Us and ritual

Last night Morristown Smicha had a very nice farbrengen in honor of the birthday's of two of our number. After the farbie I was asked by a number of people if I was going to blog about it. At first I thought not to, because it wasn't one of those farbies that one blogs about.
After a little reflection I realized that on fact there was a lot I could write about.
In the big wide world there is a custom of certain people to follow the doings of other people. The center of this universe is Hollywood, but it has branches all over the big wide world. Shmuelie Chazanow says that there is a certain population of lubavitchers who do the same thing, if the subject of their attention is a bit different. Instead of watching Entertainment Tonight these Lubavitchers read COL. Instead of reading People magazine they read Shturem. Instead of following celebrities they follow Shluchim. Now, far be it from me to dissuade anyone from pleasuring themselves in whatever which way they choose to do so; this free license, guaranteed by our glorious Constitution, does not however mean that people have a right to inflict their passions on the rest of us. Why exactly do I have to sit and listen, by a supposedly spiritually uplifting chassidic gathering, to prattle about this head shliach's fight with this head shliach, or the amazing wonder, that this macher in Lubavitch sat next to this guy's son in law, or various other permutations of the same? Who cares? I understand when someone obsessively follows the Rebbe. The Rebbe is someone who is worthy of being obsessively followed. His shluchim on the other hand, while undoubtedly being truly incredible fellows, are not worthy of this attention. You think it makes you chassidish to wear silk socks? Go knock yourself out. You think it makes you chassidish to have a shirt that was vomited on by Berel Shemtov? Not so much.

In other news, I was privileged to hear a classic debate between Rabbi Chaim Schapiro and a bochur who threatened to sue if I didn't preserve his anonymity. He came up to the great rabbinic scholar and asked, "Which is more important, mikveh or davening with a minyan?" the great Rabbi answered, "I'm not going to answer that question, but I will say what I personally do; if I'm very careful to go to mikveh everyday, like obsessively careful, then yes, I would put that before communal prayer. Why? Very simple. There's a possibility that I will be breaking an issur d'oraisa if I break my hachlata to go to mikveh everyday, whereas davening with a minyan is only a recommended practice, not an absolute obligation. However, if I wasn't very careful to go to mikveh everyday, then I would daven with the minyan and go to mikveh later. " The bochur said, "Does that mean that mikveh is more important than davening with a minyan?" Our faithful leader said, "No, I didn't say that. All I said was what I would do. Look, it's like if the only bread you had for lechem mishne was pas palter. Would you use it? No. Would a misnaged use it? Of course. Would he think you crazy for not using it? Of course. So why wouldn't you use it? After all, lechem mishne is a din in shulchan oruch, and pas palter is only a chumra. But...you wouldn't use it for a very simple reason. You don't eat pas palter! That's all that matters! You want halachic backing? Fine, so it would be a mitzvah sheba al yedei aveirah."
My bochur friend didn't quite understand that, and continued to argue for, I kid you not, two hours, but the rabbi have up no ground. Which makes sense to me.