Reply To: Clarification to mod and DaMoshe

Here’s what I understand why these conversations go nowhere:

Litvish and lubavitch grow up with completely different mindsets. It seems many litvish grow up thinking lubavitch is very off hashkafically, but not enough to assur them outright, so you can eat at our Chabad houses, daven at our shuls, use the many things we offer, but you still hold your noses at us. At least some. You also tend to think we don’t know how to learn and are overall ignorant of nigle.

Meanwhile lubavitch grow up as Hashem being very real in our lives as a result of the tangible things we see and Laem through the Rebbe. Besides for the many miracles which we all have, it’s really the personal experience of how Chassidus infuses life and chayus into our lives that says it all. We are raised to be soldiers of the Rebbe and obviously Hashem, because it is an army that is needed to do the difficult work to bring Moshiach. The Rebbe exuded this kind of bitul to his Rebbe, so it comes natural, besides for the sense that The Rebbe is just completely above our league, so questioning the Rebbes instructions is the same as a goat doing so on the basis of his understanding. (This goat comparison comes from the time of the Alter/ Mitteler Rebbe by one of his tremendous Chassidim who was a tzadik himself. We do learn nigle in our Yeshivos for the majority of the day, and we also learn Chassidus.

So when the two meet, the litvish person thinks the Chabad guy is completely ignorant of real learning, and is surprised when he is bested in Gemara by the Lubavitcher (happened countless times in Yeshiva with my brothers. And they’re not the top either.) They’re also self assured that the Lubavitchers hashkofa is completely off.

Meanwhile the Lubavitcher assumes that the litvak just don’t understand the background of the one liners they’re throwing out, and obviously misinterpreting it, and try to explain. However these conversations don’t go well, because the litvak is anyway convinced the Lubavitcher is off, and doesn’t want to touch their hashkofa.

The irony of it all is that it’s actually the other way around. The litvaks are the ignorant ones- they’re trying to tell us what Chassidus is, or how wrong it is, when they’ve never studied it. They accuse us of putting down others, when we never speak of litvaks as treif in any way. Or anyone else. We are very proud of our Rebbe, and expect the others to feel the same about theirs.

I once saw a picture of satmar Chassidim welcoming their Rebbe with a banner proclaiming him Moshiach in the early 1900s.

This is why the two never meet. If a litvak were sincere in trying to learn any sicha, and coming from that perspective, then we’d have some real dialogue. Otherwise, obviously we’re not gonna take you guys seriously. You think you know Chassidus better than us when you’ve never studied it

disclaimer: This was so difficult for me to post as it is so misinformed and condescending.  🤦‍♂️