I Have Been Meaning to Say This to CHaBa"D Rabbis for Years

It is suggested in a lecture by a Rabbi from CHaBa"D, with whom I learned that Tanya is the story of us.

Tanya is not the story of me and I remember being appalled by it when I learned with CHaBa"D. No one who really loves puts a limit on someone's potential Moral development and closeness to HaShem. No one who really loves believes there is one tzaddik hador.

Telling people that most of us are beinoni'im is not a statement of fact. It is an hypnotic suggestion.

In fact, if you thought in terms of Gematria, you'd know that the letters ב and נ, which are the basis of the word benoni are the gematria of the name Eliyahu. If you do not believe that every Jew is potentially on the level of Eliyahu, then you are not student of Eliyahu. He agreed to give his student Elisha TWICE of what he had attained. That is a true Tzaddik. And can you imagine how he would have reacted had Elisha put a picture of him on his wall??? You may be subject to that kind of suggestion. But I am a true Jew and I am not suggestible by avodah zarah.

Torah is the story of me.

It took me ten years to get the CHaBa"D avodah zarah out of my psyche entirely and return to real Torah. Only a Jew can stand up to that kind of a nision and prevail. Your Rebbe was a very powerful and clever man. But HaShem is Ein Sof and your Rebbe was not.

You knew that I could not be brainwashed and that is why you suggested that I leave the seminary and find my own way. For that, I bless You. I did find the real way. It is TaNa"Kh and only Ta"NaKh. It is the ancient Way that is eternal, but is expressed anew in every generation. It is the Way of our Holy Mothers, in which we find the Love of Sarah, Rivka, Leah, Rachel, Bilhah and Zilpah, mammash, and our Holy Fathers and the Prophets. It is the way before the Babylonian heresy. It is The Holy Land under the impacted, obdurate, and cemented overlay of the Talmud. It is the Way in which we know that HaMashiach is Moshe Chai and we live and learn Torah with Moshe Rebbeinu in the Eternal Now.