(Still from wedding at different wedding hall, this one I believe in Kfar Chabad Aleph.)
All this nauseated me some but then I inquired of the Chabad rabbi with whom I came to the wedding. "Nothing wrong with it," he said. Rather, he found it innovative.
Nothing wrong with it?
Suddenly, all the strange comments I have heard over the months at the local Chabad shul started to hit home. Do this mitzvah to give the Rebbe nachas - that's a common refrain over there. Sometimes the rabbi adds - and the Aibishteh. God takes second place evidentially.
Suddenly. it occurred to me how annoyed I feel by the huge photo of the Rebbe in the davening area of the Chabad house. I was putting up with it, trying to not be a hater, trying to be tolerant.
Suddenly, I realized that all of the Torah being Torah from the Rebbe didn't just bother me - I have been aware of it - but had become intolerable to me. I do enjoy his Torah, but he's not the only rabbi on the planet.
So I am overdosed. Maybe the yeshiva world isn't so off base in its condemnation of Chabad. I don't know how we got here. Steinsaltz claims that the Rebbe opposed the Rebbe worship and the Moshiach talk. Personally, I'm not so thrilled with his ending sichos by saying that Moshiach should come mamash, when mamash could be an acronym for his name. But still I'll presume innocence. What matters is that we need to get out of this mode. It's not healthy. Judaism is theocentric. You want to tell me that the Talmud speaks at times of intermediaries? That's fine and dandy. But you know that when the intermediaries take over, take the place of God - something that happens in the Yeshiva world too when study starts to push away God - then we have a big problem.
And we have a big problem. Maybe it's the nature of our confused era.
As I say on the home page, my family goes back to the 5th Rebbe at least, possibly the 4th. I can have connections to Chabad without buying into the current foolishness.