Feel-Good Chasidic Vertel Exposed as Baseless

From Musings of a Litvishe Yid:

Feel-Good Chasidic Vertel Exposed as Baseless

Saturday, March 22, 2025

 There is a Chasidic vertel (small vort) that goes like this –

It says in the beginning of parshas Noach,נח איש צדיק (בראשית ו:ט). Rashi there comments from Chazal, יש מרבותינו דורשים לשבח, ויש שדורשים לגנאי (some of our Rabbis interpret this in a positive way, that Noach was a tzadik in his weak generation, all the more so would he have been in a stronger one, while others interpret it negatively, that in his spiritually meager generation he was considered righteous, but in a better generation he would not have been).

So the Hasidic comment notes that Rashi only uses the term מרבותינו (of our rabbis) when mentioning the positive interpretation, and not with the negative one. Why, it continues? To show us that someone who interprets negatively is not worthy of being called one of our rabbis.

                                       Litvish analysis and Fact check

 Though Hasidim and neo-Hasidim like the TYH folk may like that, it doesn’t hold water. As seen in the beginning of פרשת ויקהל, which we just read, in שמות לה:ג, where Rashi cites a different machlokes, about fire on Shabbos. He also cites a first opinion with the expression מרבותינו there, while omitting it when afterward citing a second one, even though this not a case where one side is a positive interpretation and the other a negative one. Showing us that that just is the way of Rashi (perhaps, or should I say likely, to economize on verbiage and letters in the days before printing, when things were written by hand).

Continue reading…

Are the Countless ‘Iranian Spies’ Actually Being Recruited by Iran? I Wonder…

Mordechai Sones of “Jewish Home News” asks the right question:

What better to deflect attention from the parlous state of the State and ensure against a revolt than to recruit safe bogeymen as a distraction? It’s not like we can prove who the “spy recruiters” are. And they don’t seem to be targeting Israel’s best and brightest.

It wouldn’t be the first time the security “services” have done this, by far.

Excerpt (regarding “Animal Farm” which I haven’t read):

Snowball, representing Leon Trotsky, is systematically demonized by Napoleon (representing Joseph Stalin). After Snowball is driven off the farm, Napoleon attributes all the farm’s problems to him. This mirrors Stalin’s practice of blaming Trotsky and his followers for any setbacks in the Soviet Union.

The idea that Snowball is secretly sabotaging the farm, even in exile, creates an atmosphere of paranoia. This fosters the belief that spies and enemies are everywhere, justifying Napoleon’s increasing control.

Read the rest…