Oh baby! (2)

This is the second post of the day, make sure you read the previous one. We (The exalted Shluchim of YHSTC) had another Shiur with Rabbi Shagalow. He was very good, especially in the last 20 minutes, when he started Snag-bashing. A little note. R. Shagalow lives in S. Louis Park, which is the Snag Capital of the upper midwest. The man lives his life among these people, and he bashes them. How beautiful. Truth is, I guess this makes him uniquely qualified to bash. Anyway, he said, what's the basic difference between a Lubavitcher and a Misnaged? How they translate the Possuk, "Tamim Teheye Im Havaye Elokecha." A Snag says that it means "You shall walk prefectly with the L-rd your G-d." So, a Snag thinks, learn Torah and do Mitzvos in order to become perfect with G-d. A Lubavitcher, on the other hand, translates the verse as "You shall walk wholely with the L-rd your G-d." Or in a whole manner. Point is, we say that the Possuk means that a person should serve Hashem with all his faculties, his good and is bad. What's the practical difference? Perfection is not the goal. And when a person thinks he has perfection, it's one of two things. Either the guy's mind is blown, or he really is perfect. In which case he has no purpose left on earth. Why didn't G-d create man as angels? Because they're worthless! They don't struggle! Without struggle life is meaningless.
And now we come to a little later in the night, another brilliant Farbrengen from Rabbi Chayim Friedman. His brother Mordechai farbrenged earlier with the Bochurim, but I missed most of that, except for a little speech about the greatness of the Shluchim and how the Bochurim should start respecting us. So that was nice.
Rabbi Chayim spoke about a lot of topics, ending at around 4:45 AM. I was literally falling down because I was so tired. At 2:00 I decided to go once the current Sicha was over. That's why I left at 4:45. But it was totally worth it. The only quibble I have is that his Farbrengens are so flowy (new word for the OED) that it's difficult to take out specific points. The last thing was "why do bad things happen to god people?" The answer is that it's G-d's fault. Since he is everything, therefore all is him, and he is the one responsible. It also says that no bad comes from heaven. Meaning? There is no bad in this world! Just because you can't see the good doesn't mean it's not there. In fact, it's a higher level of good, because it's not revealed down here. And I'm not saying that suffering is a good thing, rather that it's not really suffering. OK, so it is, but only in our eyes.
All right, enough for today, more tomorrow, probably,
(the customary ellipsis)