mentalblog.com comments:
Once Rav Dovid took me to Monsey from Morristown. About 1.5 hr drive. Yisroel Noach was in the car, he was about 6 then I think. The entire trip they talked about Chasidic mayses. Most of the stories were about non Chabad Rebbes. I remember I though, wow there is a whole world out there as I suspected. But the conversation was very intense, not your average father and son chatter. I think this was the ideal when the Torah instructed to teach your son. This was the example.
Wow - i've just witnessed the building of a mystery, the invetion of holiness and the foundations of Rebbe-ism-ness. Fascinating and fabulous fiction. A love affair with a dream. You only see in him the Chassidisher bones that are your very essence. Max
MaxKohanzad, you are doing the very thing at the heart of your accusation. Read the previous posts to get to know Max.
Tzemach
The above comments by Max were some of the warmest words ever posted on this here blog. I thank you for it.
HT, welcome to the club of DB, Shmarya and the rest who dance on one note. What do you know about being non dogmatic? Nothing...
TA: I think you'll appreciate the way your blog brings out the "neodnoznachnost" of all of us.
When I was still in my transition stage your blog and MaxK's were my favorites. Me and MaxK have a very similar history and I even wrote ot him about it and we exchanged a few e-mails. Then he, by hoshgoho protis of course, read about me in an old Kfar Chabad magazine and wrote me. It was a karmic click. So even though for me he is too theologically absolutist (I think some sort of post-religious pantheism) I identify with him personally very much. I am not sure if he critiqued my post or just misunderstood it (I did mean to write it as our love affair with Rav Wichnin is a a love affair with a dream and I more or less I agree that it is just a dream for us) or maybee I just misunderstood his post.
In any case, last night I was reading HirshelTzig's blog and was "bothered" by it, to say the least. Everything that I find wrong in Chabad group think was there. And he liked it.
It seems like it is the proverbial - everybody is right.
Is Rav Wichnin living a dream? I think he is.
Is his dream beautiful? I think it is.
Do I like him? Yes I do. I hoped the post came over as "warm". Those are xactly my feelings.
Do I feel that there are lessons to be taken from that dream? Certainly.
Is he my teacher? Not in the guru sense that MaxK suggests (and presumably regects).
Do I want to live like him? No.
Do I want to be like him? Not really.
This sort of made my morning.
Is there already some silly term for this? A blog moment? A bloment?
Max, check out my blog and leave me your email adress and I will reveal myself to you and maybe we can meet if you are still in NY. I got some good pictures from that summer.
Frum, I was actually looking for your e-mail on your blog but did not find it. Just no graphic revelations, please:)
I was in Mayanot from 1999-2000 - the year that Rabbi Wichnin was "inaugurated" as the Rosh Yeshiva. I agree that he truly is a larger than life person. In fact, although I do not intend to attribute Rebbe-like powers to him, I saw him perform an open miracle with my own eyes...I saw him open a fully corked wine bottle without any tools by merely tapping the bottle lightly against a wall. Please tell me how that is possible.
Furthermore, I find that it is in very poor taste for this blog to assume that Rabbi Wichnin's personal belief in the Rebbe as moshiach as something that is shameful. This should not put Rabbi Wichnin in a negative light.
Zev,
Come to my house and i'll open every bottle u want by banging it on the wall... (can't walk on water yet, but im working on it...)
Zev- You must have got there right after I left because the Rosh Yeshiva was Rabbi Gestetner when I was there. The other big Rabbis were Rabbi Jacobson, Rabbi Kaplan , and a few others but not Rabbi Wichnin as far as I know. Max, what are you talking about graphic details?
Rabbi Vichnin taught in the yeshivah in Toronto while he was still a bochor. He was there for only one month and he was, and still is a source of inspiration for myself and many of my classmates who were lucky enough to be in his class.
He has a vivacious personality and his charisma is magnetic.
Frum, that was a joke on your statement " I will reveal myself to you".
Zev:
1) About opening a bottle by tapping it on the wall. It's an old trick. I did not want to waste my time on the net looking so here is a crappy video of a guy doing it. It's grainy but you can make it out :
http://www.exploratorium.edu/
aaa...bottle_slam.ram
As far as using Rav Wichnins meshihism against him. My point was that FOR ME, after 2 years of studing with him I did not know about it until I asked him at a Gimel Tamuz farbrengen after being disturbed by what I saw. My basic complaint was that we were asked to live somebody else's dream. It was an odd experince seeing a grown man cry over something that I did not want to relate to. He spend a long time with me in a sort of private farbrengen. It was pretty intense. I don't think he hides it but he never ever said anything about it. FOR ME that caused discomfort because I always looked on meshihistim as people who can't reconcile idealism and reality and choose fantasy as an escape route. The fact that Rav Wichnin is not that sort of person made ME even more uncomfortble for a bunch of reasons that I care not to discuss. Does my subjective experience shame him? I don't think so.
In any case Zev, I think I know who you are and you probably should know who I am. I would love to hear how you are doing. E-mail me at makumaku@mail.ru. Yours truly,
so much for the last remaining anti yeshiva for BTs. Lubavitch is officially consumed by meshichism.
Hi Max - i don't know - i think i may have not got the context
- but what you wrote was a lovers memory of a 'holy man' you fell in love with.
It's the kind of love-blinded writing that creates the myth of mini-Rebbe, holy men, guru's and the like.
I wish someone would write one about me!
I was in Moristown with Yisroel Noach and his Father was my Rosh in Tiferes, I never saw anything in him that wasn't just regular shtarka frumy stuff.
That's why i'm tempted to say that it is the viewers own inner being that is reflected in the object of adoration. You see something in yourself in him that you long for and addor!
That's what i meant.
Max i'd be greatful if you check out my new site Urban Guru and let me kow what you think. (some of it is obviously fluffy and badly writen - but other bits i really like) Peace*
TA:
Don't worry, Rav Shem Tov who really runs the place is big time anti and hates even minor proiavlenia of the fever. Once when I did not know any better I bought the new siddur with yehi which promtly dissapeared. I found out months later that he put it in some top kitchen shelf where it lay undisturbed. An interesting way out of a sticky problem.
They also have wonderful non-Chabad rabbonim ( hald the staff?) there like Rabbi David Fink (he is a big maven in medicine and halacha in adition to having a PhD from Yale in Linguistics (I'll double chieck this but I think I checked it before)who is amazing. He knows an untold number of languages and really impressed us when he offered a German Ger to explain the chemistry of dentures as it relates to hilhos Pesach in German. He also warned us about not taking on too many minhagim and if we do to do it all bli nader or we might regret it later. The most sensible and sage advice on the topic that I heard there. I was always amazed with what grace, wit and erudition he can answer any question that we could throw at him. Somebody insulted him as "that encyclopedia". What a compliment!
There is also Rabbi Silberg who is a dentist in the afternoon. He is a kipa sruga guy fom Bat Ayin. He can really teach and a real mensch. A great example of Jewish man, husband and father. No BS from here.
There is Rabbi Levinger, a Polisher who became a chabadnik who is another gem of a person. I'll never forget how his daughter died of SIDS at 5 month and we came to the levaya and he explained to us idiots why he is saying the blessing and that he is not bitter at Hashem and I think we all broke out in tears (I did for sure) and he was a real hero the way he dealt with it. He takes his job very seriously and is extremly real and aidle person.
There was also a Russian guy that started teaching there that was a thinker and a wonderful teacher.
In short, Mayanot as I remember and from what I still hear is a special place. Incomparable to anything else I saw in Israel. The best part of it was that all sorts of folks drop in and learn and argue and bitch (kids from Rahsmatrivka, from the Sephardi yeshiva next door, some guys from Mir and other Litvishe yeshivas - this was at least when I was there) that creates a very Jewishly metropolitan "ambiance". Especially after all can drop the ideological blinders.
With Didia Vania's potatoes in the mornings and Stanislavs chik-chack cleaning skills it realy made for an unforgetful experience.
So TA, don't worry about Mayanot. But I agree that almost everything else around it is worthy of serious concern.
"I never saw anything in him that wasn't just regular shtarka frumy stuff."
Max, what on the earth do you call regular shtarka frumy stuff? How many people did you meet in your life that were like him? Frum, non-frum, Jews, gentiles, you can include everyone on the list. Do you mean to say that there are (tens of?) thousands like him walking out there? That would be good news but I am afraid that is not the case. In my experience he cared about you - not about the movement, the party, the yeshiva, his career ... beside of being learned, etc... When he responded to a question, in my experience he never repeated cliches, he was pensive and thought about the question (believe me I asked him plenty). I am yet to meet many others like him. I guess in some ways you are lucky if you don't miss him.
Kushen T: There is MaxKohanzad and Max. I hope you saw that Max wrote an appreciative post about Rav Wichnin which MaxKohanzad looked at as myth-creating hagiography.
This is Max now. I think that MaxK is right in general but as he mentions in a later post that he probably missed the context. The context is the state of charedi and chabad hucksterism in general. On this background Rav Wichnin shines. He is one of a kind. His pensivness that you mention is a quality I appreciated greatly. He thought about you and what you asked him.
My experience was pretty much like yours Kishen T. If my writing is loovy duby it is not because I project my image of the guru on him. I am really not into that. That was the experience, obviously at its peak. I also wrote that he was not much of a teacher and that I don't think that his way is the way for most. I don't like the fact that he is a meshihist. But for him it genuinly works and I try to use this category sparingly. He is a natural.
In the words of Ali G "respecta".
I think that Rav Wichnin, like most people who are in the place they were ment to be in, had a sort personal beakthrough. He broke through the "regular shtarka frumy stuff". I did not know him then but I can project backwards from the way he arrrived and what he became. He came out of the charedi closet if that makes sense. Something that I think MaxK is also doing and everybody else should do.
MaxK, I am checking your site. And you are right, usually the Guru is just a projection of the devotee. Poor guru and poor devotee.
He was never in that closet. The Schedriner, his father was a standout. He was not appreciated as he should have been in Lubavitch. Why in the world lowly shmuck like Lispsker was toifes mokom in the same yeshiva?
It is symbolic that he settled in Monsey. YN had sick sister and this might have something to do with it but Dovid Whichni and his father from I hear was always an outsider. I have to say that he is the only person in my Chabad experience whom I remember fondly.
This is the ultimate question, and you posed it well. I still cannot understand how Tiferes came to be known as Lipskier's Yeshiva, how so many groups were allowed to come out of there thinking that Lipskier is their Rebbe/Moshiach, when such an eidele and erudite person as Rabbi Wichnin taught there.
The question goes further: I have met people whose entire Chinuch was in Tiferes, and it is obvious in their every hanhogo and their Chasidishe personality that theyr main influence was Rabbi Wichnin, that still claim that Rabbi Lispkier is god, R"L.
Not everyone that entered Tiferes was a crazy hippy, a person devoid of any content who would be instantly attracted to Lipskier's brand of chitzonius and personal charisma. Why would they be caught in his net?
Max, Thanks for your comments. If I understand it correctly you are writing about Rabbi Dovid Wichnin's son, whereas I was writing about R. Dovid Wichnin zt"l. Well, the good news is that apparently the apple did not fall far from the tree. On another note, for many Tiferes will be remembered as the yeshiva of R. Wichnin, R. Gordon, R. Fitzy Lispkier, not necessarily the yeshiva of R. A. Lipskier just because he was the loudest. If you recall there were 3 Lipskiers in Mo'town, all with distinct personalities :)
guravitzer, there is one name you need to know to understand how this vile eventuality came about: Herson. And the rest of Lubavitch. And the buck stops with the Rebbe.
That is a discussion on why Lipskier was allowed to remain in Tiferes, which is a valid point as well. The question as posed above and which I do NOT see an answer for is why those who entered Tiferes and were normal saw him as their primary influence.
"I have to say that he is the only person in my Chabad experience whom I remember fondly".
I knew him too. he was a special man.
Yyisroel Noach Vichnin is a Tzadik.
http://www.col.org.il/show_news...._news.asp?
26858
some recent pics
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