What are your most enjoyable chassidish stories?

My latest favorite:
Someone asked the Satmar Roov, "Why do you need three letters- samach, saf, and sin- for the same sound?" He answered, "Ichsilim, moosai taskili!" (a pasuk- And fools, when will they think!- a statement using all three of those letters.)

I don't enjoy stories about chasidim. Especially the ones that make the news lately.

There are so many! Some are sad as well as nice, because as PD said, they are a contrast the society now.

I least enjoy the ones about nissim. My friend tried to feed me one today, as a suggestion.

Me too.

But I'm sure you like Kotzker stories.

I don't get why this is a story.

You mean you dont want to hear how opening the gateway to Hashem through tears and tehillim brought people back from near death, into yiddishkeit, found them shidduchim, and gave them the parnossah to support the 8 children they had after doctors declared the wife barren?

Must be the Litvak blood.

Seriously, what do those stories teach?

Belief.

What would you call it?

Or the other way around.

Honest? How do anecdotal wonder tales teach belief?

Sometimes I wonder if you people even believe in G-d

You mean people who need anecdotal wonder tales to sustain their belief?

No the people who are so skeptical of anything out of the ordinary, that I wonder what else they have a hard time believing as well.....

You're making leaps and assumptions to promote your agenda that rejection of any anecdotal wonder tales as necessary for belief is the same as rejecting belief in God.

what if its documented?

How do documented wonder tales teach belief? Had a navi predicted a supernatural event, and then the event occurred, that would teach belief.
But how does a documented wonder tale teach belief any more than a documented "miracle" as part of a beatification process in the Catholic church teach that their beliefs are correct?

ok so what about a story of a rabbi predicting an unexpected event and that event occuring.

Swell. But if a rabbi could predict a supernatural event occurring, that would make him a navi, and nevuah pretty well stopped at the beginning of the second bayit.

So are you saying that all stories of rabbis healing people or predicting events are coincidences, exagerated, or fantasy?

I'm making so such claim*. I'm asking how anecdotal or even documented wonder tales teach belief, and why those tales are necessary for belief, and how those tales are evidence that our belief system is more correct than any other religion or cult with anecdotal or documented wonder tales.


*Don't make the classic h.com error that if someone says the sky is blue because today is Monday, and I claim today is not Monday, that therefore I don't think the sky is blue.

I think that is the central problem with these stories. If you believe in cough, cough, "documented" gedolim stories then what do you do with the "documented" stories from the other side?

Here's a trial balloon: Rather than anecdotal wonder tales teaching belief, in the sense that all these wonder tales are some sort of evidence that our belief system is true, they validate our already existing belief system. In other words, for someone who has already has a belief system (regardless of what that belief system is, be it Jewish or Catholic), these sorts of wonder tales can validate that belief system for the person. That is to say, acceptance of these wonder tales are a useful tool for validating for the individual what he wants to believe.

It's a combination of immaturity, contrarianism, and misguided Rambamism.

Does believing in nevuah and the splitting of the Yam Suf count to make someone a 'believer'?

edited to add:
Additionally, one is arguably not obligated to believe all of Chazal's stories as literally true, and there is no greater documentation than our mesorah. That is to say, all of Chazal's stories are documented as factual, yet not all are literally historically true. Rather, some for example are meant to teach a didactic or exegetical lesson. Since one is arguably not obligated to believe all of Chazal's stories as literally true, I'm not sure why we would be obligated to hold stories of contemporary or recent figures to a higher standard than Chazal themselves.

Yes, but I don't understand why people insist on making miracles something that USED to happen back in the day....
Did G-d go into retirement or something??? Did he get tired of interfering with the world and just let it run by itself until Moshiach comes???

Nobody is claiming that miracles don't happen. Nor, by the way, is anyone saying they don't believe in God, although it might be more convenient for you to believe that those who approach anecdotal wonder tales differently than you don't believe in God since then you have the joy of dismissing such arguments as heresy rather than something that differs from your own approach. By equating a hashkafah that differs from yours with nonbelief in God, you are able to pin the label of heretic on them.
The only claim that was made was that nevuah [predicting a future supernatural event] is no longer with us, although I believe that's also something Chazal themselves said.

I never said they don't believe in G-d, I said it appears as if they prefer to believe that G-d no longer visibly interacts with the world....

Also, to deny these occurrences turn a great many holy Jews into knaves at best and liars at worst, which is something I'm not willing to do......

I asked how they teach belief.

There's a Ramban to that effect (not that He got tired of interfering but that he pretends to).

It's also a passuk in the tochechah in Vayikra 26, that God's punishment for our since is that He will interact with the world as if seemingly by happenstance. But yes, the Rambam in the Moreh Nevuchim calls people fools who think that leaves don't fall by happenstance according to the rules of nature although I suppose some would call the Rambam a fool for his mistaken Rambamism.

So you believe that is the current state of reality???

I believe that the argument can be made that the Rambam in the Moreh Nevuchim is not incorrect and that indeed leaves fall by happenstance and that our world resembles a world in which the laws of nature determine the falling of the leaves.

I never claimed they did, but on a simple level if someone sees with his own eyes (or hears second hand from a reliable source) what is undoubtedly a miracle, it makes it MUCH easier for him to believe all the other miracles occurred as well and is a strong argument in favor of G-d existence and interaction with the world.....

Yes hypothetically such a claim CAN be made, but what do you do with all the evidence to the contrary??? Again, I refuse to turn all the people (some of them gedoliei gedolim themselves) who believe these stories and claim to have been involved or witnessed them into knaves or liars......

Nobody is calling them knaves or liars, any more than anyone is calling Chazal knaves or liars even if not all their stories are literally true.

Paper sforim beat Bar Ilan any day, but Bar Ilan has its uses. It's Shmos 13:something. Scrolling is too much of a pain.

Except that the people who are most likely to tell and appreciate Chassidic stories are the same people who DO believe that Chazal's stories are literally true.....

And as such? If they're wrong, what help is it?

I don't think they're wrong. And I know for a fact that when Rebbes tell stories they don't stam tell them and they believe they literally happened, and very often the traditions are passed down from generation to generation....
So regardless of one's position on the literalness of Chazal, Chassidic Stories are NOT meant to be allegorical, at least the ones from reliable sources, and many of them are "edus" momish of what actually happened (granted which may become slightly distorted along the way)....

Fine, so you hold contemporary and recent stories to a higher standard than Chazal. Fair enough.

1. When I hear the stories from the parties involved, witnesses, or impeccable sources (like a Rebbe telling a story about his predecessor) it is no longer a matter of "belief" for me, but almost established fact.

2. No I don't, I also believe that the stories told about Chazal are to be taken literally. I was just saying that even if one does NOT, that has no bearing on Chassidic stories which ARE at least INTENDED to be believed and presented as true.....

It's a good question with a witty response that's not an answer.

OK

I'd still call it a story, for lack of a better word. Maybe "anecdote."

Regardless if anecdotal wonder tales or testimonials are all literally true or not, and regardless if only Chazal used stories as a vehicle for allegory or exegesis or to teach a didactic lesson but all contemporary and recent rabbis have ceased to do so, I'm still wondering how these stories teach belief but documented Catholic wonder tales do not.

Stand back melech, I can handle this one...

Yes.

Hmm. That falls under the very definition of a heretic as described in so many places. I guess you're not surprised, and I'm sure you are much pleased to hear it, but still.

It falls under the definition of a heretic according to an anecdotal comment attributed to Rav Chaim Volozhin, among others, that one who believes all miracle stories is a fool and one who believes none of them is a heretic. Of course, the common attribution to RCV (for whom it would have been an odd thing to say, indeed) is paired with attributions to various talmidim of the Baal Shem Tov.

Find me an actual halachic source that marks disbelief in rabbinic tall tales as heresy. If it's in "so many places" this should be easy. To forestall future disagreements, Artscroll doesn't count, The Little Medrash Says doesn't count, and seforim written by Chassidim rebbeim who claimed to be miracle workers don't count (too much negiut). Find me the halacha you are referring to, or stop insinuating things you can't back up.

In the meantime, I'm comfortable being a heretic with the likes of R' Saadia, the Rambam, and my Rebbeim at YU.

There are quite a few stories of people being healed with rabbinical intervention in Bavli, Yerushalmi, Tosefta, Sifra and Sifri, as well as Rashi and Tosafos. As you don't impress me as someone who has been through all of the above, your wholesale dismissal of _all_ such stories sounds prejudiced and very much in contrast with explicit opinions espoused by virtually all sources on the matter, and since it's rooted in arrogant ignorance, not even in misplaced rationalist philosophy, you'd fall somewhere between the Am haAretz as described in Psochim and an Apikores as described in Sanhedrin.


Actually, I'm not aware of any chassidic sefer laying forth such claim. But you would be a heretic by the definition of Rambam himself for example.


Don't flatter yourself. If you'll find a copy of either's books in which they declare all stories to be lies (a/k/a allegories), you can burn them as it's a definite fake.


Here I guess you have a point.