"Ask A Jew" Wednesday

[u/AutoModerator]

It's everyone's favorite day of the week, "Ask A (Anti-Zionist) Jew" Wednesday! Ask whatever you want to know, within the sub rules, notably that this is not a debate sub and do not import drama from other subreddits. That aside, have fun! We love to dialogue with our non-Jewish siblings.

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[u/Thisisme8719]

Chabad isn't strict about internet or women's faces being exposed. They're actually really savvy about social media. The women also dress more fashionably and don't look like they're from the Victorian era, 1900 Poland, or draped in window curtains like what you'd see if you're in Boro Park or Monsey.

[u/specialistsets → u/Thisisme8719]

Chabad is Chabad, they are not culturally, sociologically or structurally Hasidic even though they originated as a Hasidic sect. To put it simply, one who affiliates with Chabad is not necessarily a Hasid, whereas one who affiliates with Satmar is inherently a Hasid.

[u/Thisisme8719 → u/specialistsets]

Chabad is absolutely a hasidic movement, and nobody would claim otherwise - including themselves. The biggest substantial difference between them and other large hasidic groups except for Breslov is that they don't have a (living) rebbe leading the sect or dynasty with his court, and that they dress in more modern ways. In terms of religious practices and stringencies, liturgy, ways of praying, prayer timing, use of classic hasidic texts and their own distinct ones, folklore etc, they are absolutely hasidic.

[u/specialistsets → u/Thisisme8719]

Chabad is a Hasidic movement, of course. But affiliating with Chabad does not [necessarily] make one Hasidic.

[u/Thisisme8719 → u/specialistsets]

If you mean people who just pray at Chabad congregations, then sure, plenty of them aren't hasidic. But they don't call themselves Chabadniks or Lubavitchers.
But people who call themselves Lubavitchers - pray almost exclusively in Nusah Ari, venerate the Tanya and teachings of their different rebbes, follow the laws of their own Shulhan Arukh, only eat meat which follows their own shehitah rules, won't eat any foods prepared outside of Lubavitch homes on Passover and other legalistic peculiarities, do their farbrengers or whatever the hell those things are called etc - are absolutely hasidim. It doesn't matter if they were descended from Lubavitch families or became part of the movement, which sadly includes tons of Sephardim.

[u/specialistsets → u/Thisisme8719]

You are completely right, but in practice I know people who were born in Crown Heights, affiliate with Chabad and even label themselves "Chabadniks" but are very "modern" and do not consider themselves "Lubavitchers" in a Hasidic sense. There is a wide acceptable religious and cultural range in the Chabad world (including within the same families), many who affiliate deeply with Chabad have more in common culturally with Modern Orthodox than other Hasidic sects. My main thesis is that being born into and affiliating with Chabad does not necessarily make one a "Hasid" as it does in say Satmar or Skver or Bobov or Vizhnitz, etc.

[u/Thisisme8719 → u/specialistsets]

Oh yeah, that's true. Though you'd be surprised at how different it is behind closed doors where they might seem like any other Orthodox Ashkenazim, but at home they're very distinct (I'm still close with some of the friends I grew up with because of their involvement in the Sephardic communities in NY, so I've seen the private side of the "modern" ones - not so much personally exposed to the tightknit communities). But yeah I'm sure plenty of overlap because they stopped being closed off after missionizing became central to their movement, and their rabbis were hired in other communities.