B”H
Doreen, Why Are You A "Neo-Essene"? Why Did You Leave Chaba"d
Someone asked:
Doreen, you used to follow Orthodox Rabbinic Chabad Judaism? What experiences exactly happened to you that was so bad that made you reject it so much as to become a neo-Essene?
I answered:
B"H
OK, first of all I found the Rebbe cult off-putting from the very beginning. I was young but smart enough to know that Chaba"d were far out with the exaggerations of the Rebbe. I felt very uncomfortable with the pictures of him everywhere, particularly in the shuls.
The fact that the Tanya put a glass ceiling over the spiritual potential of people saying that the best we can be is Beinonim put me off too. Everyone should believe s/he can be a tzaddik.
I didn't see that the Chaba"d Chassidim were on a very high level either spiritually, or in their ability to rigorously analyze Torah arguments.
I found the vodka and the cake bit from the Rebbe's fabrengen to be out-and-out avodah zara. Seeing people pouring from a vial of the Rebbe’s vodka into bottle after bottle of vodka thinking they were doing a mitzvah made me sick to my stomach. Seeing people gets thrills, or pretend they do, from crumbs from a cake was off the graph.
When I was sent to the seminary in Minnesota no one told me that I had to pay for the airfare. The made me believe that they were paying for it. Had they told me that I had to pay for the ticket I would have done so gladly. No mention of money was made. When I returned I was made to feel pressured to pay for the plane ticket and made to feel that they thought I had "taken a free ride"! The issue wasn't the money. The issue was their niggardly way of doing business.
The final blow was when I got engaged to be married. When I had left the US it was after my mother, of blessed memory, had passed away. They knew she had passed away because they did the burial, which my uncle paid them for well. My parents divorced when I was young and I was not in contact with him for years. So they knew that I was in Israel effectively without family, an orphan. When I became engaged I wrote to the Chaba"d Rabbis and told them that I was engaged and asked for the necessary letters stating that they know me to be Jewish and single. No letters came. I asked repeatedly. No letters came. I understood that they wanted me to pay for those letters. I had intended to give them a nice sum after the letters were in receipt, but I was certainly not going to pay bribes to get letters that I needed to get married! I called them by phone and told them that in so many words. They then sent the letters!I wrote them and told them that had they sent the letters al pi hahalikhah I would have gladly given them a present, but no money would be forthcoming as I do not pay bribes and certainly not to Rabbis to do mitzvoth!
Two prominent Chaba"d Rabbis from Tzfat died mitot meshunot. V'dei L'mevin.
All of the pseudo-Kabbalah in Tzfat, indeed in the entire world, cannot dry the tears of all of the suffering souls in Tzfat. The teachings of the Rabbis are worthless. They do not heal the Soul or put bread on the table.
When I discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls I saw the Truth of Torah. I felt the holiness. Though there is much left that we do not understand, anyone with an open mind and heart can see that the Torah of HaIsi'im is true and authentic.
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Continuation of the Discussion (can be found on the Forum of www.safed.co.il under General Discussion:
B"H
The following is speculation based on my experience.
From the looks of Rabbinic Judaism today it seems to me that there are many Rabbis who fancied themselves ga'onim and even ilui'im when they were young.
Of course, with such an attitude and given the fact that Rabbinic Judaism is imperfect and distorted in many ways these men never reached the level of being able to see HaShem in Torah.
Rather than coming to the humble conclusion that they had not set their hearts properly and had been learning that which is not wholly true Judaism and that is why they did not succeed, they came to the conclusion that there is no truth in Torah, chas va'Shalom. They thought that if "geniuses" like them did not find holiness in Torah, then there is no holiness to be found, for certainly if there was holiness in Torah it would have been revealed to such exalted personages as themselves.
They came to the conclusion that Torah is nothing at all. But what to do with all those years of study? Shrewdly they understand that there are many who can be gullibly led by errant teachings. They use the Torah cynically to manipulate others, donning black, doing the outward mitzvot but all the while not respecting the Torah or all or even attributing worth to it, except as a very effective device for mind and emotion control.
They are worse than those who do not learn Torah or do mitzvot, for they do them not believing a word of Torah at all, but only for the sake of being able to lead and manipulate others and live a very comfortable life economically.
This is the way the current situation looks to me in many cases.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat
Edit Reply
07:26 18 Apr 2004
It sounds like you would endorse the attack of the Nazarene on the Pharisees! (The cause of so much hatred, antisemitism and bloodshed against Jews by Christians):
"Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers' guilt. Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell? Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness." (Matthew 23).
Such vindictiveness from "The Prince of Peace", and just because they wouldn't accept him as the Messiah!
Doreen Dotan
03:31 19 Apr 2004
B"H
Three cliches come to mind upon reading your post, Yul.
1) Even a blind chicken finds a bit of grain sometimes.
2) Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
and last but not least
3) If the shoe fits, wear it.
It simply cannot be verboten to level genuine and all-too-necessary criticism against the Pharisaic/Rabbinic tradition because Yeshu said some of the same things. The "New Testament" is a melange of truth, half-truth, exaggerations, lies and damned lies. If there was not a grain of truth in it it couldn't have been such a potent mind-bender.
The passage you quote above is true to a greater extent than should be, bav"h.
And would you like some cheese with that whine? Stop putting all the blame on what has transpired in our history on Yeshu. We have done plenty to cause the deaths of one another and to harm one another without the Xian's "help".
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat
Edit Reply
07:27 19 Apr 2004
It is indeed amazing that the goyim are still worshipping a wayward 33 year old Yiddishe Essenic rabbinical student who died 2000 years ago, not just as the Messiah, but as the incarnation and corporification of the Creator, noch! Oy vey!
So what does Essenism say about the coming Moshiach in its "Wars of the Sons of Light and Dark" that differs from the extensive Pharisaic Apocalyptic and Eschatological literature??
10:07 19 Apr 2004
"Grain of truth in the New Testament"? Yes: it has spread around the world the idea that the Moshiach will be a Jew! So that when he does appear, they will say: "We knew all along he'd be a Yid! We jus' backed the wrong guy!".
"Can there can be a greater error than Christianity?!......nevertheless, the intent of the Creator is not within our power to comprehend....ultimately all the deeds of Yeshu Hanotzri...are only to prepare the way for the Moshiach's coming" (Rambam, Hilchos Melochim 11).
Doreen Dotan
11:45 19 Apr 2004
B"H
This is a very pertinent question:
"So what does Essenism say about the coming Moshiach in its "Wars of the Sons of Light and Dark" that differs from the extensive Pharisaic Apocalyptic and Eschatological literature??"
because that 40 year long war has already begun.
Perhaps you might read the scroll, in Hebrew (you won't be able to get a thing out of the English translation) and hope and pray that your neshamah understands what's written there.
It is indeed amazing that the goyim are still worshipping a wayward 33 year old Yiddishe Essenic rabbinical student who died 2000 years ago, not just as the Messiah, but as the incarnation and corporification of the Creator, noch! Oy vey!
"Corporification" is not an English word. Thank you for demonstrating the intellectual level of the people who are duped by Rabbinic Orthodoxy.
Once again, Yeshu was a Pharisee, not an Essene. I doubt he spoke Yiddish. In fact, I doubt you speak much Yiddish, so stop with the phony balony put-on. Is your Judaism so paltry and weak that you have to bolster it by speaking in, and otherwise assuming, affected manners? How inauthentic you sound - just like the Judaism you follow.
Doreen
Edit Reply
13:09 19 Apr 2004
Whatever Yoshki was, he wasn't a Perushi! That'd be like saying Jacob Frank was a chossid! And Yiddish I've got a grasp, albeit vi a heissen kartofel in moyl! And you're right:"corporification" is not an English word, it's an American one, and used by R.Aryeh Kaplan z"l in "The Real Messiah".
Doreen Dotan
12:22 23 Apr 2004
B"H
See my entry under the topic about Shabtai Tzviniks being back of this date for more about why I left Chaba"d.
P.S. With all due respect, it is not Aryeh Kaplan who decided if a word is American English or not. So long as a word does not appear in Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language it is not an American English word.
It is really a pity that even a Rabbi as intelligent as Rabbi Kaplan was reduced to blithering, illiterate idiocy when dealing with the issue of Yeshu. When will the Jews learn to keep their emotions in check and put their minds in gear when dealing with painful issues?
Keep talking, Ploni. You're doing a better job of demonstrating the low level of intelligence, scholarship and unbridled hyper-emotionalism of those who follow the Pharisaic/Rabbinic tradition than I ever could hope to. Seeing is believing, as they say.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat
