Before I reply to any of Ortho’s disagreements with what I have written, I would like to clarify what I believe Avira wrote and what I think is possibly being misunderstood.
Avira wrote that there was a great decline in the acceptance of Torah and Mitzvos during the L rebbe’s lifetime. It seems to me that some may have understood that to mean that the L rebbe was the cause, but that is not – at least not the way I understand it – what Avira is saying.
Rather he’s saying that you can’t consider the L rebbe bechezkas Mashiach when that entails forcing all Yidden to keep Torah and Mitzvos, and during his lifetime there were more and more Yidden who distanced themselves from Torah and Mitzvos. Not that he caused that.
Looking back at what I just wrote, it seems pretty obvious that that’s what Avira meant. But in this thread I have learnt that nothing is obvious 🙂