tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6130830332820181818.post7066503842195289525..comments2024-03-29T03:25:59.091-04:00Comments on johnshaplin: The Rebbe by S. Hellman and M. Friedmanjohnshaplinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618981988062495637noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6130830332820181818.post-71306202172954618942010-10-14T17:27:24.981-04:002010-10-14T17:27:24.981-04:00“In practice, Lubavitcher emissaries have to confr...“In practice, Lubavitcher emissaries have to confront precisely the problem that modern Orthodox Jews have been dealing with for years: how to stand with one foot in the world beyond their own religious commitments and the other firmly planted in their own traditions. The difference is that the modern Orthodox Jews see ontological value in the outside culture and society – or at least have for a generation or more before its perceived moral decline – while the Lubavitchers are entering it only to retrieve Jews from it. Yet both live a kind of double life, one in which they look at the world outside as a threat as well as an opportunity, and perceive the world from inside their Jewish attachments differently than when they are on the outside.<br /><br />In this double life Lubavitchers remain on the one hand open, compromising, and willing to be engaged by the people and the society they seek to transform. In that life, they accept the legitimacy of all sorts of rabbis with whom they have to cooperate, including the non-Orthodox and women. They allow that a supporter or congregant could be less than fully committed to Jewish practice and still be someone of value, and tolerance is the name of the game.<br /><br />In their other life, however, they remain rooted in their own sectarian values and maintain powerful attachments to the highly parochial and esoteric world of ChaBaD Hasidism. But there are no easy solutions nor ironclad guarantees that they will not end up adrift.”<br /><br />Again, without better understanding of "the esoteric and parochial world of ChaBad Hasidism", I am unwilling to whole-heartedly endorse this kind of psychoanalytic approach to the ontological questions. In such arguments it is always difficult to decide who and who is not "facing the facts"johnshaplinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17618981988062495637noreply@blogger.com