Q&A: Dogmatics Lectures 20–21 – Chabad and Breslov
Dogmatics Lectures 20–21 – Chabad and Breslov
Question
In the last two lectures you explained in detail the Haredi outlook versus the non-Haredi religious outlook on the world.
In lecture 20 you mentioned that in your opinion Chabad and Breslov are different from the rest of the Haredim on this issue.
In the next lecture, do you intend to address them, in order to explain where you place them?
It seems pretty clear, I think, that you can’t place them within the description you gave of the Haredi perspective.
In Chabad, for example (which I know firsthand), there is no mention of reward or punishment in the World to Come, a fact that in your description דווקא resembles the non-Haredi world
Answer
I didn’t intend to deal with them. It was just a side remark to what I said. Why is that important?
Discussion on Answer
As I wrote, this is a marginal Haredi group. A kind of cult. Slightly different characteristics, but essentially similar: the separatism is very strong (the schools are intended for all kinds of people, but only under their own administration. Likewise with supervision and ritual baths, etc.). There is no real repairing of the world, only getting it to perform commandments. Extreme messianism. Extreme worship of the head of the cult. A view of the world and of the human being only through the theoretical description in their writings. Megalomania, as if they are the purpose of the universe. As I said, a marginal group and not a very important one. Its members are sure that it is the whole picture (and maybe that’s why, in their view, every such discussion also has to deal with them).
I liked the jab at the end 🙂
In this context, I’ll note that I didn’t ask for no reason. In lecture 20 you said that maybe you’d address them later on.
I’ll just note that, it seems, at least most of these descriptions are also valid in your view for some of the Hardal groups (Har Hamor for example), and yet in your view (the updated one) they belong to the non-Haredi group because there is no talk there about reward and punishment and the World to Come.
So that’s why I asked where you place Chabad (as irrelevant as it may be in your eyes. I’m trying to sharpen your view)—a Haredi group or a Hardal group?
What is the difference between Chabad and the Hardalim?
I’m asking about Chabad because they are the ones I know well, but maybe there are other such groups too.
I’m glad you took it in good spirit. 🙂
The Hardalim are really not there, but at the opposite pole. They are enthusiastic supporters of Zionism, and Chabad strongly oppose it. They work to repair the world (according to their own concepts), not only in the sense of increasing commandment observance. The Hardalim work to bring the Messiah in realistic ways within the world, whereas Chabad are the opposite (only through more commandments and Judaism). By this definition they are entirely on the non-Haredi side. True, among the Hardalim too there is leader-worship and dogmatics that interpret everything according to the ideology in their sacred books.
I am not well versed in Chabad’s attitude toward Jewish law and in the willingness there to interpret it in a way that is adapted to changing reality, and whether in that respect they are Haredi or not. On this issue, the Hardalim are indeed Haredi.
For me, it’s interesting where you place Chabad, which on the one hand hardly has any discourse about the World to Come at all, and even the talk about the coming of the Messiah is not talk about the reward-related aspect, but about the perfection of the world and the revelation of divine perfection in the world (that is—not a Haredi outlook).
In addition, the “sectarian” aspect also takes up less space with them. From their point of view, even if they succeed in bringing someone to repentance and he ends up Religious Zionist, that’s an excellent success.
Many Chabad schools are from the outset intended not for a population that will become Chabad, but rather to bring them closer to traditional observance or even to religiosity.
On the other hand, for them there is no interest in the world as such, but only in its divine context. That is, the world is interesting because it is a “world that belongs to God.”