See Professor David Berger’s book The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference, which researched the subject somewhat. He discusses there the two things that have become widespread among them: first, belief in the Rebbe’s messiahship, and second, belief in his divinity, and in a straightforward way he explains the heresy and distortion in these two superstitions.
Incidentally, one of the interesting things I discovered there (though not explicitly) is that although it is customary to divide Chabad followers into messianists and non-messianists, the findings of the book suggest that this is one of the biggest bluffs of our time: all Chabad followers without exception believe in the Rebbe’s messiahship/divinity (for them there isn’t much difference between these options, as suits their paganism), except that some prefer to hide it, and when asked about it they evade giving a clear answer (there are many examples of this in the book). There is also a Channel 10 investigation on YouTube about Chabad that gives a similar picture.

The Rebbe himself also played a double game: on the one hand he mildly rebuked Wolpo and the like for proclaiming that he was the Messiah; on the other hand, he didn’t throw them down the stairs, as would be fitting for what they deserved, and in addition he encouraged the singing of “Long live our master” (see YouTube) and also drew openly messianic people close.

Another point he raises is the blatant ignoring by many rabbis of the generation of the above heretical phenomena, and the many instances of cooperation while ignoring these problems (see for example the Messiah in the Square events—open messianists—where many religious movements and factions stood alongside Chabad against the Tel Aviv municipality over the issue of separation, instead of realizing that the real story here was a full-fledged missionary event), and it’s really a shame that rabbis did not rise up to denounce them.

By the way, that also explains their niceness and courtesy (Chabad houses, tefillin, bar mitzvahs, etc.)—everything is done with the aim of drawing people closer to their religion. (And by the way, the moment someone fights them a bit, their true face is revealed, and they do everything, including violence, in order to silence him).

To “the team”: it seems that commentators who went against the plain meaning did so as an added midrashic layer or because they had some nice homiletic point—not as a substitute for the plain meaning (“a verse does not depart from its plain meaning”). If we say that a commentator can arbitrarily decide on his own when to uproot the plain meaning (not based on reasonable interpretive considerations arising from difficulties/hints in the text), then we are really uprooting the whole need for revelation. Then the Sabbateans will say that Shabbetai Tzvi is the Messiah, and Christians will take “Hear O Israel” as proof of the Trinity, and we’ll have to say that there is no truth knowable in matters of theology. Either way: either we think the prophets had hallucinations, in which case they certainly can’t serve as spiritual or moral examples, just as we would not think of learning morality from schizophrenics hearing voices; or God really sent them, in which case one must approach the text with fear and trembling and not force it according to our own wishes.

Similarly, the saying that everyone has “an actual part of God above” leads to idolatry, because it means that the worshipper is really worshipping part of himself (besides contradicting Maimonides’ second principle—that the Creator has no parts).

The problem, in my opinion, is not the mere fact that they offer a different interpretation, but that any reasonable commentator understands that Maimonides’ plain meaning is much simpler and arises from the text itself far more than the Chabad pilpulim. So anyone genuinely interested in what the prophets thought about the matter would presumably arrive at that sort of understanding long before beginning to imagine that the Lubavitcher is the Messiah. The irony here is that they use a concept that came to us entirely from the prophets in order, by means of it, to disagree with those same prophets and uproot the whole meaning of their words.

iyt: at one point I took a course with Berger on the Jewish-Christian debate, and he mentioned his book on Chabad a bit, but I never got around to reading it. It also seemed to me on the face of it that there was some kind of double game there.

What IYT writes is completely true, and that’s what I meant.
As for the difference between the messianists and the others, I too tended and still tend to think this way (that there is no real difference between them, only in tactics and wording). But some claim that the non-messianists hold that he is alive only in the sense of “a righteous man who did not die,” and the like (for nothing did the embalmers embalm…).
It’s hard to know, through the fog of apologetics, what the truth is. Just as it’s hard to know from the words of Haredi spokesmen in the media what Haredim really think. When a community is under attack, you can’t learn anything from its spokesmen. Everything is presumed false until proven otherwise.

As for the Rebbe’s own ignoring of this, I once mentioned here the story I heard from Rabbi Shach’s son (Dr. Ephraim Shach), who was at the Rebbe’s dollar distribution, and the Rebbe delayed him and asked that when he got to Israel he should tell his father that it wasn’t him but his Hasidim. Ephraim came to Bnei Brak and told his father. Rabbi Shach said to him: the next time you get there, tell him that from now on he should say that to his Hasidim and not to me. Very sharp.

As for Copenhagen’s remarks,
you are still exaggerating. These are interpretations found quite a bit in other sources as well. As I recall, the Ari wrote that “the Holy One, blessed be He, Israel, and the Torah are one” in the literal sense (incarnation, the holy trinity). In general, the Hasidic conception of contraction not in its plain sense takes things much further than what you quoted here.
There’s no need to find defects in them beyond what is already there. There’s plenty as it is.

I definitely avoid praying with them (both instinctively and conceptually), and in my opinion it’s preferable to pray alone. Not as a sanction and not in order to hurt them. I’m simply in doubt whether they count for a minyan. See also their saying “Long live our master” at the end of prayer or after the Shema and the like.

Does the Ari disagree with Maimonides’ second principle? It seems that the simple biblical conception, which already received detailed expression in Saadia Gaon and of course in Maimonides and in Sefer Ha-Ikkarim and Duties of the Heart, is that there is an unbridgeable ontological gap between the necessary existent, Creator of the world, and the contingent created beings. The Creator cannot be literally one with any element in the world He created (the Jewish people, for example)—except in the metaphorical sense of unity of spirit, deed, or will.

All those great Jewish authorities explained that one must say the First Cause is utterly simple, because otherwise the principle explaining the unity between its components would be logically and causally prior to the fact of its existence; it would depend on that principle (just as it would depend on each of its components), and it would not be the first cause of existence.

In any case, incarnation or the Trinity is a late invention of the Church that did not exist among the earliest Christians (as the famous scholar Bart Ehrman showed).

Since I’m not nourished by the “fog of apologetics,” but rather by direct acquaintance, I can testify that (in the circles familiar to me) non-messianic Chabad followers do not think the Rebbe is alive, nor that he is God. (Though on that point one can argue. I don’t think this is apologetics—there is no policy of concealment—they simply usually don’t define exactly what they mean, apparently they didn’t read the last three columns 🙂 and therefore it isn’t always clear, even to them themselves, what exactly they mean.)

To iyt, I actually went back over the investigation about Chabad on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAjUuif9SBI), and there I saw Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky (head of the worldwide emissaries enterprise, minute 37:40) say explicitly—and I quote in free translation: “We live in a realistic world. The Rebbe was a flesh-and-blood human being. I never thought otherwise in any way. I hoped the Rebbe would merit the time of the Messiah.” Though at minute 45:50 Rabbi Shaya Hecht (the Rebbe’s emissary in Brooklyn) is asked whether the Rebbe is the Messiah, and he starts squirming there and avoids giving an answer, saying it’s complicated (he represents the third approach regarding the Rebbe: there’s the messianist approach, the non-messianist approach, and the middle approach). It also sounds as though Rabbi Yoel Kahan (one of the senior figures in Chabad) thinks the Rebbe is no longer with us, and that he was only fit during his lifetime to be the Messiah (minute 57:20, though it seems his wife thinks more like the messianists).

As someone who researched the subject, I’m prepared to guarantee you that there isn’t a single non-messianist Chabadnik. Even if Yoel Kahan dodges a clear answer there, first of all, in other places (I don’t remember right now, but google a bit and you’ll find it), he claims the Rebbe is the Messiah; likewise Wolpo, Ginsburg, and many others who signed rulings and calls in that spirit.
If Yoel Kahan were not messianist, he would have had to be one of the greatest fighters against the messianists (and harshly rebuke his wife), because they are giving their teacher and rabbi a bad name and turning him from the righteous man of the generation into a delusional person; likewise all the other evasive and hiding ones.
And you can be sure that if all the heads of the community are messianist, then certainly the rest of the rank and file are too. In addition, in recent years they’ve gained confidence and begun to reveal themselves more broadly (“Long live our master” yarmulkes for adults too and not just children, Messiah posters and flags on main roads, and many more signs).
A few years ago Mordechai Lavi interviewed Menachem Brod and Mati Tuchfeld (Israel Hayom journalist, declared messianist); search the interview on Google, maybe you’ll understand what I’m talking about. Tuchfeld had just then come out of the holy ark of messianism, and Brod attacked him there. Lavi asks Brod there, more or less in these words: “You know I researched the subject, and my understanding is that in Chabad there are no non-messianists, only some who hide themselves and some who do not hide. Tell me plainly: is the Rebbe alive? Is he the Messiah?” Of course Brod avoids a direct answer.
My claim is: if these guys really don’t believe the Rebbe is the Messiah, they should have gone out against them with full force, even more than Rabbi Shach and the Litvaks, because they are literally destroying and wrecking the life’s work of their rabbi whom they so admire.

In short, we’re not idiots. Sit with any Chabadnik and try to get out of him the sentence “The Rebbe is dead and is not the Messiah”—there is no chance he will say it. He’ll twist himself into knots and say only convoluted formulations so as not to deny his belief. Go ahead, give me the name of one of their leaders and I’ll try to find you material testifying to his messianism.

iyt, sorry, but that’s simply false. I don’t know what “research” you did, but I’m speaking from direct acquaintance (I once studied in a Chabad yeshiva) that many think the Rebbe *died*. Indeed they say that he (would have been, if he had lived) the Messiah, but what’s the problem with that?

Apparently you’re also one of them if you deny it like that..

I have no way of going Chabadnik by Chabadnik and trying to prove whether he is messianist or not. What I can say is that the well-known and famous figures are messianist—some openly and some secretly. Go into Chabadpedia on Yoel Kahan, Ginsburg, Wolpo (by the way, Wolpo published a book Long Live the King on the Rebbe’s messiahship, and at its front are approbations from Rabbi Ovadia, Rabbi Mazuz, Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu and several others, who certainly did not think the Rebbe was the Messiah, but apparently their approbations were for another book that dealt with the laws of the Messiah in Maimonides without connection to the Rebbe—which teaches you about their presence and their corrupt methods), and several more of their celebrities, and you’ll already see their messianic views including sources.
Google “Menachem Brod Lavi” and you’ll get to the interview I mentioned above; take it as an example of their methods of evasion.
As for Kotlarsky, in one of the first Google results there is some video of a convention of emissaries where he sings “Long live our master.” (Notice that in the investigation he did not say the Rebbe is not the Messiah, only that he was flesh and blood, etc.—that’s how they work.)

On the substance, I have no problem with non-messianic Chabadniks. I’m only pointing out that there is a very widespread phenomenon of evasion and clever dodging on these issues, and it may be that you didn’t notice it when you studied there (tell me names and I’ll try to check). In any case, that’s not the main issue, because the main point is that the heads of this community, and very many of the public, are messianist and are, to put it mildly, not really opposed to the belief that the Rebbe is the Messiah.

With God’s help, 22 Av 5778

Since the local master already taught us in column 74 that one who has arrived through his own analysis at a view different from what is accepted in the words of the Sages is not a heretic—then I don’t understand what all the noise is about. If people are prepared to accept someone who says “The Lord has forsaken the land,” why should we not also accept the view that Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson of blessed memory is the Messiah? Humanity, having matured in the “generation of knowledge” in which we live and managing without divine providence, can also make do with a messiah whose soul is in the heavenly treasuries. When there are no binding principles of faith, you can think and say anything, and everything is fine.

Regards,
S. Z. Levinger, Skinny Theologian (about 118 kg)

And on the substance of the matter—

There is Maimonides’ approach that King Messiah is a king from the house of David who is not required to perform wonders; rather, once there arises a king occupied in Torah and commandments like David his father, who fights the wars of God and is involved in bringing the Jewish people closer to religion—then even though his being the Messiah is not absolute certainty so long as he has not gathered in the dispersed of Israel and built the Temple, still we have an indication that he is presumed to be the Messiah.

During his lifetime Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson performed many of the Messiah’s actions in pleasant ways and had great and positive public influence, though he did not have the authority of a king who can compel the people. In any case, one could say that he had the qualifications needed for the role, and one could understand the rabbis who defined him as Messiah and tried to solve the problem of authority through propaganda to persuade the masses to accept his kingship by saying “Long live the king.”

I suggested in a letter to a Chabad Torah scholar (a relative of my neighbor) to take advantage of the fact that presidential elections were about to take place at that time and present the Rebbe’s candidacy for the role, on the assumption that in a secret ballot quite a few members of Knesset would be found who would vote for him for the position of “President of the State of Israel.” It seems my suggestion was not accepted, and instead my neighbor in the President’s Residence became General (res.) Ezer Weizman, who did indeed “fight the wars of God” literally, but whose credentials in bringing the people to a life of Torah and commandments were more limited…

After the Rebbe passed away, and the mainstream of Chabad leadership rejects the denying approach (as explained in the words of the “repeater,” Rabbi Yoel Kahan, and in the guidelines of the religious court of the rabbis of the community in the Holy Land for the conduct of the Hasidim after the Rebbe’s passing, whose sources I cited and partly quoted in my response at the end of the discussion on Ariel Horovitz’s article, “Simply to Say the Truth,” an interview with Dr. Yoel Dahan)—it is difficult to say according to Maimonides’ definition that Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson is the Messiah, for even about one who had been presumed to be the Messiah Maimonides writes that once he died, it became clear that he is not the Messiah, “but is like all the fit kings of Israel.”

In any case, there is room for the statement and expectation that a great man fit for the role will rise from the dead and then serve as Messiah, similar to Rav’s words, “If from the dead, then like Daniel, the precious man” (Sanhedrin 98), or Rabbi Elazar HaKalir’s statement in his piyyut for Hoshana Rabbah, “The voice of the man whose name is Branch—he is David himself—announces and says.” So there is room for the thought that a righteous man from the dead who rises in resurrection is the one destined to be Messiah. Thus, so long as no one claims that someone who has died is the Messiah in actuality—the mere thought that a great person, fit and destined to rise in resurrection and be the hoped-for redeemer, does not shake my foundations, though I do not connect to that direction. The Rebbe and Chabad are dear and accomplished even without a messianic definition.

Additional material on the subject can be found by the interested reader in the article “A Messiah in Every Generation” on the Chabad website.

Regards,
S. Z. Levinger HaLevi

By the way, among the figures mentioned in Sanhedrin 98 as a reasonable model for the Messiah—Rav Nachman, Rabbi Judah the Prince, and Daniel, the precious man—it seems that we are not talking about someone with governmental or military authority, but rather a man great in Torah and wisdom who has ties and influence with powerful kings, along the lines of Daniel’s ties with the kings of Babylon and Persia, Rabbi with Antoninus, and Rav Nachman with King Shapur. In that line one can also place Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who merited esteem among the heads of the administration in the U.S. to the point that his birthday was officially noted as “Education Day.”

iyt,
Regarding Wolpo I agree (it’s known that he’s among the messianists). Regarding Ginsburg, you are completely mistaken (and Chabadpedia is not a source for anything. I’d guess it’s even less reliable than Wikipedia). I know him personally and his students as well, and no one claims that the Rebbe is alive.
Interesting that you conduct “research” with the kind assistance of Chabadpedia and are so sure of yourself that you assume they fooled me (someone who knows them closely).
It’s possible that by chance I ran into many non-messianists, but among others you mentioned Rabbi Ginsburg, and from what you say it’s clear you don’t have the faintest idea what his views are.

To Rabbi Michi,
I didn’t understand what the problem is with joining them for a minyan—is it the panentheism or the messianism?
If it’s the panentheism, there are many panentheistic groups (Kook followers, Hasidim, various kabbalists, and so on). If it’s the messianism, I don’t understand why if someone believes that someone else is the Messiah (or was the Messiah), that disqualifies him from a minyan (I mean technically).

Shatzal, where did you see me getting worked up? I have no rage against someone who thinks what he thinks. But everyone makes decisions about the people around him.
You wrote at length, but I also wasn’t talking about the view that their rabbi is the Messiah. That is a legitimate view, and maybe even correct (maybe he was fit to be and we did not merit it. Who knows?!). I’m talking about making him into a god and praying to him.
Someone who identifies a person with the Holy One, blessed be He—I don’t pray with him. True, that is also latent in the foundations of Hasidic thought (contraction not in its plain sense), but with them it is more prominent and cruder. Someone who prays to a human being—I don’t pray with him. Someone who thinks a dead man is alive—I don’t pray with him (because a fool does not count toward a minyan). To each his own reason.

Y.D., see my words here to Shatzal. When there is a smell of idolatry, and more than that, I’m not comfortable praying there.

Thank you very much.

With God’s help, 22 Av 5778

To Rabbi Michael Abraham—many greetings,

Relating to the Rebbe, Heaven forbid, as God, or praying to him—even if it exists at the margins of the margins of the messianists at the fringe of the Chabad movement—is a matter of mental illness, and unfortunately mentally ill people are found in all circles. May God send them a full recovery speedily and soon.

Can the delusions of a handful of lunatics justify staining an entire movement and attributing their madness to the whole movement (as emerges from the title of the discussion and from the claims of some participants)? At any rate, I’m glad you clarified the distinction between believing that so-and-so is the Messiah and believing that he is, Heaven forbid, God.

Regards,
S. Z. Levinger

Shatzal, it’s not a “handful” of lunatics. Here is the gist of the Rebbe’s talk (Seventh Day of Passover 5715, after the passing of the previous rebbe):
“…Some ask how one can make requests through a Rebbe at all—is this not like an ‘intermediary’?… But the truth is that just as Israel, the Torah, and the Holy One, blessed be He, are one, and not only that Israel is bound up with the Torah, but literally ‘one’.
…
Therefore the above question about an intermediary is not relevant at all, since this is *the Essence and Being itself as it has vested itself within a body* (!!!)
And similar to the Zohar’s statement, ‘Who is the face of the Lord God? This is Rashbi,’ and similarly in the revealed Torah (Jerusalem Talmud, chapter 3 of Bikkurim): ‘And the Lord is in His holy Temple—this is Rabbi Yitzchak son of Rabbi Elazar in the synagogue-study hall of Caesarea,’ or as Moses our teacher said, ‘And I shall give grass…’”

Very sharp.

If you insist on understanding things literally to the point of absurdity, then you would also have to accuse Moses our teacher of deifying himself when he spoke in the first person in God’s name.

One must necessarily understand that Moses, in being absolutely nullified to God, is only a “conduit” through whom God’s words pass to Israel—and thus one should also understand the Rebbe’s words: that the righteous man, who has no independent selfhood and is wholly nullified before his Creator, is only a “conduit” through whom the prayers of Israel pass to the Holy One, blessed be He.

Can someone who saw the Rebbe standing in submission and pleading before his Creator, nullifying his whole being before the Holy One, blessed be He, Israel and the Torah without leaving himself a drop of privacy—can such a person imagine that the Rebbe was exalting himself and seeing himself as the Creator?

Regards,
S. Z. Levinger

And Maimonides’ words are already well known in his introduction to the chapter Helek against turning the words of the Sages into absurdity through literal understanding. In that way one could also prove that the Jews are cannibals from what is written in the portion Ekev: “And you shall eat all your enemies” 🙂

As I recall, I already encountered this source in the discussion on Professor Nadav Shnerb’s article, “To Create a Stone and Lift It” (on the Shabbat Supplement – Makor Rishon site), and its reliability, or at least the precision of its wording, is doubtful, since it was omitted from later editions that came out during the Rebbe’s lifetime. I addressed other quotations in my comments on Dr. Yechiel Harari’s article, “Partial and One-Dimensional Truth.” And the rule is one: a literal interpretation that leads to an absurd understanding contrary to the principles of faith is distorted, as Maimonides says in his introduction to the chapter Helek.

Regards,
S. Z. Levinger

Skinny Theologian, this whole section in Maimonides seems puzzling, because immediately afterward he qualifies all his derivations with the words: “And all these matters and the like, a person will not know how they will be until they are, for they are obscure matters in the prophets; even the Sages have no tradition concerning these matters, except according to the implication of the verses” (12). If there is no tradition in these matters, how can one learn from Rabbi Akiva’s mistake—which cost at least hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives—that in his time not a few of the great Jewish authorities (whose words echo in the Jerusalem Talmud) came out against supporting a secular psychopath who murdered Rabbi Elazar HaModa’i and mutilated the limbs of those he suspected of not wanting to participate in the revolt?

In any case, if you were convinced by the inferences Maimonides draws from Rabbi Akiva’s support for Bar Koziva, why not continue all the way: “And if he did not succeed to this extent, or was killed, then it is known that he is not the one the Torah promised… and the Holy One, blessed be He, only caused him to arise in order to test many, as it is said: ‘And some of those who are wise shall stumble, to refine among them and to purify and whiten them until the time of the end, for it is yet for the appointed time’” (Laws of Kings 11:4).

In my opinion, Maimonides himself understood the problematic nature of these things and did not mean them to be binding as Jewish law, for he himself qualifies them as stated; and the fact is that he has no problem saying contradictory things in the Epistle to Yemen. Also, elsewhere he says that one does not issue Jewish law in matters of faith and opinion—how much more so one cannot dictate to the Holy One, blessed be He, how to run history.

D, or B, or whoever you are,

1. It may be that we’re not talking about the same Ginsburg. Yitzchak Ginsburgh signed a halakhic ruling that the Rebbe is the Messiah, and also wrote two books proving his messiahship; I saw his books with my own eyes.
2. I’m not relying on Chabadpedia, only on the forensic findings brought there, like documents, photographs, and video. Obviously I know they’re tendentious.
3. You’re getting upset for no reason. I’m only claiming that many of them have a policy of a double game (if you have some who say outright that the Rebbe died and therefore is not the Messiah, and also was not fit to be the Messiah since no sign was fulfilled in him, I have no problem with them).
I gave you as examples Menachem Brod and Yoel Kahan, with references to reliable sources where they squirm to avoid giving an honest answer (see David Berger’s book for many more examples), and you can be sure that if that is the case with the heads of the community, so it will be among the public.
In the interview I quoted, that statement is also heard from two veteran journalists, Mati Tuchfeld and Mordechai Lavi, both of whom say there are no Chabadniks who are not messianist. That’s a claim worth examining, especially since it has a lot of support.

This is becoming an unproductive discussion. If you have a figure who denies the Rebbe’s messiahship, say so and I’ll try to check. Believe me, I have no interest in slandering people for nothing.

Shatzal,
4. With your approach, you can validate anything at all, including idolatry, anthropomorphism and multiplicity in God, as well as Christianity and Islam. Not every absurd and irrational opinion can be justified by “the righteous shall live by his faith.”

By the way, in my opinion those Chabadniks also do not count for a minyan for the simple reason that they do not pray to God but to the Rebbe, so there is also a technical problem with such inclusion.
(They have a prayerbook app with his picture to pray to—idolatry in its most pagan form.)

Continuing this discussion: the rabbi wrote above that he has doubts whether Chabadniks count for a minyan. If I have a mezuzah that I bought at a Chabad house, should it be replaced?

In my opinion, no. No need to get carried away. This is more a matter of personal taste and less an objective determination. Their problem (or some of them) in prayer may be objective (the additions addressed to the Rebbe, etc.). But I wouldn’t disqualify them from joining the congregation.

Even though I wasn’t asked, I would recommend that you check who the scribe was who wrote it, and whether he believes in the Rebbe’s messiahship/divinity.
Following what was said above about their methods of evasion, it’s important that you get a clear answer from him, and see any evasiveness on his part as an admission regarding the question he’s avoiding.

As I understand it, if he believes in the Rebbe’s divinity (not far-fetched at all—Yitzchak Ginsburgh and the like write this explicitly in their books), then he is literally an idol worshipper, as explained by Maimonides that one who accepts upon himself someone or something as a deity is considered an idol worshipper and is liable to stoning even without actually worshipping it; certainly his Torah scrolls, tefillin, and mezuzot are invalid.
If he believes “only” in the Rebbe’s messiahship, then he denies the coming of the Messiah, and one must discuss whether by that he is considered a heretic whose Torah scrolls, tefillin, and mezuzot are invalid.

And now that we’ve come to this, we should also invalidate a mezuzah written by a Religious Zionist who added to the principles of religion the “beginning of redemption,” and also a mezuzah written by a Haredi on whom the “light of salvation that has dawned” has not shone.

In general, one should not rely on a mezuzah written by a religious or Haredi Jew lest he be one of the “coerced in thought,” who outwardly maintain a religious or Haredi lifestyle while in their heart they do not believe; one should rely only on a mezuzah written by a complete secular Jew, since he is a “captured child.”

But in any case one should not rely on anyone even in matters of food kashrut, and we must refrain from all eating and drinking, as did the philosopher and mathematician Gödel, who after his wife died did not eat any food prepared by another and died of malnutrition, and thereby was exempted from the commandment of mezuzah. May his merit protect us and all Israel.

And this is what seems correct to me, and may the Rock of Israel save us from errors and show us wonders from His Torah,

so prays the wondrous counselor, the sparkling light, shattering like a hammer, the commoner who jumps to the front, the insignificant Samson Letz

Paragraph 3, line 2:
… the philosopher and mathematician Gödel, …

Though all mockery is forbidden except mockery of idolatry, there is no sense at all in what you wrote.

I made a purely halakhic argument: those who attribute divinity to a human being are included among idol worshippers, as explained by Maimonides, and obviously their Torah scrolls, tefillin, and mezuzot are invalid.

Those who do not believe in the coming of the Messiah deny one of the Thirteen Principles. True, it needs clarification whether they are in the category of heretics whose Torah scrolls, tefillin, and mezuzot are invalid.

What does this have to do with Haredim / Religious Zionists, etc.? Where did you see idolatry or denial of a principle in any of those cases??

I am shocked by the degrading things said against the Lubavitcher Rebbe of saintly and blessed memory, who was a Torah scholar and an immense righteous man!!! And I protest them! In addition, I protest the degrading of Torah scholars that I saw here in the comments.

Because of the length I didn’t read what was said here. But I just wanted to say that very many great Jewish authorities spoke about the Rebbe in extraordinary terms, among them Rabbi Eliyahu of blessed memory, the Baba Sali of blessed memory, and many, many others.
The Rebbe is a true righteous man, and it is forbidden to speak about him this way.