Max comments:
I saw this with myself and many many other people. And it's not just Tanya but other spiritual texts as well.
When you are taught by a person you respect that the world is nothing and the path to reach the devine is right in front of your nose it is so seductive that makes the rat race around you look soo meaningless that you just go for it. When the person who is teaching you pretends (and 99% are pretending) that they really live like that and look, they have a nice family with cute curls it is all the more seductive. Add a little maise, a little lechaim and magic happens, a new BT is born. I have a professor who told us that it always amazes her that in criminal investigations the interrogator who is taught which buttons to press and he does it and BAM magic happens, people confess, even if they did not do it. It's the same sort of process with Tanya or Olga or Bagavat Gita.
That’s how it works. The person who has seen this process and knows that this is what will happen and does not warn the new victim ex. "please don't take this to mean that you have to drop everything and really nobody lives like this, its a high ideal but there is reality, please don't drop everything, take this as another bit in the grand Jewish mosaic that makes life interesting and meaningful!" is either stupid or a criminal. The few who do warn you are often tepid and cautious but are remembered fondly.
But I've spent a few years in chabad yeshivas and a few years on shlihus. Trust me, I know well about what "the point of Chassidus" is. No offense. If that sort of thing turns you on and if that is how you honestly read the texts and the way they are expounded gezunterheit.
I am talking about the social aspects of this process. And in my personal life have noticed that taken to its logical conclusion the "point of Chassidus" THE WAY IT WORKS NOW leads to a repressive and stifling theocracy in which I do not want to live.
Therefore I do not want to work for its propagation.
I want to get over the fact that I thought of "you people" as an authority on anything and a model worthy of emulation. Your condescending posts the best confirmation of my opinion.
First of all every yeshiva is Chabad BT's handlers School and every Shluchim convention and workshop is the Shluchim Finishing School. There is a lot of talk of success on shlihus, the Rebbe spoke at length about how to do it and the shluhim talk about amongst themselves all the time. This is obviously not wrong in and of itself. If they did not it be a lot worse. And you learn by watching. Again and again and again on farbrengen after farbrengen after farbrangen. That is why a farbrengen is usually such a tedious event. You can take one look at the people around the table and know what will happen and what they will say.
When I was a teacher a friend, now a shliah somewhere, after telling yet another cheesy story to the uninitiated in an over-inspired way, turned to me and said "you know, when I talk I realize that I really don't care about these stories”. And I remember how I listened to them, enthralled...And now I realize that the guy who was telling us was probably as bored with the stories as I am now..." And he can live like this and some of us can't. Some people seem to call the acceptance of hypocrisy "growing up" and others just keep calling it being a hypocrite. Silly us.
By a coincidence, a few weeks ago I spotted the only non-kodesh book at a shliahs house. Guess the title - "How to work a room"…
In any case, the beef I have I have is partially as follows. And trust me, I will not waste my life dwelling on it, but I will not turn over and not tell other people about it.
Those who don't know what they are doing to peoples lives - stop and think what sort of effect you are having and don't be shocked when you get a nasty surprise later. A real life example: After attending summer Chabad camp a 12 year old girl decides to become shabbos observant. This happens to be in an area that there are no frum Jews around and very limited kosher food and her family is very against it. The shluhim take her in and she becomes like a member of the family. Every shabbos for 3 years she spends by them. She helps around the house. She becomes a real chassidishe maidele...How sweet...What is not sweet is that nobody cared to ask her Mom about this, nobody told the kid that her family is a VERY important part of her life and she should not get into inane arguments with them over shabbos, kashrus and Chalav Israel. Three years later when the girl freaked and dropped everything like a hot potato the shluchim were in shock. And they were in shock that she was mad at them and had something to tell them! But we fed you so good was their claim. But we did not push her to do anything! Learning with a 13 year old sichos for 3 years?
Point of the story: THINK where there could be major fallout from your "unintentional" but totally predictable actions and be frank about it. But nothing bad comes from a mitzva, right. Wrong. As the old story goes you can destroy half the world running to do one. This can happen to a 13 year old and to a 30 year old.
People spend so much personal energy and time (me personally only 8 plus years but its enough, I assure you) you have to be blind not to see it. People understand that life is not a picnic. But we also understand that we should not have to spend the rest of our lives with sanctimonious assholes in order to feel "really Jewish". This is by the way why there are not a lot of BTs. A lot of people see the truth beyond the smoke screen.
I was reading this book for the chapter on Niddah and came across the quote. It is likely how Sholom Brodt knows the story as well. But this really got me thinking. Brodt is articulating the ideas of Shlomo Carlebach in Jerusalem and it suddenly occurred to me that all neo-Judaic movements including Zalman Schachter Shalomi , Gershon Winkler, etc. are infatuated with this Sufi idea that love of G-d comes from a love of a woman. Many like to argue that the neo-Judaic gurus are more interested in the practical aspects of the Sufi metaphors. Incidentally this very idea also dominates American men’s movement and was introduced to it by Robert Bly who translated the most famous Sufi poet Rumi.
Obadyah Maimonides died during a customary Sufi 40 day meditating retreat. A number of Jewish Sufi manuscripts came to surface in the Cairo Geniza.
