Truth as We See It

A popular "Redemption blog" stripped my blog from its blog roll. The claim for this action was that my blog "distances Jews from Judaism" (in saying the Rebbe is Moshiach). The absurdity of that claim I addressed elsewhere.

I want to add another reason for this implausibility. As per the Rambam (Avodah Zarah 2:3), "A man's intellect is diminutive; And not all intellects can grasp the clarity of truth. Were every man to follow his own intellect, the world would be destroyed by his shortness of intellect .... And regarding this issue the Torah warned, where it says, 'And don't stray following your hearts ...', that is to say, each individual should refrain following his short intellect, where he thinks his thoughts concur with the truth!"

Then why, one can ask, would Chassidus demand of us to ponder with our bovine intellect the foundations of our beliefs, if, in fact, we are short on intellect and cannot perceive the truth with our small minds?

The answer is simple. You cannot lay foundation of a belief based on your own personal intellect. You first learn what the Torah regards as the true belief, and what the belief has been of our Rebbeim. Only thereafter must a Chabad chassid contemplate and sweat, with the help of chassidus literature, in order to understand THAT BELIEF, with his entire intellectual capacity.

(Otherwise, you do as the Reformists among us do; Use their own minds as the determinant of truth.)

And if the Rebbe himself asked us - his "soldiers" - to further disseminate his message, (to accept him as Moshiach), it would be foolish of us to second-guess the Rebbe and think that by following through with his request we will thereby distance Jews from Judaism, G-d forbid!

If anything, Jews have never ever been so attuned to the Era of Redemption as they are today. The very fact that you have "Redemption blogs" bristling with hungry readers looking for any sign that points to Moshiach's imminent arrival, no matter what stream of orthodoxy they come from, tells you people are hungry for Redemption, conditioned for Moshiach. Even well-heeled Jews too today realize the superficiality of the Diaspora and yearn for the truth that only the Ultimate Geulah can render.

This is a special period in Jewish history, where Chassidus has awakened Jewry from centuries of deep slumber and now, in the last 7 (or 9) generations, has paved the way for Moshiach's imminent exposure, and to a new way of life, one the world was created for in the first place.