Qwert, sounds like he had an axe to grind. Even if that version of history is true (which it isn’t; the chazon ish sent talmidim to tel aviv and kibutzim in the 40s), saying that gedolim copied the Lubavitcher rebbe is like saying that the satmar rov was first against kolelim because it was not the mesorah and then copied rav aharon…he didn’t “copy” him, he understood that what rav aharon was doing was necessary.
So if the litvishe recognized after the Lubavitcher rebbe that it was necessary, that’s not something to criticize, nor does it mean that the Lubavitcher rebbe was superior to them; sometimes innovation doesn’t have to be top-down.
But the way kiruv is done outside chabad is far more effective. It isn’t about tefilin and sefiros or getting one mitzvah here and there, and then pushing chasidus when there’s some level of interest in yiddishkeit.
It’s about bringing them back to yiddishkeit! Shabbos, kashrus, yomim tovim, learning, everything! And that’s why people who do kiruv with the blatt gemara in eretz yisroel, like arachim, etc…have more lasting success than the guitar chevra or others. the others might draw larger crowds and will jump to say that every Mitzvah is important and you can’t judge success by long lasting results….to this, the answer is that you most definitely can judge success by long term results and still acknowledge the smaller success as not worthless.
It’s like the stock market. Chabad says that one person’s good investment is huge, while the rest of the world looks at at the portfolio.
For every step a chabad kiruv client takes, do you not think that yhey progressively take steps back? How much treif do they eat after one kosher meal? The chofetz chaim said there’s merit in limiting how much treif someone eats, even a little bit – so yes, it’s something, but is something comparable to a kiruv movement which results in everything?
So i don’t believe the litvishe “copied” chabad; chabad inflates little successes while the litvishe build entire families.