CS: “1) Rambam must be understandable and applicable as We are to use his halachic criteria for defining candidates for Moshiach. Regarding Melech- if he’s just starting off the process in golus and we’re not even sure he’sa candidate- he wouldn’t be a king anointed by Sanhedrin. The deals pretty done by then. The meaning is Rabbanim who are called kings- מאן מלכי רבנן. The emphasis on king is that he has a commanding kinglike presence/ leadership.”
Sorry, but that is just another instance of drawing the target after the arrow has hit. מאן מלכי רבנן is not Halachic as it’s Aggada, and we don’t interpret Halacha by taken an Aggadic statement and applying it to Halacha. (Do you follow the Satmar shita that it is ossur to have a state, based on the three shevuos mentioned in Kesubos, and on which the Satmar shita is based? I assume you don’t because no one in Lubavich, including your rebbe, did.)
And as I asked before, did any rational Lubavicher (I assume there are and were) make the berocho “shecholak mikvoco lirai’ov” when they saw the Lubavicher rebbe before Gimmel Tammuz. If not, why not? Doesn’t it say מאן מלכי רבנן?
“2) if someone has traceable yichus, they fulfill the criteria. If you are waiting for Sanhedrin, you make this criterion irrelevant and obsolete.”
Surely you mean if someone CLAIMS HE HAS traceable yichus. There was a weirdo on the internet a few short years ago who claimed that he was the son of the Lubavicher rebbe. Would you believe that “traceable yichus”?
And yes, I am waiting for the Sanhedrin because Rashi (Eiruvin 43b) says that Mashiach will come first to the Beis Din Hagadol in Yerushalayim. So unless he is referring to the Rabbanut Harashit (I somehow doubt it) there has to be an active Sanhedrin before Mashiach comes. Interpreting it otherwise is just target after arrows.
“3) enjoy the sources. Regarding yachuf- here’s sources for future reference”
I have to admit I was waiting for those references. Yachuf bidvarim does not mean “encourage”, it means using words to “compel” someone. As in the first example you brought, where Rav Pappa said that if he enters the place in question, it is equivalent to compelling the person there to sign over assets. The Lubavicher rebbe encouraged but did not even use his personality to compel.
“So I choose to be a maamin.”
That’s the whole problem. You choose because you want to, not because you are forced to believe by the sources.