Melbourne; tzidkus and the lack thereof do not absolutely qualify or disqualify a given psak – it doesn’t concern me if the last lubavitcher rebbe was a tzadik, or how big of a tzadik he was. It’s true that we only listen to rabbonim who are yirei shomayim, but that’s because if they’re not, they’re not reliable. But reliability has more criteria than tzidkus – if someone shows us that he is not following normal halachik reasoning, we simply will ignore him, no matter what mofsim he may or may not do. The fact that chabad constantly talks about his miracle workings is evidence that there is a need to compensate for the gedolei torah vocally opposing him.
He said something (and other things) which according to normal halachik reasoning are invalid. It was for these reasons that he was opposed; not because of “jealousy” or “hisnagdus”, there were crystal clear reasons given by gedolei yisroel who opposed his innovations, this being one of them. It doesn’t matter that he knew more torah than me; if something is wrong, it’s wrong.
If a rov told me, for instance, that women may be ordained, I would not check into his yichus or examine his hanhagos and how much he knew, and then accept what he says if he’s a tzadik and talmid chochom. We have brains that can see emes. I have a great deal of emunas chachamim; i follow any psak from my rebbeim and constantly sought their advice on personal issues, having confidence that their words were coming straight from the Torah they learned yomam velaylah. Yet if my rebbe told me to step on a bug on shabbos, or eat McDonald’s, ad kan rebbe. At that point i would assume that either he has lost his faculties or has become a rasha.
The lubavitcher rebbe was not accepted in the first place as a universal gadol gador. Yet even if he were, there are limits.