mentalblog.com comments:
Yakov, do you think Malochim can organize a get to know you Shabatton for the readers of mentalblog.com?
Yakov, the last time I had personal contact with Malochim was in the summer of 1980 in the Catskills. So it's time to update my database.
1. Those folks told me they did not learn anything past the צמח צדק. Is that true? If so, does that mean they did not recognize as "real חב"ד" anything past that time, including the Rebbe מהר"ש?
2. Do they learn the מגן אבות (penned by שלמה זלמן, the Kapust grandson of the צמח צדק who was himself not on very friendly terms with the Lubavitch)?
3. Do they use the סידור מהרי"ד?
4. Do they use the ספרים of the Rebbes they do recognize that were re-issued by Kehoth as photocopies of the old ספרים?
5. What about the works of those same Rebbes that were only recently published by Kehoth for the first time form the כתבי יד?
Thank you in advance for your trouble.
Could someone also update my database on the history of the malochim. Can you write about the Malach? This is a legend free zone by the way...
please can someone please give a complete background of the malochim.
I will let someone else write about the history of the Malach. Check Alpert's Gods Middlemen for some info on the Malach. There is also a new book in Yiddish- Hebrew Shloshes Horoim by Lemel Schwartz about the Malach. There is some more about him on the net by some others including a 1950's MA for the NEW school of social research. Mintz's book about hasidism also has info on the malach.
I do not believe the M'lochim represent the true weltanshauung of Chabad. These people know Chabad chassiduth from the books,
There are no more than 1-2 M'lochim today who knew the Malach Rabbi Levine. He had no real successor who grew up in Chaabd culture.(His son Reb Zalman had partial acsess to this messorah but was far removed from the M'Lochim and their world).
Rabbis Schorr and Yablac"h- Weberman are Americans from non-Chabad familiea who picked up tid bits from the Malach but remember the Malach lived in the BRonx not near Torah VeDaath. So the M'lochim are just a book form of Lubavitch.
I say this with the greatest respect for rav levine and his disciples.
But there is an oral Teyre in Chabad , a way of thinking of acting of expression that is the monopoly of Geza people or others who spent long hours and days with serious mashoiim.
We need a leadership who is part of the mesorah for genuine hamshocha. Although groups like the M'lochim and others have their place too.
I knew many of the early Lubavitchers in America in the 1940's Teyre Vedaas people and they lacked this mesorah too.
Chabad is simply too diverse to make any general statement about what it has or has not. There is one thing that really sticks out, though. Emotional control used to be a basic element of idealised Chabad behavior. I don't mean emotional coldness - just the ability to exercise emotional restraint when appropriate. I haven't seen any indication that this behavior is still taught outside the hard-core Lubavich families. In fact, people who ave joined Chabad in the last few decades seem only vaguely aware that it was ever taught. In fact, most bochrim and younger men seem to have the idea that this is actually *contrary* to the Chabad philosophy, It's very strange.
I heard that there is a photo of the Malach. Can someone post it?
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