mentalblog.com comments:
The New Age is a live and well. I have no idea whether Reb Simon is a spokes person for normative Chabad. But Chabad should be among the last to preach a harmony between the secular and the holy , between the mundane and the sacred etc. Does the central Lubavitcher cheder in CH Ohalei Tore aka Ohale Menachem have a secular studies dept. ? Does it teach secular studies ? Thus most Lubavitcher youth never study any secualr studies throughout their so called educational experience.Is this what Simon is advocating for the American jewish community ? Do any of the chassidic chedorim teach anything besides indoctrination . These are not schools but indoctrination centers, the like of which did not exist in East Europe where not even 1 chassiduth had its own school system on an elementary level to brain wash the young and innocent.
Before speaking about the soul of Judaism Reb Simon shoul demand that Chabad educate its youth and not indoctriante them and give them a chance to see the continum of G-D's creation as revealed through science, history, literature and individual creativity.
You seem to have misunderstood the entire theme of Simon's article: engaging the modern world doesn't mean that you have to taste and experience EVERY modern offering. That would be like saying that the only way to be progressive is to have watched every current TV show!
It means that you don't insulate yourself and you engage all aspects of life, but not out of capitulation or curiosity (or plain seduction), but because the entire universe and all its discoveries are part of the Divine plan.
Indoctrination -- Ohalei Tore or any other school suffers from this problem. I don't see why you single out one religious instition from another. And what would Noah Feldman say about Maimonides: Did they indoctrinate him with Orthodox Judaism, which as he points out still left him any thousands of others disappointed?
Indoctrination is an independemt problem, as Simon acknowledges, with most Jewish systems.
His point -- which I believe is so simple and yet so elusive, and we need to thank him for bringing it to the fore -- is that until you don't have a cohesive and comprehensive spiritual vision, every one will be left with no option but to indoctrinate or reject, or some "half-..." compromise in between.
Here is the link to the article in case you wnat to read it directly: http://meaningfullife.com/oped/
2...rld_Part_II.php
Since in certain respects Lubavitch sees itself "as one family" there seems to be a belief that if ONE Lubavitcher has a particular talent skill bit of knowledge profession ... that absolves the rest of them from the need to know anything about that field or subject. Since at least one "doctor" is a Lubavitcher that makes the whole medical profession subservient to Lubavitch. It's enough the Professor B is a Scientist or that Rabbi G is a math wizard therefore I need to know nothing about that discipline. What makes it comical is that this extends to Torah too. Since Rabbi S is bucky in Shas and since Mashpia Z is clear in Chassidus we ourselves need know nothing about it. And there you have a reason for the terrible mental state of Lubavitch today. I've been seeing more and more adult Lubavitchers of late who have no knowledge and no critical faculties. It's pretty scary.
simon is not the next rebbe! do the litvish have a spokesman or does young isreal have a rebbe? he is a simple wise man amidst many, but who has the ability to voice it unlike others.
ps what he meant was the same argument between Docter aj heschel and Rav; is it "halachik man" or is it more then halacha that makes man a man(jew).
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