38 Comments

• Wouldn't it be nice...

  If a respectable chabad group would attend

  • doubled over

    You mean respectable as in Chanina Sperlin? It hurts when I laugh.

  • Reply

    Rabbi Yaakov Berhman seems to be quite respected… Its nice to see our community being represented by such young, polished, and clean cut individuals!

  • Milhouse

    Um,. why? So long as they insist that Entebbe was not a miracle, they have no right to celebrate the Kastner train as a miracle. If the nissim geluyim of 1948 and the Six-Day War were maaseh soton, then so was the Kastner train. Until they admit that Hashem can use resho’im as the agents of his miracles, we must remind them that 21 Kislev came about through a rosho.

  • They have rabbonim and gedolie torah

    That gives them authority to decide which nissim are true and what is ma’asay soton. With all due respect to Milhouse, the Stamar rebbe ztzl knew how to learn more than you. He was also smarter. If it made sense to him and his rabbonim and roshei yeshivos – who are you to question with such disrespect? I advise you to go to his Tzion and beg mechilah!!

  • Milhouse

    I don’t need to apologise for telling the TRUTH. Their whole insistence that open miracles from Hashem were “maasei soton” chas vesholom is WICKED LIE, and they have no right to say it no matter what “talmidei chachomim” they think they are. It’s a slap in Hashem’s face.

    Boruch Hashem we have a Rebbe who is far greater than they can ever imagine, and he taught us the truth.

  • Milhouse questions "ma'asei soton"

    According to Milhouse, ANY apparent miracle is clearly not ma’asei soton. If Milhouse says it is an “open miracle” then it cannot be from kochos haTuma or ma’asei soton. This flies in the face of any rational thinking, but justifies Milhouse in maligning a huge frum community of Satmar! It also justifies him to “argue” with the halachic Torah position of the Satmar, rabbonim, poiskim and their Rebbe. Is there no limit to such silliness that Milhouse writes? .

  • Milhouse

    That’s right, there is NO SUCH THING as “maaseh soton”. There is no “Satan” opposing Hashem, chas vesholom. There is only Hashem, and “the soton” is merely the angel whose job it is to prosecute the accused in Beis Din shel Maaloh. Believing in a “Satan” who is in rebellion against Hashem, and has the power to do his own “miracles”, is Avoda Zara.

    It is a law in Shulchon Oruch that when we see a miracle we are obligated to attribute it to Hashem, to praise Him and thank Him, with sheim umalchus! How can you suggest that such a thing might not even come from Hashem, that it might be “maaseh soton”? One who does not thank Hashem for the miracles he experiences, one who instead worries that they might be “maaseh soton”, is a kefuy tovah, and he is spitting in Hashem’s face.

    Tell me, is there any room at all in halocho for the people who were rescued at Entebbe not to bench gomel? If they go back there, is there any room at all in halocho for them not to say the brocho שעשה לי נס במקום הזה? Can anyone who paskens they shouldn’t do so be called a rov, let alone a talmid chochom?!

    The Satmar position on this is 100% wrong, against halacha, and hypocritical. How do they know 21 Kislev wasn’t also “maaseh soton”?

  • Milhouse

    PS, would you have had the chutzpah to tell the Rebbe to his face that “they have rabbonim and gedolie torah” and their position is also in “eilu vo’eilu”?! You know how much agmas nefesh their kefirah gave the Rebbe, how much the Rebbe shouted and screamed over it, how DARE you give it credence and demand that we respect it?

  • Ma'asei Saton

    Avrohom going to akeida, a rivers forms in front of him blocking his way – that is nissim or ma’asei saton, which Milhouse claims do not exist?!

    Thousands other examples…

    But Milhouse denies them.

  • Milhouse

    1. There was no river. It was an illusion. As soon as they ignored it it disappeared, because it was never really there.

    2. Even if there had been a river, its was harming them, not helping them, so what sort of miracle could that be? It would have been the opposite of a miracle. Here we are talking about a good thing, the saving of thousands of Jewish lives, and Satmarers claim that it’s “maaseh soton”?! That is pure kefirah. You have a chutzpah to advance such a claim on a Lubavitcher site. It’s a slap in the Rebbe’s face.

  • "Illusion" or Reality

    Olom comes from word helem, it is an “illusion”, but THAT is our reality. We live in Olom HaSheker but that is our life. When Avrohom encountered a river on the way to the Akeidah, it was a “nes” (defined as unnatural occurrence – as opposed to each sunrise being a true glorious nes).

    The unnatural victory at Entebee may be viewed TWO ways – as a way to test our belief to remain anti-zionist (a.k.a. ma’asei soton) ,or as a way to strengthen the belief in zionism and support of an anti-Torah government )a.k.a. the illusion created by the soton).

    Either way, it is to test us. Satmar Rebbe called a spade a spade and gave us the “heads up” not to fail the test.

    Milhouse is encouraging us to fai the test.

  • Milhouse

    The world is not an illusion; it is our reality, and da’as tachton says it exists. Its existence is contingent, not absolute like Hashem’s existence, but within the context of our own existence, it is real. Like Samuel Johnson, we can stub our toes on it, and thus refute the claim that it doesn’t exist.

    The river that the medrash tells us Avrohom and Yitzchok saw didn’t exist. There was nothing there; they merely saw an illusion, a mirage, a trick of their eyes, and the moment they ignored it it disappeared.

    There is no “Satan” who opposes Hashem. There is no “anti-god”, chas vesholom. That is pure kefirah.

    And Entebbe was not a test of anything. It is a matter of halocho pesukoh that it was a neis from Heaven, to save Jewish lives. You don’t care about those lives, because you’re a rosho and a kofeir, but the Torah is against you. The survivors were obligated to say a brocho with sheim umalchus, and if they ever return to that place they must say another brocho, again with sheim umalchus. That is not a theory, it’s not a suggestion, and it’s not a machlokes haposkim, it’s a Torah obligation exactly the same as wearing tefillin, or lighting the menorah. If the Beis Hamikdosh had been standing they would have been obligated to bring a korban Toidoh. So said the Rebbe, and so paskened hundreds of rabbonim, and neither you nor your rebbe have any right to dispute it. Especially not on a Lubavitcher blog.

  • Milhouse

    If Avrohom and Yitzchok had not noticed the “river”, if their eyes had been closed and they had walked into “it”, they would not have got wet. Because it didn’t exist.

  • Chotei u'Machti

    Milhouse is a tzioni, but worse, one who is novol b’reshus haTorah/ It is bad to be a tzioni, worse to be a chotei u’machti. He speaks for the malchus ha’risha and tries to shlep the Heiliger Lubavitcher Rebbe ztz”l into this. Your Rebbe and mine both agreed that the Midena pushed off bi’as moshiach tzikaynu for decades.

  • Wow, they should have consulted Milhouse

    Avrohom and Yitzchok should have consulted our wise-know-it-all. Milhouse would have told them to just close their eyes.

    The nochosh in gan eden was also just an illusion. And the soton who told Sara that Yitzchok was taken to the Akeida was just imaginary.

    Wow! Let’s rewrite history.

  • In the know

    In our community there is a shmuah that the Lubavitcher Rebbe secretly agreed with the Stamar rebbe and THAT is why he never stepped foot in the Medinah.

  • Milhouse

    I am writing exactly what the Rebbe said. How dare you accuse me of tziyonus? What did I write that was in any way tziyoni?

    The Rebbe was completely against tziyonus, ch”v, much more than Satmar. Lubavitch yields to nobody in its anti-zionism. But the Rebbe’s opposition didn’t make him blind to Hashem’s nissim. The miracles of 1948 were from Hashem, and we owe Him thanks for them. The miracles of 1967 were even greater and more open, and of course we owe Him even more thanks — not to be a כפוי טובה by refusing to go to the kosel! And Entebbe was the last straw; to deny that this was a miracle from Hashem, to ascribe it chas vesholom to maasei soton, is open kefirah. We all remember how upset the Rebbe was at the kofrim who denied the miracles; how dare you come here and repeat that kefirah? It’s a real chutzpah.

    But above all, it’s rank hypocrisy to say that of all the miracles Hashem did by means of resho’im, you’re going to pick one and say it was a miracle, and the rest you’ll ascribe to the “soton”. Pick one; either they’re all nissim, or they’re all “maaseh soton”, and your rebbe should have refused to board the train. You can’t have it both ways.

  • Milhouse

    The nochosh in Gan Eden was the yetzer horo. Nothing more. Before the chet it was external; now it’s inside us.

• Ma Rabbi

  If the armory is big enough to contain 10,000 Satmar Chassidim then it certainly can hold 5,000 Chabad
  Shluchim.

• They're Following The Rebbe!

  The Rebbe had said that he wants the Kinus in Crown Hts!!! Well, at least they listened! Amazing.

• YMSP

  Good to see achdus between all types of Chassidei HaBaal Shem Tov and that the miut that did wrong isn’t the whole picture. There’s been a long relationship between many Lubavitchers and Satmars and these relationships have always been of great benefit, more so than with seemingly more popular groups.

  • Milhouse

    They may be very nice yidden, but they’re not chassidei haBaal Shem Tov. נשתכחה תורת הבעש״ט, remember?

  • YMSP

    I do remember that line and may stand corrected but was it from Reb Yoelish (in which case it’s their shitoh) or from their community leaders?
    The Rebbe was against a medina in sharp ways but cared strongly and actively about Jewish security. They just saw the avlos that come from the so-called “rabbanut” and the chilul that a medina can cause. As you see today, we have a lot more in common with them than with the “modern-orthodox” (whose name means fry-frum), but you have a good point on them – the Baal Shem Tov..

  • Milhouse

    It’s from Reb Yoilish.

    On the medinah, neither our opposition nor theirs is based on the specifics of what the medinah has done. Even if it were run by complete yir’ei shomayim, both Lubavitch and Satmar would be against it. We both regard zionism as completely possul.

    But the sharp difference between us and Satmar is that our Rebbe recognised that Hashem did open nissim to protect the yidden there, and He used the IDF as His agent. Our Rebbe also recognised that the soldiers of the IDF, no matter what other faults they may have, are moser nefesh to save Jewish lives, which is an incredible mitzvah and zechus.

    The Satmarer, on the other hand, called all the nissim “maaseh soton” and refused to recognise that there could be any good in what’s fundamentally a negative thing. He presumed to tell HKBH how He can and can’t do nissim. He assered going to the Kosel Hamaarovi, because it would mean having hano’oh from the maaseh soton of the Six Day War! And of course there’s the matter of taking money from the medinah, which our Rebbe was in favour of, while the Satmarer held that anything funded with such money (including all the Lubavitcher yeshivos) is automatically tomei.

  • Even goyim

    Even goyim who save yidden have a zchus but if they are also destroyers of Torah and mitzvos, the zchusim are CANCELLED by the issurim. The malchus harisha may have savedsome yidden but that is outweighed by the aveiros they cause every second.

  • Milhouse

    Don’t you dare evade the question. The question is whether Entebbe was a neis, or a “maaseh soton”. Do the people who were rescued thank Hashem for it or not? So long as you insist it was not a neis, and must not be celebrated, then you have NO RIGHT to celebrate 21 Kislev. If the rescue of those Jews, and of the hundreds of thousands of Jews who were rescued in 1948, and the millions who were rescued in 1967, were all “maaseh soton”, then you must say that Kastner’s rescue of your rebbe was ALSO “maaseh soton”, and you should fast and mourn on that day. Who told you that one is a neis and the others are not?

• who is who

  Interesting to see SO MANY Lubavitcher chasidim there. What’s up with that???
  They curse us out then we go to their tish???
  Where is kovid Lubavithch???
  Where is kovod for the Rebbe???

  • Milhouse

    When’s the last time they cursed us out? It’s good that there’s sholom now. It doesn’t change what happened, and it doesn’t change the blatant contradiction between their stance on 21 Kislev and on all the nissim that Hashem did by means of the zionist resho’im, but machlokes is bad and sholom is good. The trouble was always caused by a few hooligans on their side, who terrorized the rest of them (including their rebbe) as much as they did us. The vast majority of them are wonderful yidden, and its’ good that we’re friends again.

  • YMSP

    There are so many of them that actively support Lubavitcher mosdos and peulos. They also fight for taharas yisroel, to keep families together, etc. The bad ones aren’t reflective of a whole community and every group’s got their problems. The problem then was that many of their rabbonim were scared to stand up to the violent ones, but they’re less afraid to stand up when needed than most American rabbis. They legitimately try to follow Torah and many appreciate the necessity of Chabad’s work in a way that other outside groups don’t.

• kastner transport...

  is this really a reason to celebrate??
  look into how he was saved…it’s shameful.

  not impressed that we would go there and support this celebration.

  i have close satmar relatives whom I adore but please educate yourself.

• Kinus

  The Kinus was there one year. The Shluchim grew out of that place, as they have from many other venues.

• benny

  Shluchim and lay leaders are not ready to stand on bleachers for hours to hear politicians and philanthropists address them the same way Chassidim are ready to stand on their feet to hear their Rebbe. That’s why the armory isn’t big enough for the kinus banquet.

• he is not THE satmar rebe

  he is the satmar rebbe of Monroe
  (which is funny that he’s leading the thing in wliiamsburg).

• to # 11

  It’s r’ yoelish himself in his sefer v,yoel moshe

  • YMSP

    Thanks

• Yossel

  I like Milhouse’s posts. Not only do I agree with them, but he uses correct spelling, correctEnglish grammar, and sounds intelligent. Thank you.

  • Milhouse

    Thank you.