Thursday, December 11, 2008

Chabad - Again

Since the tragedy in Mumbai last week, I've deliberately put out of my mind any crazy offshoots from Chabad, however I just saw this song written in tribute to the Kedoshim of Mumbai, and his chorus really bothered me:
Chorus: Oh Rebbe Show me, tell me why
Your Shluchim, so given over needed to die.
Their blood Our wounds heal and mend
Please Rebbe, make it end.
Is it just me, or dos it really sound like this guy is davening to the Rebbe.
Maybe Chabad don't have to travel all the way to India to see examples of Avoda Zara.

3 comments:

Lucky Wolf said...

Had I composed that song, i probably would have used some different words here and there.

But there is no doubt in my mind, the author of the song is a 100 percent God fearing Jew who has full faith in the one above. I don’t know him personally but I don’t have any reason to believe otherwise.

However, the Hertzberg’s HY"D, whether you'd like it or not, were shluchim of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. They where in India for one reason, to heed the call of their Rebbe to bring yidden closer to hashem.

Now there was always the feeling that the shluchim will have a special Syata Dishmaya and a special brocho from the Rebbe. And without going into many details; this is seen clearly.

Another point, throughout the generations, when a chossid had a problem the first person they went to was to their Rebbe.

So don’t get carried away! A line like "Oh Rebbe Show me, tell me why" is a typical child pouring his heart out to his beloved father, a human being who showed him tremendous love, leadership, direction in his every move, and blessed him and continues to bless him.

Every Jew believes that a person in heaven can speak for us on our behalf. A "Meilitz Yosher". Although the Rebbe left us physically we are sure and are promised that "Lo Azav Es Tzoin Mariso" so tell me what's wrong in saying "Please Rebbe, make it end”?

But if someone was looking for an opportunity to create some sinah between Jews, then yeah, this would probably be a good place to start from.

PS: thanks for the link.

Michael Sedley said...

I wasn't, Chalila, trying to create Sina between Jews.

I have enormous respect for Chabad and there success around the world. It is for exactly that reason that any non-Jewish ideas that have appeared in fringe elements of Chabad bother me so much.

I wrote about it a while ago here:
http://betweenjerusalemandtelaviv.blogspot.com/2008/09/more-about-chabad.html

I don't know the guy who wrote the song, or what his intentions were, but given that there are elements within Chabad who have adopted non-Jewish beliefs, I would have hoped that he would have been more careful with his words to distance himself from those elements.


I don't know

Lucky Wolf said...

I was not necessarily referring to you God forbid when i said "But if someone was looking for an opportunity to create some sinah between Jews, then yeah, this would probably be a good place to start from".

On the contrary, one should be more careful in choosing his words less others make unnecessary problem from them.

But again if you look at this from a different perspective you will see that there really was nothing wrong with what he said.