misquoted a possuk, it was for an important purpose. A corollary is that the Rebbe is omniscient, for how else could he avoid error? A third claim I heard less often was that the Rebbe is/was omnipotent. Infallible, all-knowing, all-powerful: one need only connect the dots.
Are these opinions normative in all Chassidus? The Satmar Rov (as he preferred to refer to himself) once left out the brocha over the second kos at a seder. He immediately said, “I didn’t do that on purpose! I made a mistake! Don’t think that’s my shita!”
It is the duty of every Torah Jew to counter such dangerous confusion between a tzaddik and HaShem. We must do so with utter respect and a complete absence of hatred. We must also give allowance for occasional heated reactions, given the seriousness of the issues involved.