Compare and contrast

 Here are two divrei Torah that I read yesterday, one from a neo-Litvish Rosh Yeshiva and one from a Chassidic Rebbe. Take a guess, which is which. 

1) Yosef Hatzadik was alone for nearly twenty two years with no chavrusa, no shiur, no Daf, no kehilla, no shul, yet he maintained his madreigah. This shows the koach of a Yid. 

2) This week’s Vort – פרשת שמות ותקרא שמו משה (שמות ב:ו) And she called him by the name Moshe. Moshe Rabbeinu had ten names; if so, why does the Torah refer to him by the name of Moshe? Especially if Basya, the daughter of Pharaoh, named him this name, why does Hashem refers to him by this name?

The Torah wants to teach us the value of an act of chessed - doing kindness to someone. Basya gave the name” משה - כי מן המים משיתהו”- because I pulled him out of the water - which was an act of חסד. 

The name משה רבינו and the word בגמילת חסדים are both equivalent to 613 – the amount of mitzvahs in the Torah.  This comes to prove that all mitzvahs revolve around chessed.

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So what do you say? Which is which?

Here's two more that I heard recently.

1)  Famous American 'gadol' to visitors (I believe they might have been children):

Do you await Moshiach?

Yes.

Do you want him to greet you?

Yes.

Then you must learn the laws of brochos because he won't greet you if you don't know them.

2) ואלה שמות בני  ישראל הבאים מצרימה (שמות א:א)

Why does it say these are the children of Yisrael (Yaakov Avinu) who are coming to Mitzrayim - הבאים is present tense – versus אשר באו - they came, which is past tense?

Because during the 210 years that the Jews were in Mitzrayim, they kept themselves estranged from the Egyptians, as if they had just arrived.  They didn’t change their attire, language, or names.  Therefore, it says ‘הבאים’, since they kept to their traditions each day anew, as if they had just arrived.

A chassid was struggling with parnassah (finances), and he asked Reb Yehoshua of Belz zt’’l for a blessing for good livelihood.  Reb Yehoshua advised him to travel to America, where he will be very successful, on the condition that he should send the Rebbe letters from time to time and share his financial and spiritual status.

The chassid followed the advice from the Rebbe, and at first sent letters depicting his struggles in America.  He was struggling both financially and spiritually –Shabbos, Kashrus, and Torah were a tremendous challenge.  The chassid concluded each letter asking the Rebbe, "Should I remain in America, or return home?"

With each letter, Reb Yehoshua replied with words of encouragement and told him to stay living in America.  After a while, the chassid finally saw success in business and he started becoming acquainted with his environment.  He made good friends and he was satisfied with life in America. When he shared the good news with Reb Yehoshua of Belz, the Rebbe replied, commanding him to leave America and his business and return back to Galicia.

The chassid listened to his Rebbe and returned home to Belz.  When he arrived, he asked Reb Yehoshua to explain, "Why when times were difficult you encouraged me to stay, and when I finally started being comfortable, you told me to return?"

Reb Yehoshua answered, “Yes, you're right! As long as you felt like a stranger, and the American culture didn’t pull you, I wasn’t worried about your spiritual state.  But as soon as you became successful, and you started acclimating to your surroundings, I was afraid you’ll assimilate in the ‘melting pot’ of (then) America.”

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So what do you say? Which is which? I'll tell you. The ones that are only about Torah study and knowledge are the neo-Litvish ones. The one which wonders how Yosef could survive in Egypt without the daf is neo-Litvish. The daf. The one where Moshiach is portrayed as a redeemer who could easily reject you is the neo-Litvish one. The one about Chesed is Chassidish. The one about a Rebbe caring about his chossid, encouraging the earning of parnassah, giving chizuk, not being terrified of going out into the world yet paying attention to general kiddushah is Chassidic. That one that references power is neo-Litvish. That one that references spirituality is Chassidic. 

You see where I'm going with this?

parnassah

Neo-Litvacks - you are second rate for not being in learning, but while you are there make lots of money to support yeshivas. If you insist, you also can make a kiddush Hashem by being honest (even as you try to become rich which strains honesty considerably.)

Hirsch - you can improve the world by making it a better place.

Chassidus - just being a Torah observant Jew in the work environment frees up sparks of holiness that were trapped when the world was created. You don't have to lose your mind being the super honest guy who at the same time tries to get to a position where he makes enough money to pay yeshiva tuition or to make yourself crazy trying to improve a world that mostly gets worse all the time. 

Chassidim do not hit

 

This is analogous to a compassionate, wise and righteous father who hits his son. Surely a wise son should not turn his back to escape and find himself help, or even an intercessor to his father, who is compassionate, righteous and kind (chassid).

The Rebbe Rayatz once remarked1 that when the Alter Rebbe first speaks of the father who punishes, he does not use the term “chassid”. (He uses it only later, in the context of the intercessor.) The reason, says the Rebbe, is that a father who smites his child may indeed be compassionate, righteous and wise — but he is not a chassid, for a chassid does not hit!

So what about all these "Chassidim" that hit kids in school? I guess they are not Chassidim. 

Marc Shapiro on Chabad and the Rebbe

 https://torahinmotion.org/podcast/the-making-of-my-most-recent-book-a-thirty-year-story-part-42  50:30

https://torahinmotion.org/podcast/the-making-of-my-most-recent-book-a-thirty-year-story-part-43  21:50

"(Reflecting on a long letter that the Lubavitcher Rebbe wrote to Professor Marc Shapiro's father, who is a historian) It shows you that someone he just met for a few minutes, but in writing a letter he's cognizant, he could have written just a short little letter, thank you, he goes into pages, expounding on this (that we have an advantage over earlier generations in having living proof of faith through Jewish history). And he had to think about this when he wrote it. That's the greatness of the Rebbe. Unfortunately, many people don't see this. They are always looking for negatives. What can you say about the Rebbe? He created a revolution in Judaism. So every time you have a revolution, you have certain dark spots and unfortunate things. (Shapiro had talked earlier about mashichist shluchim in India and Rutgers College). But what he accomplished in terms of the Jewish world, no one came close. And to the Rebbe's credit, and the Litvish don't like this but it's the truth, the Litivsh who were so opposed to kiruv and all these things, Shlomo Carlebach had to leave Lakewood because of that, now of course they are leaders in it, it's all because of the success of Chabad. If Chabad had not gotten into it, they never would have. And they do the exact same thing that Chabad did. They are in all these colleges now, the Litvish Charedim, and what do they do? They ask people, are you Jewish? Come, we're having a seder, we're having this and that. They do the same thing that Chabad did. Chabad I guess had to break the ice on it. This is the vision of the Rebbe. And there's a lot that can be said about the Rebbe, and just because you have some crazy shulchim in certain places, that doesn't take away from all the great things that shluchim do and what the Rebbe did. 

And the Rebbe's a thinker. Elliot Wolfson could not have, Elliot Wolfson who's so erudite, he's written so much, he's wouldn't have written a whole book on the Rebbe's kabbalistic ideas if the Rebbe wasn't a great thinker. And the fact that it's hard to understand one page of that book because all the jargon it's written in, derida and all this stuff,  post-modern stuff, doesn't take away from the fact that the Rebbe is not just a doer, he's also a thinker. And most thinkers are not doers and most doers are not thinkers. So the Rebbe is special. " 

Professor Marc Shapiro  https://torahinmotion.org/podcast/the-making-of-my-most-recent-book-a-thirty-year-story-part-43  28:35 - 30:02

Rebbe on the exemption

 "God divided the commandments. Some apply to both men and women. Then there are some commandments from which men are exempt so that they may focus more on those activities unique to their purpose. Likewise, there are commandments from which women are exempt to allow them to accomplish more in the areas entrusted to them. Now, you might think that the reward for the commandments is awarded only to those who actually perform them. But the Torah declares, as the Arizal explains: the fact that women are exempt from some commandments doesn't mean, God forbid, that they have no share in them. Rather, when the husband performs those commandments he does so on behalf of his wife as well. As it is with kiddush on Shabbos: when one person recites kiddush he exempts all those who are listening to him as well even though they are merely hearing it. The same applies to the commandments from which women are exempt like the commandment to write a Torah scroll for instance. God established that women do indeed share in the benefit. They were only exempted from performing the actual deed for when the man fulfills it, he does so as a representative and on behalf of his wife. 

But the question could be asked: Perhaps this only occurs after marriage when she has a husband? The Zohar states that this is incorrect. The souls of husband and wife were created like all souls in Heaven from which they then descended. In heaven they were created as one soul. They were separated into two bodies only when they descended into this world. And so Torah calls an unmarried man a half-body. And this is also true of the woman. And then, when the right time comes, God brings them together, for is He who ordains the match. This teaches us that even before marriage God knows that the half-souls of a young man and his future bride are part of one whole. So, even before marriage as the young man fulfills commandments in which only men are obligated he might not realize it. But God who gave prescribed commandments and their reward certainly knows that they are performed in part for him and in part for the woman, who, at the proper time, will be re-united with him to become one unit. So years before his wedding, and even during early childhood, when a boy performs a commandment incumbent only on men, it is done in part for his half-soul's female counterpart, and the same is true of the woman. (Lubavitcher Rebbe, Farbrengen of 26 Iyar, 5744, May 27, 1984 in "Two Halves of a Whole," Living Torah, 1657)

Manalism

"His greatness was Torah. His life was Torah. Everything about him was Torah. Nothing else mattered to him outside of Torah."

This is a terrible slander. Did God matter to him? Did Klal Yisroel matter? Did mitzvos matter? You are seeing here Manalism in action, that's militant neo-Litvish madness. 

https://yated.com/rav-chaim-ztl/

Did it start here:

"The idea of the highest form of Torah, this is what Reb Aharon brought to America. This highest form of sitting and learning l’sheim Shomayim. Sitting and learning and nothing else mattered. This is what he put and planted in America."  https://www.shemayisrael.com/ravaharon/rwolowitz.htm

The litvish slips in

 https://collive.com/what-the-rebbe-said-was-pikuach-nefesh-these-days/

He makes a mistake here, going into the Litivsh spiel. See my response below.