The Five Most Likeliest Candidates to be Moshiach

Aaq….why do we care about what some Christian wrote centuries after yushkes death? There are a million versions of Christian history from different churches and sects….

I think it is unwise and improper to debate the minim and give them a platform by which they can spew their emunos tfeilos. Don’t debate them, ignore them. They are not within machane yisroel and do not deserve the platform or attention.

So when you ask the tooth fairy to give you extra cash for your tooth, you are an apikores?

Dear Avira,

When was there a huge machlokes about machnesei rachamim? It has been debated in seforim. A big difference.

And I don’t need “research” into meron; i ask again, have you ever been there? Have you ever seen for yourself a contingent of jews who pray or offer supplications to Rashbi? I haven’t. Singing the praises of a tzadik is not worship.

Ask the Meron fanatics what it means to them. It’s shocking. The same is true for Umman and other kevarim.

And there is the mispronunciation of התנא האלוהי. Go ask around what it means.

Dear Avira,

Your the judge here on which group is A”Z and which is not. To me, an innocent pronunciation mistake doesn’t redeem what they say their intention is. What is said about Reb Shimon, Meron, and The Zohar, is much more explicit (Seeing and intervening on the molecular level against the decrees of Hashem) than anything about the Heinteger. You could include Uman with Na Nach. Really any group could be included. [Just it’s weird to openly start saying how my rosh yeshiva (who has passed on or still walks among us), knows everything that is decreed on heaven and how it plays out on earth. But in certain hot headed times, we all get close to that trap.]

If you run to kabbalistic intentions, the kabbala is much more accessible (…and possibly better understood.) in Chabad then among the Meron revelers. (I don’t know much about Uman.) If you have a problem with this itself that Chabad made the kabbala hefker, I could agree with you on that. There isn’t anything to do about it. And mixing it up with A”Z just makes the problem more confusing.

Dear Yserbius,

I was never anointed with the right to say who is relevant or not. But either way, it sheds light on Chabad. And it continues to every single group. It’s an instinct to ascribe divinity to anything we can’t fully ascertain. Without controlling it, it leads to strange mental dogmas.

Chabad, Meron, and Umann, are not controlled much. But the same thinking goes on in Bnei Brak, Lakewood, and Yerushalayim. It stays beneath the surface, because these are more restrained places. People are more hesitant to be seen as not normal, than to assume that the abnormal is natural. But in agitated moments it becomes recognizable, that large parts of every group struggles with the separation between sainted humans and the divine.

Who is to say that they are heretics?

n0m, they are actually very much, as you put it, “controlled” in that regard.

Kolaiv davened by Kivrai haAvos “Avosai bikshu alai rachamim”

When visiting the Kever of their Rebbe Lubavitchers follow a specific proscribed customs (that they have for generations).
Among them, as relates to your comment, they include:

Beforehand they all {give extra Tzedaka for, and} write a “Pidyon Nefesh”, which follows the Nusach of “ana leorer rachamim rabim baavur so&so ben/bas so&so” followed by their Bakashos..
(The huge lobby on the way into the bh”k has seating, pens & paper to use for this..)

At the Kever, they all Daven from the ‘Sefer Maaneh Lashon’, during which there is a specific place/context:
יהי רצון מלפניך .. בזכות הצדיקים .. הנקברים פה .. יהיו עלי מיליצי יושר .. אמן סלה
where they read their P”N, before continuing to Daven in the Seder haTefilos.
See here: https://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=15693&pgnum=14
(At the Ohel/Kever there are shelves full of the M”L in Hebrew/Aramaic & English, and on top of the Kever there are the many P”N’s which were torn up and left once read).

For those who have limited time (or who are not particular with every one of the additional customs involved) at a minimum they have a P”N in the Nusach etc, and they daven from the M”L as much as possible (certainly at least to where the P”N is read), often continuing the M”L, after having left, until they’ve finished.

So far them, the Nusach of the M”L in conjunction with that of the P”N ensconce the context of their Tefilos very clearly.

Ben, so can you say clearly, without any other words besides “yes” and “no”, that you and people you know have never and will never ask the lubavitcher rebbe for direct assistance?

No “you have to know” or anything; simple – do you pray TO your rebbe that HE should help you, or not?

Dear Ben,

That’s not what I was talking about. In Lubavitch one can be any kind of person the are comfortable. They dress, eat, and entertain themselves how they want. Same with Breslov. There is almost no cultural prishus. They don’t do what they don’t do because they are more authentic about it. Therefore, if they want to say that Moshiach is coming because I saw the footprints of the Baal Shem Tov in the mud behind my house, they will say it. As opposed to more culturally regulated communities, where they would keep their mouths shut.

n0m, cultural prishus?
I’m not sure I follow.
But I gather from what you’re referring to in general is simply chevra used to bountiful Ahavas Yisrael bileaiv vanefesh lfnim mishuras hadin, in contrast to bountiful conservative Ahavas Yisrael bilaiv venefesh, if I can put them like that.
Certainly these nuances have a profound effect.
Note: it’s important not to over broaden Chabad, since the overwhelming majority are firmly rooted in Torah, Toras Chayim and hanhagas haYahadus kipshuto, no compromises.

And to differentiate between Breslov and Chabad, one is among a chevra, and the latter flows from the Manhigus of the/a Gadol baTorah (who was ibergegeben bifrat panim bifanim yad leyad to any and every “common Yid” who presented, and sent an army of kind gentle souls for those who would’ve but didnt know of the opportunity).

ADA, by pray, do you mean what B”Y were doing to MRA”H the whole time in the midbar without once specifying “that you convene with Hashem for us”? Or because it was with chutzpa it doesn’t count but if someone did the same thing like a mentch it would become kefira?
And since when is it ok to beseech a Tzaddik to appeal to Hashem on one’s behalf after he passed, as is clear, but while he’s alive it’s a problem?
And based on what Torah do you or purported so-called Chachamim decide that if the person does the same thing, but in a concise manner ” Tzaddik I need…” and isn’t fully mefaresh up to and including “can you appeal to Hashem for me” that they suddenly become a kofer???
And at what turn of phrase do you find the nerve to imply that someone with little Emunah sichlis and overwhelming Emunah peshuta goes up to a Tzaddik and says “Rebbi I need… please help me” that suddenly you Dun them as a kofer because by this Maamin no cheshbon was made one way or another, and is essentially doing the same as the previous?
And to add further mr/mrs Emunah peshuta when asked by you if he/she was davening to the Tzaddik or asking him to petition for them, looks at you dumbfounded without a clue as to what in the over gargantuated cynicistic sichlis you are talking about, given your multiple choice self-defeating cheshbonos there were beyond the pshitus of such a Yid, as evidenced in the stupifying tone when responding with more sichlis than ever before mustered: “I davened to him to Daven to Hashem for me”, without even being sure of what they said themselves, but rather patching together a response somewhere between their initial hargasha and some disenfranchised sichlisictic brain teaser you wove!
Do we now relegate them to kofer based on the words of their lips, regardless? And how about when we check after being poisoned by your runaway sichlicism for a month, and they finally get the self-defeating question as evidenced by their reintegrating that after careful thought, yes they davened to him to Daven to Hashem for them, what have you settled there?
And was this individual tahor in the first place by your standards, but now a kofer by the same?

Or now do you want to try to pseudo-intellectually finely define what daven means without someone trying to corner you with yes or no answers?

And how on earth when you find out that Lubavitchers explicitly daven at the Kever to Hashem specifically (did you even study the Sefer in the link?) even when being mevakesh from a Tzaddik is firmly permissible, do you get so disturbed by the notion that you immediately try cornering validation of some possible concise communicator or Emunah pshuta emanator to use to validate your supposed Chachamim and write off all Chabad who by firm custom even at the Kever of their Rebbe daven only to Hashem?

And have you already forgotten what I had previously quoted:
Rabbe Yehuda haChassid c. 1200 in Sefer Chasidim #450 says:
“Uchishemivakshim meihem heim Mispalelim al hachayim”.

And again, just so it’s clear, did B”Y in the midbar say “please we any more than just mon” or did they say “sir M”R it has to come to us a need for mon regarding which we beckon your corporeal unreliable lowly humanness to consult with G-d the maker of both you and us to provide this for us, while notating to Him that he should fulfil our request and have us also not have us cast away as a heretic by our fellow lowly human think they know it all brothers and their lowly human babysitters who grossly mislead them, since in this message of His lowly human servant I have employed all the necessary verbiage to establish that ce again today also I am no heretic, that it should be known to the lowly ears of all who hear me that I not be left without a His wonderful lowly corporeal human nation, how cherished they lowly human and corporeal are, as they are to Him, to me too, his also lowly human and corporeal, and to finish most importantly with, that you who carry this prayer for me are lowly human and corporeal too!!!

There, saved from ADA and his runaway ignorant kanaus, apparenttaught to him by someone in his world heralded as a Chacham.

Hashem Yishmor!

If you want to know about how klal yisroel was supposed to see moshe rabbeinu, and how cheit heagel happened because they believed in moshe as having independent kedushah/being a go between to Hashem, and used the egel as a substitute, see the meshech chochma.

Dear Coffee,

If their interested in the Torah, it will shift their priorities accordingly. Even as you assume, there is still no clear benefit of attacking Chabad. I have no rational for it other than our own insecurities.

Asking the deceased for forgiveness is done all the time, by relatives of the person, etc… It’s not davening.

ADA,

1. The M”B doesn’t say it’s ossur, it says “al yosim”. That is not informing you that it’s ossur; it is an instruction.

See Sotah 34b where Kalaiv says, and I quote: “Avosai, bikshu alai rachamim” at Kivrai haAvos.

2. See comment above where I linked to the Sefer Hishtatchus of Lubavitchers which clearly shows that they direct everything to Hashem. So you’re not talking about Lubavitchers. Nice try.

Most importantly, please stop being Motzei laaz on Yidden, whether it’s barren women pleading to Rachel to help them have a child, or Breslov’s sharing their latest idea with Reb Nachman.

Go read Rambam’s Ikkar Six. You are misrepresenting it.

Also, with your conjuring of new Halachos, how do you reconcile MRA”H bowing to Yisro (See Rashi there, beginning of Parshas Yisro).

Dear Avira,

I don’t care for this argument. Ben’s posts are too tedious for my time. It caught my eye that there is no mention of asking from the deceased so I posted a source. I’m not aware of the implications.

Nom, you totally missed either the point of discussion (making requests for help from the dead) or the gemara you quoted. Either way the gemara has no implication regarding the issue at hand. It’s just a talmid chacham asking an amorah for mechilah. It’s not tefilah.

Yserb – great idea! Only issue is that i doubt Ben would care what non-lubavitch rabbonim have to say. They’re not enlightened.

@n0mesorah Not every group has some that confuse their leader with The Divine. I struggle to think of two. And certainly there aren’t influential people in these groups that believe and encourage such behavior.

Dear Yserbius,

Every group has some. These people are just overly effusive of their leaders. But when they feel safe, they move their reverence beyond any mortal boundaries.

Dear Avira,

I don’t understand how he aggrieved Rav Chiya.

Pardon my ignorance on communicating with the dead. What is the deciding factor if it is prayer or not? Why is it different than solicitating from the living?

My only point is that we find a straight petition to the interred. Don’t ask me what it means. I was only challenging your blanket statement.

If I had to chose if it is forbidden or desirable to betten the rebbe, I would choose the former. But it’s not a choice for me, because I have no interest in doing so. If your asking me to definitively prove, I can’t. Too many kabalistic implications for me. Though I admit of the two ongoing arguments on this thread, yours are superior.

Dear Yserbius,

I don’t understand why it matters how vocal, powerful, or influential they are. My point is that it’s part of the package of having a religious community. How much traction it gets under it, is just a matter of circumstance.

The Chasam Sofer did not say Shalom Aleichem, Machnisei Rachamim and most probably Malachei Rachamim as he held that we don’t pray to malachim. Kalev visited the dead. We should daven to Hashem that he should have the dead or malachim intervene in our behalf. When we say Hamalch Hagoel, we should start from Hashem.