We Wouldn’t Be Frum Today…

by A.

Let me paint a picture for you:

A father who trims his beard, does not wear a kappota on shabbos, a mother who wears a hat over her hair, or a head scarf but no wig, and children who can very well be a poster ad for Aish. Yes, they look frum, but does that make them Lubavitch?

That was 20 years ago. Today, that same father has a full gray beard, wears a kappota not only on shabbos but on all chassidise yomim tovim, the mother never leaves her house without a shaitel, and their children have been through the ‘system’ and proudly call themselves Lubavitch.

This is my family. My parents are baalei teshuva. My father only started growing his beard when I was 5. I am frum today only because they made a major change in their lives. Had your article been written 20 years ago, what you would have been saying is that this family does not deserve a chance. That we are not ‘welcome’ here.

From what I understand, your article is coming from a place of no life experience, as well as cold calculated thoughts. Where is your heart? Where is your true Ahavas Yisroel? While your mouth says, “I love those people as brothers, as Jews.” Your heart is not in it.

We may not be related, you and I, but we are family. We are both Jews. We both have the same G-d, the same Torah. And we both happen to have the same Rebbe. But while I cannot claim to speak on behalf of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, I find it interesting that you feel adequate to be his mouth piece. Perhaps had you submitted this article for the Rebbe’s approval before you decided to publish it, you might have given him the chance to say how he feels about this issue.

If we are family, then what you are saying is, you are not good enough for me, you don’t belong here, you are not wanted. Sounds like a dysfunctional family to me. If your own brother was sent to jail for committing a crime, would you wash your hands of him and say, sorry but you messed up so I no longer call you my brother?

That is what you are saying here. And that is going on the assumption that these ‘Chabad Lite’ as you call them, are ‘committing a crime’.

As one of the responses to your article pointed out, you point out a problem but you do not suggest a solution. Your solution? Leave from my midst before your pollute the air around me. Really? That does not sound like a Lubavitcher to me. In fact, that sounds like the mentality of a ‘misnaged’, someone who does not believe in the idea of shlichus, lest their daled amos be polluted with ‘shmutz’ from the goyishe velt.

How can you call yourself a Lubavitcher and speak this way?

No, I am not telling you to watch TV like them, to dress like them, to become like them. Am I suggesting that you accept them? Yes. Just as you would accept a wayward member of your own family.

Let’s inspect these so-called ‘Chabad Lite’ people. They are you. They are me. Maybe they don’t dress according to shulchan aruch. Maybe they have televisions in their homes. Maybe they dress their children in the modern fashion of the times. How does that make them any less of a lubavitcher than you are?

What makes you a lubavitcher? Because yo say your chittas? Because you wear 2 pairs of teffillin every day? Because you daven at 770? Because you go to the ohel regularly? Is that why you call yourself Lubavitch?

Are you Lubavitch because your grandparents risked their lives in Russia for the sake of yidishkeit? Are you lubavitch because you are related to great chassidim like Reb Shmuel Munkas, Reb Hillel Paritcher, and the like? Are you Lubavitch because you do miztzoyim? Tell me, please, why do you consider yourself to be a chossid of the Rebbe?

Because I am jealous of you, really, that you consider yourself so perfect that you feel you have the right to ‘banish’ people, and to decide who is and who is not a chossid of the Rebbe.

This excerpt, written by Yechezkal-Shimon Gutfreund, explains it quite accurately:

“The only true definition of what a Chabad chassid is, is what the Rebbe has said. He is the only one who can really say what a chassid is. Because a chassid is a chassid of the Rebbe. That means that the definition of a chassid is one who has a particular kind of relationship with the Rebbe. In a relationship (any relationship) the relationship is defined by the partners in a relationship. Just as one cannot be married to someone who feels that they are not married to them – so it is with the Rebbe/Chassid relationship. A chassid who wants to consider himself a chassid of the Rebbe, must act his/her part of the relationship. He or she cannot unilaterally decide that they have a relationship without conducting themselves a the Rebbe wishes.

The following story, for me, is one of the most illustrative of how the Rebbe defined what a chassid of his is:

Dr. David Weiss has achieved world renown for his work in cancer research. Although he came from an observant home, his involvement in American culture presented him with many challenges. His encounters with Chassidim and the philosophy of Lubavitch helped him overcome these hurdles.

Once while at yechidus with the Rebbe, he asked him if he could consider himself a chassid. “I am attracted to the Chassidic way of life,” he explained, “but can never see myself donning a black hat or Chassidic garb. Does this disqualify me?”

The Rebbe responded, “When a Jew endeavors to take a step forward in the service of G-d and the love of his fellow man every day, I am happy to consider him my chassid.”

Yes, to be a chossid is to act according to chassidus. But no one is perfect, and I’m sure neither are you. And just the very act of trying, of moving forward, of doing mitzvos and attempting to serve Hashem in some way, this makes one a Chossid.

What makes me a Jew? I am a Jew because my mother is a Jew, and her mother was a Jew, and all the way back to the first Jew, Avraham. I do not have a certificate that says ‘proud Jew’, and yet every time I leave my house I know it, I feel it, and the world sees it. No, I do not wear a yellow star that says Jude, but that doesn’t make me any less of a Jew. And that is an identity that no one, not even you, can ever take away from me.

What makes me Lubavitch? What makes me a chossid of the Rebbe? Because my parents happened to become Baal Teshuva through Chabad instead of Breslov? Because I got a dollar from the Rebbe? Because I have a picture of the Rebbe on display in my living room?

None of the above. I am a chossid and a Lubavitcher because I chose that way of life. Because I live it every day. Because I not only serve Hashem, but I do it in the best way possible. I light a shabbos candle every week even though I am not married. I go out of my way on sukkos to shake lulov and esrog, even though someone pointed out that ‘women and girls are not obligated’.

But a true chossid does not only do what is obligated of him. A true chossid is mehudar, he goes beyond the letter of the law.
Of course I would love to say that I am the ‘ultimate Jew’, that I live and act in the proper way always. But that is not true. I try to. And that is the best I can do.

My relationship between me and the Rebbe, just like my relationship between me and Hashem, is private. So let me pose this question to you: How can you decide who is ‘Lubavitch’ and who is ‘Chabad Lite’? Who gave you that right? Is this a job that you elected yourself for? Did the Rebbe ask you to do this? Do you get paid to label people?

I was at a wedding recently of a close friend. A girl walked into the hall. This is a girl who I went to high school with, a girl who would consider herself Lubavitch, who wears a shaitel, whose husband trims his beard. A girl who you would call ‘Chabad Lite’.

This girl was wearing a gorgeous dress. She looked really pretty, and it really was a nice dress. The only problem was, it was a wrap around dress, one that didn’t close all the way at the front, and every time she walked you could see a leg. I blinked. And my first though was, maybe she doesn’t realize it is so open.

Now let me ask you, if she came to your wedding dressed like that, what would you have done? Asked her to leave? Told her to please never call herself a Lubavitcher because she is a shame to the ‘name’? Told her that you have judged her and found her lacking?

Perhaps the right thing to do would be to offer her a safety pin, or whisper kindly that maybe she didn’t realize it but her dress was not so tznius. (I think someone pointed this out to her since she spend the rest of the wedding holding her dress closed every time she walked.)

If (and I stress if since this is a question you really have to ask yourself) you truly “love those people as brothers, as Jews.” as you claim, then treat them as such. Treat them the same way you would your own sisters and brothers.
I live in Crown Heights, and I agree that there is a general lack of tznius here. I believe everyone has room to improve, and not just in the area of tznius.

But what I find amazing, what I find so flabbergasting and beautiful and wondrous and astounding is this: the fact that Chabad is still going strong, without the physical presence of the Rebbe. The fact that we are alive and well and flourishing.
In truth, this should not surprise me since the Rebbe prepared us for this.

The Rebbe, who came to America and settled in Crown Heights of all places. The Rebbe, who had the foresight to know that many many Jews would return to their roots. The Rebbe, who sent shluchim out to the world and taught them how to spread chassidus, how to be an example, how to show the world what a chossid looks like.

Let me ask you, since you seem to be well ‘in the know’. How many chassidim were there when the Frierdike Rebbe came to America? After World War II, after the Holocaust, how many frum Jews were even left? And yet, the Rebbe came to America, and he built it up again.

With maybe less than one hundred chassidim following him, Chassidim who would have followed their Rebbe through anything, the Rebbe started such a great movement, that there was no room for all of the Baal Teshuva to go.

Maybe your parents are ‘frum from birth’. That’s great. Maybe you can trace your lineage back to the Ball Shem Tov. If so, I envy you.
But I am so proud of my parents who turned their whole life around to become frum, and to try and do all that the Rebbe demanded of them.
The Rebbe demands, because the Rebbe knows that we can deliver.

The term ‘Chabad Lite’ as you coined them, doesn’t exist. You are ripping chassidim away from the Rebbe and telling them that they are not who they think they are. You are, in effect, trying to speak for the Rebbe. That is not your place.
You say “they consider themselves Lubavitch, and take part in our mosdos.” and I ask, who are you to tell them otherwise?

“All I want is for these groups of so called “Chabad Lite / Modern Orthodox Lubavitchers” to detach themselves from the mainstream Lubavitch community.” If that is all you want, I find that disappointing. Instead of saying, go away, why don’t you say, I hope that they will try to act in the way a proper Jew should, and I hope that one day I will feel comfortable sending my children to their houses?

Instead of pushing them away, why don’t you draw them close?
“They” do not force their life style upon anyone. They are you, they are me, and they live their life the way they choose. It may not be the best way a Jew should live, but that is their own life long struggle. And do you know how they act every day? Do you know how much tzedaka they give, how many times a day they daven, do you know what kind of hechsheros they keep?
Perhaps they keep a much higher stander of kashrus than you. Just because they dress a certain way does not mean that their entire existence is lacking. And remember, what you see is not always what you get. So don’t judge them based on externalizations. That is very superficial of you.

Do YOU always act the way a chossid should? Are you the poster child for Lubavitch? Someone once told me that they felt hypocritical while speaking to a non-Lubavitcher who said “I thought Lubavitchers don’t watch TV”, while this person themselves watch a few TV shows. The solution is not to say, oh I guess I’m no longer Lubavitch. Instead, look at yourself and see where you can improve.

Just as shluchim go out into the world and have to explain to their children why they are different and why they don’t look and act the same way as other people, if you taught your children properly, and they were strong people, you wouldn’t have to be worried that they will be negatively influenced by other people. In fact, they might reach out to these children and teach them the proper way.

“They can call themselves “Modern Orthodox” or “Friends of Chabad.” In truth, they can even call themselves Lubavitchers, but they should separate themselves from us. They can live their lives however they want to; I draw the line, however, when they try forcing their lifestyle upon others.”

You are kicking your own brothers and sisters out of your ‘house’. And if you can’t help them, then you have failed them.

I think the problem lies not with these so-called ‘Chabad Lite’, but with people like you, who choose to label, ostracize, and push Jews away.

Is that the way a true Chossid should act? I don’t think Jews risked their lives for yidishkeit to have someone like you stand up and decide who is and who isn’t a chossid.

When you can love your fellow Jew so much that not only does it pain you to see him acting in an improper manner, but that you do not rest until you help him change, maybe then you can call yourself a true chossid. Not only do I find your article sad and misguided, but it makes me uncomfortable that you call yourself Lubavitch. Is that who we are?

Tell me where the Rebbe says that we should push away frum Jews who are not like us.

Until then, I pray for the day when Moshiach will come, and there will be no more strife, no more confusion, and you can stand before the Rebbe and proudly say, “look how many Jews I brought closer to their Father in heaven.”