Hi to all. I’m sure you’ve ALL been wondering where I am and hoping for my reappearance. Ta da! I’m here. The reason I haven’t given my two cents’ worth until know is because what I’ve read in this thread is basically a lot of rehashing of old stuff that has been debated in the past. But I am (slightly) human, so I can’t stay silent forever.
I have two topics on which to comment:
1. When someone says that a person who others assume has died is “with us physically” what does it mean? No beating around the bush, please. What does it mean? I know what a live person being with us physically means – he is in his body and nowhere else, in one place, he’s breathing and his heart is beating – but what does it mean when it is said about someone who has died? Even Yaakov Avinu lo meis – what does it mean? To me, from the gemara in Sotah 13a, it seems that he was alive but his soul was in his body, and not that he was in 770 or elsewhere. So without dissembling, what does it mean when someone says the L rebbe is alive physically.
2. Goral Hagra was transmitted from the Gra himself, which is why it is called that (surprise, surprise). What is the source for using the LR’s igros to answer questions? Had he himself said to do it, I would have accepted that Lubavichers do it even though I would not have believed in it. But he didn’t, so who says it is right?
And please don’t tell me “it works”, because that doesn’t mean it’s right or even permitted.
And don’t tell me, as a Lubavicher told me nearly three decades ago, “The rebbe said that there would always be a way to be connected to him, and therefore we use the igros,” as one does not lead to the other.
Finally, don’t quote me anecdotal stories about people putting kvitlech in seforim of their Rebbes, and having answers and/or yeshuos. I believe that many of those stories are in fact true, but that is not the same as reading what the sefer says when it is opened at random and deciding what it means on a personal level.