[Avodah] Who First Said it?

[T613K at aol.com]

From: Zev Sero _zev at sero.name_ (mailto:zev at sero.name) 

>> Lub has always  respected the GRA, even at the height of his 
persecution.  
He was  always assumed to have been making a terrible mistake, and that
while his  actions were wicked and against halacha his motivation was
genuinely lesheim  shomayim, so it wasn't held against him.  It was
believed that he had  been misled by false witnesses reporting serious
breaches of halacha, and  that had he known the truth he would not have 
acted as he did.

When  the Chevraya Kadisha wanted to put him in a strong cherem that would
cut him  off from the shoresh of his neshama and guarantee that he would
shmad, ch"v,  the Alter Rebbe refused to join them, and he suffered from
their kepeida as a  result, but the cherem did not proceed.  When the GRA
died, the AR  issued a public letter referring to him as "hagaon hechasid",
and warning  chassidim not to rejoice at his passing.

So it's not at all surprising  that hebrewbooks.org should have Maaseh Rav.
There's nothing to  forgive.

-- 
Zev  Sero                      

 
 
 
>>>>>
My father said that the Vilna Gaon's opposition had ultimately been very  
good for chassidus, because it forced the chassidim to rein in their own  
extreme, non-normative, anti-nomian elements, and to stay on the straight and  
narrow (aka the strait and narrow).  Had the Vilna Gaon not acted, it is  
quite likely that the entire chassidic movement would have gone off the  
rails.  My father was a Gerrer chossid and had plenty of choice  words for 
Litvaks, believe me, but he was a man who believed in being modeh al  ha'emes.  
The early chassidim had a lot of strange fringe elements, and not  all the 
reports that were brought to the Gaon's ears were false.
 
Having said that, I would add that my father would have agreed with today's 
 Lubs (and other chassidim) that it was a pity the Vilna Gaon never met the 
Baal  HaTanya.  (But then again, my father would have said that the  Baal 
HaTanya wouldn't have recognized today's Chabad as anything he ever would  
have wanted or imagined.)
 
The story about "cutting off  the roots of his soul" -- that  the Gra would 
have converted to Christianity if not for the Ba'al HaTanya  -- is 
scurrilous nonsense.  Where do you get this stuff?
 

--Toby  Katz
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