yankel berel

@ujm

– the status quo is a small pikuach nefesh ‘sakana’

the sakana of your suggestion is multiplied a thousand fold

one has to be blind not to see that

blinded by terribly contorted way of paskening like an aggadic maharal – against all codifiers of halacha

blinded by an ideological inflexibility of subservience to a so called shitah hakdosha

btw, the blind are not allowed to paskan any she’elot …
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@ysiegel

you are factually incorrect

they clearly did turn to the government
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even more – it seems that the first one to turn to the government were the hasidim

which in turn resulted in their opponents to do the same

which resulted in the baal hatanya famously imprisoned

the kahal seemed to belong to the mitnagdim

and was used to enforce the herem

which resulted in hasidim going to the government first …
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many gdolim yearned for EY

but none held of evalemoshiv’s rant

that in itself proves evalemoshiv wrong …
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I am suspecting flamingOTD is not a religious jew ….

she complains about ‘sexism’ and about ‘white colonialists’ , libels the medina as being ‘genocidal’ and then infers that she is satmar anti zionist …

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@AAQ

product of years of university studies without yeshiva studies …

whoever said that is probably somewhat biased – several years that L Rebbe spent when he was about 25-30 y.o. in U of Berlin and an engineering studies in Paris were way past his yeshiva years.

—-

the facts are — find out for yourself

the late rebbi of habad never attended any yeshiva … even during his yeshiva years ….

he probably learnt either by himself or under his father r levi

so what I wrote was accurate : the only institutions he attended were universities …
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these are the facts .

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rav moshe sternbuch says in his weekly alon from last week that he himself heard from brisker rav

re the medina : that ALTHOUGH THE MEDINA WAS A POSITIVE DEVELOPMENT FOR THE MANY PLEITIM AFTER THE WAR , who were left without a roof

in that era , nevertheless its establishment is prohibited

and that we cannot ‘do business’ with yahadut

absorbing ‘losses’ by establishing a medina , and thereby ‘gaining’ a home for the many pleitim

now how is that for a kanna’i , nuanced and realistic view – for a change ?

btw. NOTHING GOT LOST IN TRANSLATION ….

—–

katan will refuse to recognize the sun , because it shines in the medina …

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the liar who calls himself somejew says :

‘there are zero charedi gedolim who have taught that [rav kuk] is not a rushe’ ….

imrai emet in osef michtavim titles him as harav hagaon ish haeshkolot and as someone with good midot albeit mistaken in certain issues ….

again – somejew claims that :

‘there are zero charedi gedolim who have taught that [rav kuk] is not a rushe’ ….

—-

now can we believe somejew on this topic anymore ?

or did he lose his chezkat kasrut ?

it seems that whenever somejew reads , hears or smells anything that starts with the letter z , he simply takes leave of his senses ….

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Dear Shimon katz

I regret the upset caused to you by the various descriptions of the late rebbi of habad. That certainly was not the intention , rather a davar she’eino mitkaven . Nor was the upset you alluded to when complaining about my ‘copy and paste’ use of some of your words.

Not one description I used was my own . Each and every one is sourced in major and widely accepted torah leaders . As you noticed , I did not take sides in the two sides of the controversy re the personality in itself.

This should not be any different to the two yesh omrim’s which are often mentioned in shulhan aruch. Two valid opinions within torah.

As you rightly noted , I should not get involved in things above my pay grade. Which I do not.

But my original point still stands . You cannot use the personality itself as proof for the acceptability of certain misguided beliefs within habad , when said personality is clearly controversial in itself. This is simple logic.

Anything I wrote was merely as a reaction to claims that somehow because …

…. he “accomplished enormous good in the world, and left behind a rich legacy in writing, in other media, and in the people he inspired, which continues to generate more good and be mekarev countless Yidden to Hashem and His Torah literally worldwide” …

therefore …. the distortions of judaism contained within the mashiach/navi/atsmut/illusions of grandeur/superseding moshe rabenu xtian like drivel

should be accepted or ignored as being part of normative judaism as we knew it for the past thousands of years .

That’s all .

Barring this detrimental and false garbage being normalized , I have no interest at all in discussing the historical merits or otherwise of the late rebbi of habad.

Hope that clarifies my position to you and to yya …

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@yedl

would you mind to quote the entire letter ?

Thanks

ujm’s post from December 5, 2025 12:55 pm on page one of this thread :

somejew obviously means he davens for the Hamas soldiers defeat and destruction.

Hopefully you do as well.
—-

ujm and somejew call hamas murderers by the unearned moniker of “soldiers” ….

thats like calling mengele or the ss camp guards —- soldiers

they are not soldiers at all

they are plain criminals
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6] why did you ignore the questions posed to the qualified genocide scholar going under the name of flamingOTD ?

will repeat the questions , so that our eminent scholar will be able to give her erudite opinion :

what happens to a jew who walks by himself into most ‘nongenocidal’ arab towns in the middle east ?

what happens to an arab who walks by himself into most ‘genocidal’ israeli towns in the middle east ?

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flamingOTD is concerned about innocent children blown to bits in a war

very humane …

she even pretends to be a frum satmar minded woman , who is qualified to decide those issues of nefashot on her own , by listening and reading the news

and then using her own intuition

and voila , we have a ready judge and jury , a crime and a criminal .

no matter that the results of her libels are going to endanger many more innocents.

—

I have a few questions for our self appointed ‘kitchen genocide scholar’ …

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1] how many innocent german children died in world war two ?

was that genocide ?

if not , why not ?
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2] given that hamas – and the majority of so called palestinians supported by many millions more,

want israel and its jewish inhabitants to literally disappear from the face of the earth

why do you describe people dying in israel’s defensive wars as dying to ‘make space’ for it ?

why are they not considered as dying to defend their own brothers existence ?
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3] why are you blindly parroting the distortions by the biased media ?

why are you ignoring the fanatical armed men hiding in between those innocent children who are the real criminals

who are the ones who have the blood of those children on their hands ?

why are you so shallow to judge a book by the biased cover it was given by biased so called journalists ?

why are you not using some critical thinking instead of blindly following what biased people are feeding you ?
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4] why are those fanatical men not offering the usage of their hundreds of kms of tunnels to those innocent children ?

is it because they are hoping for [!] those innocent children to be blown to bits ?

and hoping for flamingOTD to write heartwrenching ‘humane’ posts about those evil zionists ?

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5] why are you prepared to be the prop and the useful idiot in the hands of those very same criminals

who are the ones who have the blood of the children from their own community on their own hands

and are counting on you to do their bidding ?
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ujm:
If you observed anyone referring to the Republic of Ireland as the Fourth Reich of Ireland, would you get as bent out of shape as you do when you hear the State of Israel being referred to as such? If not, it appears you give the Zionist State some sort of messianic categorization.
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complete shtuyot vahavalim .

I do not give any sort of messianic categorization to the medina

and nevertheless deeply resent people calling the medina anything close to the ‘Fourth Reich of Israel’ …

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the fact is that the medina is the place millions of my brothers call home

and the millions of fanatical barbarians who want to do away with the medina AND WITH MY BROTHERS who live there

are the ones who employ this very same language to justify their barbarian blood lust

to do away with MY BROTHERS who live there chas veshalom

it is stupid [or evil] to disregard this obvious fact ….
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@yya

I probably misquoted what I heard re emuna uvitachon

He was asked why did you write against the baalei mussar and not against the hasidim ?

– he answered that he was afraid of the reaction

when challenged that he did write a critique of the ba’alei mussar ?

he answered that that they are –after all , baalei mussar ….

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I heard it from a mekor ne’eman .
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Dear Shimon and Yaakov Yosef

To respond to Shimons post [and also some of yya’s concerns] :

1. The Lubavitcher Rebbe himself was controversial . Some chashuve people called him a Heiliger Tzaddik who accomplished enormous good in the world, and left behind a rich legacy in writing, in other media, and in the people he inspired, which continues to generate more good and be mekarev countless Yidden to Hashem and His Torah literally worldwide , as Shimon rightly noted. And other chashuve people called him an apikorus , shallow , a product of years of university studies without yeshiva studies and having an outsized opinion of self . A rasha , a shoteh and a gas ruach . The last three are the descriptions by hazal of someone who is lo higia lehora’a and is moreh . All the above descriptions of him, I myself heard from gdolei hador and big talmidei hahamim.

As you can see in my comments , for myself , I prefer not to dwell on these controversial issues re his personality . But the obvious disrepancies from Judaism, contained within the habad movement [which are due to his influence] have to be called out , again and again , without fail.

I do understand that those who belong to the adherents of the first group of chashuve people would like to ‘use’ the obvious regard he is held , as proof to ‘kasher’ all disrepancies from Judaism , contained within habad theology.

But this is really a non starter , as his personality itself is controversial as noted.

2. WRT individual aspects of Chabad theology ,although as noted that chabad is sitting on a rich spritual yerushah , and one can learn a lot from chabad torah , the matzav basically is “buyer beware”. I sincerely believe that real hard core Kefirah/AZ is not automatically included in their torah , with proof that none of the poskei hador invalidated their gittin vakidushin with their obvious repercussions to the weighty issues of yichus. The Meshichist nonsense, with its attendant ideological flip-flops etc. is (for the vast majority of its adherents) admittedly just nonsense, not כפירה בעיקרי האמונה, but another big flashing warning sign re the torah coming out of habad , which originates from their rebbi .
As did all the ideological nonsense and flip flops !
One can attempt to blame so called ‘rogue’ elements instead. But a careful reality-based assessment will bring any non predisposed observer to the same conclusion . They all originated from the top.

3. As previously mentioned, I am also more concerned with the legacy of their leader because he is THE source of what is going on in habad even nowadays.
Very many people learn their Rebbe’s Seforim and are inspired by them. That’s definitely correct . But the flip side presented above , is also correct .
I do not have to sit in judgement over other people . Baruch hashem for that . But the nonsense and the misrepresentation of Judaism has to be called out.

4. Someone who writes a whole book pushing a certain position can still be seen as an unbiased source of information on followers of the opposite position. Dr Berger has the unswerving haskama of Harav Ahron Feldman Rosh Yeshiva of Baltimore , praising Dr Berger for his courage and accuracy. So I do really pay attention to and take into consideration what Dr. Berger says about Chabad, the same way I would seriously investigate anything else , published with the unswerving haskama of the rosh yeshiva of Baltimore. .

5. Personally, I have enough to do to fix myself before I have time to go around fixing the world, but you and yaakov yosef asked , so am explaining myself .

6. Re Dr qwerty’s posts – unlike some of you – I do not take everything he writes quite so literally , but I must admit that I enjoy his writing style immensely and I do concur with most of what he writes.

7. Hope that clarifies matters .

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lol

rav moshe sternbuch says in his weekly alon from last week that he himself heard from brisker rav

re the medina : that ALTHOUGH THE MEDINA WAS A POSITIVE DEVELOPMENT FOR THE MANY PLEITIM AFTER THE WAR , who were left without a roof

in that era , nevertheless its establishment is prohibited

and that we cannot ‘do business’ with yahadut

absorbing ‘losses’ by establishing a medina , and thereby ‘gaining’ a home for the many pleitim

now how is that for a kanna’i , nuanced and realistic view – for a change ?
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ujm :

have you read the principal of satmars book about the SR ? think its mentioned there

its also mentioned in r eliahu beane’s book about rav ahron kotler – interviews from his talmidim vol 1

situations change, so responses to situations also change

there is no proof that rav ahron today would disapprove of his grandsons actions

somejew and ujm called hamas’ murderers— soldiers

thats like calling mengele or the ss campguards —- soldiers

they are not soldiers at all

they are plain criminals

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somejew supported by ujm claims now that he prays for ‘soldiers’ from both sides to be ‘peacefully eradicated’ …..

have some question for somejew …. that is after I finished laughing about his “peaceful eradication” …..

would somejew also pray for ‘soldiers’ from both sides to be ‘peacefully eradicated’ during the second world war ?
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after reading flamingOTD’s recurring comments I have come the conclusion that

she is , either

MAD , or

EVIL , or

RETARDED …

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if she is mad , then she is blameless , may she have a refu’a bimehera

if she is evil , then may HKBH take care of her and her evil partners

if she is retarded and does not understand the meaning of the words she is using ,

then she should refrain from commenting until she properly learns the meaning of the words she is using

and the real repercussions of the words she is using
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I will leave it to the other readers of her comments to decide , which of the above three options is the closest to the truth …
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ZSK’s list is really impressive ….
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ujm is right. SR zatsal did participate in demonstrations against Israel in the US.

these demonstrations were vehemently opposed by rav aharon kotler zatsal.
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@shimon katz

why are you sidestepping the issues I raised ?

the shoteh who calls himself somejew claims he davens for the ‘soldiers’ of hamas ….

which ones ?

those that bake jewish babies in ovens …. ?

those that gouge out the eyes of the jewish children in front of their mothers ?

those that directly target my own civilian brothers and sisters [and somejew’s too] ?

those that blow up teenagers at restaurants in jerusalem ?

or those that murder a yidishe kalla the night before her chuppa ?

or those that murder the only child from an elderly couple who is pregnant with her first child ?

or those who slashed the throat of the fogel newborn whose home in the yishuv in shomron they invaded ?

am plainly disgusted by the shoteh who calls himself somejew ….
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@shimon katz

as continuation from previous post-

this issue in of itself was the subject of a major disagreement years earlier between the hasidic groups in EY and the mitnagdim headed by r shach and the steipler

the mitnagdim claimed that habad was secretly preparing their own followers for eventual acceptance of their leader as mashiach

this was one of the main reasons habad was supposed to be boycotted and not mentioned in the mainstream haredi newspaper of the time

which was then hamodia , nominally the official organ of the aguda organisation comprising both hasidim and mitnagdim under one roof

aguda and hamodia were led jointly , but the hasidim were more dominantly represented , so hamodia and aguda as an organisation disregarded

r shachs opinion on this matter , with result the establishment of a competing newspaper called yated

and ultimately a competing organisation called degel hatorah

I am talking about the 19 eighties now

as you can imagine there were plenty of polemics going on between the two camps

on one hand you had the accusers against habad concentrating on the supposed mashiach issue

on the other hand you had the defenders of habad claiming that this is all a dirty blood libel ,

stemming from the deep rooted mitnagdic opposition to hasidut in general

and that habad never intends to crown their leader as mashiach

this from the defenders of habad …. joined by habad themselves ….

supposedly all lies , originating from hate and jealousy ….

with the benefit of hindsight , fast forward to the 19 nineties …. that’s exactly what happened …. habad self proclaimed their leader as mashiach ….

lets understand something here which is hard for an outsider to grasp , in habad, leadership is centralised to the umpteenth degree

centralised in their rebbi

every word , every nuance is regarded by their hasidim , as stronger than the word of God Himself was regarded at Sinai …

besides that , they are much more insulated from other groups and communities and their rabanim and rebbeim

which dramatically lessens influences from other outside rebeim , rabanim and their groups ,courts and communities

this is unmatched in any other orthodox circle or community

this gives their leader the power of shaping his hasidims thinking, way more than any other orthodox rav or rebbe

their outlook, their worldview, their attitude , their theology, their values which they believe in

everything, everything, is a direct product of their rebbi

this mashiach acceptance in habad did not happen overnight

it took some decades in the making

the habad hasidim had to be prepared , mentally prepared , that is

the mitnagdim under r shach were the ones who picked that up right from the beginning

the general hasidim did not . they for years kept on claiming that it was all one big lie

now we know who turned out to be right about that one …….

@ujm

your point that :

“Yes, absulutely, as HaGaon HaRav Elazar Menachem Man Shach zt”l said, anything that results in peace is worth surrendering Israeli land for. Even the entire State, if that would result in greater peace. HaGaon HaRav Elazar Menachem Man Shach zt”l’s main point is peace is more important than land. Even giving up sovereignty of ALL the land.”

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this is not only rav shach

every chareidi gadol would concur with your words IN A THEORETICAL SENSE ….

but we do live in practical world ….

even rav avigdor miller zatsal who was quite close to satmar view on many respects

stated in public that israel should not hand over territory for ‘peace’ as this will only result in more bloodshed

as subsequent facts amply demonstrated ….
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all those anti israel fanatics like ujm somejew and katan , not to speak about crazy flamingOTD …

are in need of a long needle double dose reality injection ….

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