Chabad and the Monsters Among Us « Tikun Olam-תיקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

Chabad and the Monsters Among Us

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Tags: bible, chabad, genocide, rabbi

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59 Responses to “Chabad and the Monsters Among Us”

Richard Witty says:

June 4, 2009 at 6:54 AM

Shoshanna’s comments about Chabad are similar to my experiences.

I have close contact with two chabad rabbis, one in my hometown and one in a nearby college town. They each routinely visit the elderly, the sick, give to poor directly and through agencies without limit or question. Although they pay most attention to the Jewish community, they do initiate service to non-Jews as well.

Generalization is a violation of kind speech, and a violation of bearing false witness against thy neighbor.

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- Richard Silverstein says:
  
  June 4, 2009 at 9:29 PM
  
  they do initiate service to non-Jews as well.
  
  Do tell us the long list of good deeds they do for non Jews. I’m waiting.
  
  a violation of bearing false witness against thy neighbor
  
  And please don’t deign to posake on halacha. You’re not a rabbi and look foolish when you try to act like one.
  
  Reply
  - Richard Witty says:
    
    June 5, 2009 at 3:10 AM
    
    I am a dialoguer. I read. I study.
    
    Don’t attempt to silence me by “you are not a rabbi”. If you disagree with my interpretations, go ahead.
    
    On good deeds to non-Jews, I only know what I see from the individuals that I interact with. I’ve accompanied the local chabad rabbi to nursing homes in our area, in which he was definitely looking for Jewish elders, but stopped at EVERY door that would invite him in, to talk about their lives, their conditions. I’ve been with him when he picked up homeless people hitchiking and bought them food (while most others just ignored the people).
    
    My point it to you Richard. You express a lot of bigotry periodically, in stated opposition to bigotry.
    
    Rather than address the argument, you castigate the people. I prefer the approach of Habad frankly, that individuals can change, are redeemable.
    
    Reply
sarah says:

June 4, 2009 at 5:24 PM

“Tikun Olam” , a “jewish-like” site where authors do not hesitate to calomniate [sic] a genuine, authentic, true great Rabbi as Rabbi Friedman.This clearly demonstrate that you really don’t understand a clue [sic] of what means [sic] “tikun olam”. You may consider renaming your blog as [sic] hatred talks coming from the Nahash…

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Shoshanna says:

June 4, 2009 at 11:04 PM

Richard,

Your broken moral compass can be fixed if you choose to do teshuva, which I daven that you do, but as of now you wouldn’t know the difference between right and wrong and between good and bad if you fell over it.

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- Richard Silverstein says:
  
  June 4, 2009 at 11:23 PM
  
  You’ve got the cart before the horse. It is Manis Friedman who should be doing teshuvah for his odious comments about Arabs. Let me know when he agrees to do teshuvah, then we can talk.
  
  Reply
sarah says:

June 5, 2009 at 1:58 AM

You can point a thousand times on any mistakes I can make in writing in English, a foreign language to me.
Your way of doing clearly shows that you try to undermine the other’s position, instead a considering the argument. This again shows a lack of undertanding of what mean “tikun olam”.
You are taking genuine jewish values and making empty marketing slogans from them…. using all that to advance your personal views …

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Richard Witty says:

June 5, 2009 at 3:13 AM

I think Richard should consider the argument, and dash it.

But, he should NEVER generalize, as generalization is a form of collective punishment, a blunt instrument assault on civilians, in the name of opposing assault on innocents.

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sarah says:

June 5, 2009 at 4:26 AM

I add for public record that although my grandmother’s name is Silverstein, I have no family links with you, thanks H”.

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Dovid says:

June 6, 2009 at 9:43 PM

I don’t think that Mr. Silverstein is out to vilify Chabad. He doesn’t like the Orthodox in general.

That R. Friedmann has been forced to backpedal on his article has not received comment here so far.

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- Richard Silverstein says:
  
  June 7, 2009 at 12:41 AM
  
  He doesn’t like the Orthodox in general.
  
  That’s a lie. Just as with any religious group or among any people, there are fine, upstanding human beings and there are louts. I object to the political views of a good proportion of Orthodox Jews who support settlements & the notion that we must not give back an inch of territory because God gave the land to us & not them. Many Orthodox Jews do NOT hold those beliefs. I have no problem with them.
  
  Reply
Ian says:

June 14, 2009 at 9:06 AM

Hi All,

Has any one read Rabbi Friedman’s clarification of his statement, I believe it is available on his web page.

All the best,

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Yoel Mechanic says:

July 15, 2009 at 3:12 PM

I’ve met Mani Friedman on several occasions. He’s a good guy, friendly, and easy going who mainly talks from the point of view of someone who is like a social worker, school principal, on Jewish social issues, education, or dating, and the like. His statement on mid-East politics containing over-the-top rhetorical fireworks for shock-value, but I don’t think, from knowing him, that he intended at all that any Jewish halacha concerning warfare would be abrogated. Therefore his allusion to passages about Amalek were intended for shock value, and not to have the well known rules of war in the Torah suspended, as some seem to be supposing. He certainly is encouraging a get tough approach, but this is nothing new. I was dismayed by his loose language (like a loose canon) because it apparently is causing confusion. That confusion can easily be cleared by studying the Laws of War, from standard Torah sources, and presuming that *this* is what he is talking about. To paraphrase, he probably meant to say “The same Torah that told us all those non-Western methods of war with Amalek, shocking as they sound today, will also instruct us in how to deal with our current war in the Middle-East”

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- Richard Silverstein says:
  
  July 15, 2009 at 11:58 PM
  
  All Reb Mani’s friends want to protect him fr. himself. He knows what the Jewish laws of war are, yet he chose to flout them and interpose his own cruel reinterpretation. I’m afraid I can’t parse what he meant to say or should’ve said. I only know what he DID say.
  
  Reply
Yom Kippur And The Death Of The Jews - OpEd says:

October 9, 2011 at 5:01 PM

[...] popular, in the top ten in terms of votes. One of her rivals was Chabad Rabbi Manis Friedman, who I’ve written about here. He’s the one who told Moment Magazine during Cast Lead that Israel was justified in killing [...]

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