@ShmuelBrin Because that's my point.

@Aaron If you write to the Ohel? No. And there are plenty of big poskim (yes, I know that you don't follow the Kabbalistic approach to Judaism, and are more Meqori, but it's not an outlandish position given Ashkenazi Jewish approach over the past several hundred years) who would back him up.

@ShmuelBrin I was not told to write to the ohel, to the grave of the Rebbe. I was told I should write to the Rebbe, who would hear my words and send me help and guidance. I was never told the Rebbe was dead, I was given every impression that the Rebbe was alive. I was told to address it to the Rebbe. And I was told the letter would be delivered personally to the Rebbe. Not to a grave.

@ShmuelBrin .....what else do you know about me?

@Aaron See the Minchas Yitzchak. I mean it would have been more honest to say you're writing a letter to the Rebbe's grave, but it's really the same question - can you ask a Tzaddik who passed away to pray for you. And there are Poskim who say that it's fine.

@Aaron not much :) . Just as much as you post about yourself.

@ShmuelBrin I don't understand that last part: "that a movement is avodah zarah". A"z is worshipping a false god. You can ask whether writing letters is a"z. You can ask whether hanging pictures is a"z. You can ask whether riffling through books is a"z. You can even ask whether maintaining membership in a particular organization is a"z But afaict you can't ask whether a movement is a"z: what would it even mean for a movement to be a"z?

A"z is an act, not a movement.

@Aaron sorry, this is the message I thought I was replying to

@msh210 "Is Hinduism, which holds as central tenets that X, Y, and Z, A"Z?"

I guess the question is whether the term 'A"Z' applies to belief systems or only to practice systems.

@Aaron Is your goal here to a) expose facts about Chabad and voice your objection, b) propose and ask for the fine-tuning of a policy position with respect to Chabad, or c) ask for information about how Halacha views Chabad? Some of your rhetoric sounds a lot like (a) or (b), neither of which make good foundations for questions. If your motivation is truly (c), then it's important to make it very clear what the Halachic question is and leave out the advocacy rhetoric.

@ShmuelBrin I'm not here to debate the point; just to suggest that the hava amina seems valid to me.

@IsaacMoses Right. I dunno. That question, too, really makes no sense, yet I wouldn't object. Maybe what I'm really objecting to, then, is the characterization of Chabad as "which holds as central tenets that X, Y, and Z".

@msh210 In order to label a movement as an A"z movement, the leadership have to be along with the A"z. Or else Young Israel would also be a heretical movement, since some members of Y"I shuls aren't Shomer Shabbos.

@IsaacMoses I don't need to make a point about Chabad, but to me it seems like people are acting very irrationally about their response to this question. It's safe to ask if Conservative Judaism is or isn't legitimate because of x,y,z, or about non jews, but Chabad seems to get a different response from people

@IsaacMoses Because we all know and love the Chabad Rabbis that we've met in our lives, and we've benefitted from their generosity. And even my example with writing the letter to the Rebbe, I confronted the Rabbi and question and told him to never put me in such a position as that again, and he has honored and respected that

@IsaacMoses But in a time when the OU freaks out and tries to unorthodox a synagogue for it appointing a female clergy, or a hecsher agency says that ethiopians aren't Jewish enough to handle wine, or all the other things that get a lot of people very mobilized, no one is asking the Chabad question

@IsaacMoses It's like we are all waiting around, waiting for the moment when they've really just gone too far, or crossed a line that there's no coming back from. So my question is, where is that line. Or to ask perhaps if they've already crossed it

@IsaacMoses If tomorrow Chabad released a statement that they will train all their Rabbis to believe the Rebbe is the Mashiach and anyone who doesn't believe so cannot be a Chabad Rabbi, would that be the moment?

@ShmuelBrin But we don't have to talk about movements with names only. We can talk about the Subset of Chabad That Believes X, or the Subset of Chabad That Does Y.

And then there may not even be any formal leadership, so you'd need to find some other way of characterizing a movement as an a"z movement. Perhaps by the aforementioned X and Y.

@Aaron FWIW, I have traveled extensively around the world, and saw many many Chabad centers. My experience is that their level of focus on the Rabbi varies very widely. As such it is difficult to speak of Chabad as one unified movement, they clearly share certain characteristics of being attached to the Rebbe, but many centers I saw put little outward focus on the activities you describe and look like very standard batei knesset.

I would also note that 50,000+ Jews just traveled to Uman to ask R Nachman to intercede for them in heaven

So I think it is fair to say many of us are thankful to Chabad for all the good they do, the mesirut nefesh they exhibit, all the mitzvot they enable others to perform and leave the meshuggeness of (a small?) portion of them aside. There are meshugaim everywhere, over time they fall by the wayside and the Jewish people moves forward

@Aaron For the record, questions that do things like ask about the legitimacy of liberal Judaism movements do tend to get plenty of reaction. Not all of it is preserved for posterity.

@mbloch If the meshuggeness portion was closer to 70%, would that change how you felt?