Are We Missing the Point of Being Lubavitch?

Part 1 of a discussion of the common root of several challenges facing Lubavitch

By Rabbi Aharon Lindenblit

My extended family on my mother’s side are an opinionated and articulate bunch. The family WhatsApp chat often blows up with discussions that seem terribly important in the moment, only to end up in the trash bin of history by the next day.

One such exchange revolved around the way the Lubavitch chinuch system handles children coming from a broad spectrum of frumkeit standards. In the midst of the discussion, a cousin of mine wrote the following:

“As an aside, I’m personally more worried about the influence of the ‘charedi mentality’ in Lubavitch than the secular one. By ‘charedi mentality’ I mean, in this context, seeing a holier-than-thou attitude as legitimate, using social pressure and exclusivity as tools to enforce standards, coupled with an acute fear of olam hazeh and being influenced by it.

“Yes, in the short term the secular influence is definitely more detrimental, which is why everyone talks about it more. But in the long run, the charedi influence will have longer-lasting negative effects. Both are dangerous, but the secular influence is at least clear for everyone to see and easier to get rid of. Not easy, but easier.

“Very few of our mechanchim are permeated with a secular mentality. I’m not saying no one, but overall the mechanchim are not the driving force of secularization in Lubavitch. As a whole, the yeshivos and schools have Chassidishe, ehrliche staff. But the influence of the charedi mentality permeates the mechanchim in the mosdos. It will be much harder to change that long term.

“As a side note, the reason we have the charedi influence in our mosdos is probably a reaction to the secular influence. We said, ‘Let’s bring a dose of Williamsburg into Lubavitch to stem the tide.’”

There is much in that diagnosis worth discussing. But I think it misses the larger picture.

I responded that when seen in the context of the actual challenges facing us as frum Yidden and Lubavitcher chassidim, the danger of “charedi influence” pales in comparison to far more fundamental problems.

When someone is fighting a life-threatening disease, it makes little sense to focus his attention on a minor cosmetic concern. The cosmetic concern may be real. It may even be worth addressing. But proportion matters.

And I think that is precisely where we sometimes go wrong.

The Missing Tile Syndrome

Rabbi Sholom Gold, an activist in the Religious Zionist Mizrachi movement, was once visiting Baltimore. He chose to stay at the home of Rabbi Yaakov Ruderman, rosh yeshiva of the decidedly non-Zionist Ner Yisrael.

The local Zionist leaders were dismayed by his choice. Why would a Mizrachi activist choose to stay with a rabbi who so strongly disagreed with his Zionist worldview?

Rabbi Gold reportedly answered: “There are 613 mitzvos. I have a disagreement with Rabbi Ruderman over one of them — the mitzvah of yishuv Eretz Yisroel — but we agree on the other 612. With you, we agree on one mitzvah, since we are all Zionists, but we disagree about the other 612, since I am religious and you are not. Where, then, do I feel more at home?”

The point is obvious, but easily forgotten: people tend to focus on what divides them rather than on the much larger body of things that unite them.

It is sometimes called the “missing tile syndrome.” Walk into a subway station and look at a wall covered with twenty thousand tiles. If one tile is missing, where does your eye go? Straight to the empty space.

Or take a blank sheet of paper and put a small black dot in the middle. Ask someone what he sees, and invariably he will answer, “A black dot.” He ignores the 99 percent of the paper that is white.

We sometimes do the same thing when thinking about Lubavitch.

We notice the things that distinguish Lubavitch from other frum and charedi communities, and because those differences are particularly noticeable to us, we begin to imagine that they constitute the essence of Lubavitch.

What Defines a Lubavitcher Chossid?

Lubavitch is a derech in avodas Hashem — a deeper, richer and more demanding way to fulfill the purpose for which a neshama came down into this world. Obviously, then, being a Lubavitcher chossid includes the fundamentals of being a frum Yid: Torah, mitzvos, yiras Shomayim, middos tovos, avodah, and a life lived in the service of Hashem.

Consider two people.

The first is a Belzer Chossid. He is an ehrliche yerei Shomayim and a baal chesed with genuine middos tovos. He davens three times a day with a minyan, slowly and with kavonah. He learns Torah for hours each day. He is scrupulously honest in business and gives generously to tzedakah. He is kind to his family and lives with simcha and warmth.

Now compare him to a modern “Lubavitcher” who races through davening alone in his office at two in the afternoon. His frumkeit is largely mitzvas anashim melumadah — habit and routine. He hasn’t opened a Gemara in years. Perhaps he attends one shiur a week, half-heartedly, while spending much of it catching up on his phone. A hechsher is good enough if there is some Hebrew writing on the package. At home he is impatient and grouchy, spending much of his time absorbed in his phone and content better left undiscussed.

The question I am raising is not: Who is the better person?

The question is: Who is actualizing more of what it means to be a Lubavitcher chossid?

Lubavitch cannot be reduced to the things that distinguish us from Belz, Satmar, or Lakewood. Lubavitch is a derech for becoming better frum Yidden.

Now, I know the Chassidishe response. I honestly believe there is something profound in the old saying that unzer ziburis iz besser fun zeyer idis. There is an aspect of avodas Hashem that exists deeply within unzere: even when his actual avodah needs improvement, somewhere inside he knows that his purpose is not his own spiritual perfection. He was created leshamesh es Koni — to serve his Creator and fulfill His purpose in the world.

That is no small distinction. But it cannot become an excuse to confuse what actually living as a Chossid looks like.

Disproportionatism

I believe that our tendency to place disproportionate emphasis on those aspects of Lubavitch that distinguish us from other segments of charedi Jewry is part of a much larger phenomenon.

I have coined a word for it: Disproportionatism.

“Disproportionatism” is what happens when a true idea is emphasized out of proportion to the rest of Yiddishkeit until the idea itself becomes distorted.

The danger is twofold.

First, the fundamentals get pushed aside. Things like basic frumkeit, serious Torah learning, kvius itim, davening, middos tovos, and ordinary yiras Shomayim can somehow begin to sound ordinary — almost “not particularly Lubavitch.”

Second, even the distinctive Chassidishe value being emphasized loses its meaning. Once it is detached from the larger purpose it was meant to serve, it becomes an empty cultural marker.

In my view, this phenomenon lies behind many very different challenges facing Lubavitch. On the behavioral side, it can contribute to a decline in basic standards of frumkeit and kvius itim. On the hashkafic side, it can manifest itself in emphasis on external aspects of hiskashrus, disproportionate preoccupation with the identity of moshiach, and other cases where relatively narrow ideas and symbols take on an importance wildly disproportionate to their place within the totality of Torah and Chassidus.

These phenomena may look unrelated. I think they share a common root: losing sight of the whole because our eyes are fixed on the missing tile.

When Darkei HaChassidus Lose Their Purpose

Take darkei haChassidus, for example.

Darkei haChassidus encompass a host of behaviors, sensitivities, customs and values. They matter precisely because they are meant to produce something: a more refined person, a deeper avodas Hashem, greater bittul, stronger hiskashrus, more genuine ahavas Yisroel, and a life more completely devoted to the purpose for which Hashem sent the neshama into this world.

Detach them from that purpose, and something strange results. The external behavior remains, but much of its content disappears.

There is an old joke about Yankel walking home from Shacharis. He sees two municipal workers on the side of the road. One digs a hole; the second immediately fills it in.

An hour later, Yankel leaves for work and sees the same two men a few blocks further down, doing exactly the same thing. One digs; the other fills.

On his way home that evening, he sees them yet again. Finally, unable to contain his curiosity, he asks what on earth they are doing.

They explain that normally they are a crew of three workers tasked with planting trees. One worker digs the hole, the second places the sapling inside, and the third fills the hole.

“Unfortunately,” they explain, “the fellow who puts in the tree is absent today. But is that a reason the two of us shouldn’t do our jobs?”

It is funny because it is absurd. Digging and filling holes are not independent values. Their value exists because they serve the purpose of planting a tree.

Darkei haChassidus are infinitely more serious, but the principle is similar. The purpose of a Chassidishe hanhagah is what gives it its importance.

When darkei haChassidus become detached from avodas Hashem, we can end up fiercely protecting the digging and the filling while forgetting to plant the tree.

The Real Danger

This brings me back to my cousin’s original concern.

Is there such a thing as an unhealthy “charedi mentality”? Certainly. Can social pressure, fear, conformity, or a misplaced holier-than-thou attitude seep into Lubavitch chinuch? Of course. Those things deserve discussion.

But the larger danger facing Lubavitch is not that we will become too much like others.

Nor is the solution to every challenge to emphasize more forcefully what makes us different from others.

Our greatest danger is allowing external features of Chassidishkeit to become detached from the purposes they were created to serve. It is defining Lubavitch primarily by the things that distinguish us from other frum Yidden rather than by the avodas Hashem those distinctions are supposed to produce. It is allowing identity to substitute for achievement, slogans for avodah, cultural markers for content.

Every genuine Chassidishe value needs to be returned again and again to its purpose:

• Does it lead to more Torah?
• Does it deepen our avodah?
• Does it make us more ehrliche Yidden, more refined people, more devoted Chassidim?
• Does it strengthen our commitment to the Rebbe’s shlichus — to make ourselves and the world around us a dirah Lo yisbarech?

If it does, then it is not a peripheral cultural marker. It is part of a living derech in avodas Hashem.

But when the marker becomes the destination, we have lost the point.

The task is not to make Lubavitch less charedi or more charedi. It is to make Lubavitch more Lubavitch — by restoring every Chassidishe idea, hanhagah and sensitivity to its proper place within the larger picture of Dirah Batachtonim.

The tiles matter. But only because together they make up the wall.