I just stumbled on this thread and I'm still in shock. I'll try to write my thoughts in a sensitive way. Will, once you've been on this site a little longer you will see that there are many posts in which people disagree with Chabad viewpoints and practices. Never once that I have seen has anybody come back with a "if you disagree with us, you're a bad person, can't we all just get along?".

Now I realize as I say this that you will take this the wrong way, but I'll say it FTR. It's ok to disagree with Chassidic ideas, customs, and practices. This is Judaism, and legitimate disagreement is not only allowed, its encouraged.

Your criticism of Chabad however, is not legitimate. From the beginning, your attack has been based on emotion ("If the Baal HaTanya won't let me be a tzaddik then I'll never join"). You then descended into using the "straw man" fallacy ("Chabad says tzaddikim are perfect and like G-d"), which quickly turned into a variation on "reductio ad hitlerum" ("Chabad's charismatic leaders are just like Yeshu")

You then set yourself up as the victim using another "straw man' (and I quote "so I can disagree, but I can't explain why? No sir."). Nobody said you can't. In fact, let's read the immediate comment (Alex's) you were replying to again.

"@Will, It is one thing to argue that most posekim disagree with a particular idea. No one is forcing you to accept it, after all. redacted for space requirements. rest [here] But that is a world apart from claiming that it is a Christian notion, as you did upthread; this bespeaks a gross lack of derech eretz for a prominent talmid chacham and for shlumei emunei Yisrael through the ages who follow his path. (See Orach Chaim 606:3.) – Alex 2 days ago "

As you can see, Alex, (and I, (remember my comment, " Anyway, I suspect we will have to agree to disagree here. Kol tuv :) . – HodofHod Dec 18 at 21:21 ") have no problem with you disagreeing.

And you don't stop. Even here, after a mod stepped in and said that this general behavior (from anybody, not just you) has to stop, you couldn't resist one last cheap shot "its a nice PR trick that Chabad employs; if you disagree with us, you're a bad person, can't we all just get along?".

I'll say it once more. There is absolutely no problem with you disagreeing with Chabad, for any reason, be it emotional, or rational. What is not ok, is for you to set yourself up as the judge, jury, and executioner ("However, once you go an define tzidkus as a state that only certain people can reach, you leave the realm of normative Judaism.").

You do not get to define what is and what is not normative Judaism, and it is completely wrong for you to compare Chabad to Christianity.

A freilechen Chanukah.

@HodofHod I wonder if there is a Jewish version of Godwin's Law where all arguments will end up having someone compared to Oiso HaIsh?

@ShmuelBrill apparently, there is (btw, refernces to Godwin's Law always remind me of xkcd.

My rant above, came out more personal then I had intended it, but in retrospect, there was no other way to do it. Because he doesn't really have an argument that I could disagree with instead of him, I had no choice but to use his actual quotes, which of course makes it personal.

I'm just wondering (this is for @IsaacMoses also), are there any limits as to what is debatable in chat?

@ShmuelBrill What do you mean?

how mean and personal is a chat allowed to be before someone steps in and starts putting people in time-out?

Although Alex and Ben Masada used to go at each other quite heavily.

@HodofHod judaism.stackexchange.com/a/4115/732

@ShmuelBrill ooohhh..... I was actually thinking of Ben Masada throuhgout this whole thing. Although, I'm loathe to compare the two, Will seems like a frum yid who just happens to dislike chabad. Ben Masada seems more like a karaite to me. Although I could be wrong.

@ShmuelBrill that being said, are you referring to me? was I that far out of line?

@HodofHod I don't know. Alex got away with it, though it was still in the M.Y days when the rules were different .

@HodofHod Also I'm not disagreeing with most of what you wrote. I can't see ANYONE nowadays (even if one is a recognized Torah Scholar) having the right to say that ANYONE who was respected for the past 200 years was like Oso HaIsh.

All the more so, someone whose on the Internet.

Can you imagine if I wrote that I think that some Rishon is a kofer? It's just ludicrous.

@ShmuelBrill I could be wrong, but I suspect that if somebody came on this site today, and started saying things like Ben Masada used to, he'd be treated much the same. Perhaps he might have been banned sooner, though.

Probably Isaac would be more on top of the ball and would delete the post before it got this far

@ShmuelBrill True. Which is perhaps a reason to ignore him, or the opposite.