Ober chochom – i had no issue with the part about his presence being here in either the statement of moshe Kotlarsky nor the story of the rebbetzin – the same could he said of regular relatives or tzadikim. My issue is that he said that the rebbe should “grant our requests”. It is not implying, it is saying outright, that the rebbe answers prayers and requests and that one should pray to him, as he apparently does. He is known on record as an “anti”, but atzmus ideology isn’t dependent on messianism directly.
Re, the rebbetzin – she was asking the rebbe; not Hashem, to save her. That’s against the rambams ikkarim that we only pray to Hashem. And lest one say that she was davening bzchus the rebbe…she didn’t say “Hashem please save me in the zchus of my hiskashrus to the rebbe”, or even “rebbe please daven for me to Hashem to save me”, but rather she asked the lubavitcher rebbe directly to save her. Moshe Kotlarsky asked the rebbe to grant the shluchim’s requests. That’s the issue at hand, i apologize if i wasn’t clear about it earlier.