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Lamentations
When the old trails ended…
Moisdos, corporation, establishment, etc. These are the words any bochur with a bit of shaychus is very familiar with. What this is attributed to is the well-oiled machine lubavitch has become both in our moisdos of the penim (yeshivos, camps etc.) as well as those of the chutz (merkos and all of its faculties).
While a once struggling new shliach was faced with the challenge of not knowing from what angle to approach his shlichus, in todays day and age we have cutting edge moisdos which whether you're starting a CYP chapter or becoming the latest relatable youthful c-teener (wohoo c-teen) there's an inexhaustible amount of resources (from fancy shmansy JLI floppy booklets with titles like "epistemological transubstantiation - the ultimate guide to diasporic sacrament" to tasteful CYP merch.
This being said the outcome is a dual effect - on the one hand this gives the shluchim the utmost efficiency in their peulos with no room for mishaps and errors, on the other hand however this easily creates an environment which somewhat obscures the core of one's shlichus (I'll give a simple analogy to give some clarity on this: picture two chassidishe yungerleit who recently went on shlichus meeting each other at the kinus, upon seeing each other they begin to strike up generic "long time no speak" conversation which then shortly ensues into the "how is your shlichus coming along" conversation?"
Now before i continue I'd like for you to imagine a world without the state of the art moisdos that I mentioned before, what do you think this conversation would look like? Here's how I envision it: "so have you started any shiurei torah yet"? "You know its funny you ask because just last week I began a shiur with a couple of ballabatim in tanya, and how about you I hear you arranged a shidduch between two younger mekuravim".
Today these beautiful exchanges have been replaced with corporate inquiries of "did you start a CYP chapter yet"? "Have you put in a C-teen lounge"? These questions although well intended do not carry the mystique of shlichus and instead carry a synthetic flashy acronym that that's expected to carry some "toichen" under the bubble wrap.
Anyway I think you get the point, however this really isn't the main point of my rant and I am in no way bashing these moisdos and think they have a tremendous effect because soif kol soif the heilike arbet is getting done and yidden are coming closer to yiddishkeit, the presentation and whatnot is secondary.
However what bothers me immensely is when this "corporate Lubavitch" attitude creeps it's way into the yeshiva system and infiltrates the genuinity of what we stand for. Lubavitch is not a elite tier based country club with platinum card holders all having to out-do each other, lubavitch is a venerable, esteemed treasure which bears its own weight that should stand in truth with no false witness.
However we see sadly that what was once real and unvarnished has become artificial and bleak. Amol a bochur's fantasy was to hear from חסידים and enjoy the presence of the last remaining legends the wind still knows, to hear the echoes of a dying frontier hoping to be able to tread on the land before forgetting, this is what shaped bochurim to become the children of the final dawn (excuse the poetry).
Now all bochurim bullshov about is finding the most geshmake Merkos shlichus for pesach (perhaps an exotic island or maybe somewhere third world with cheap labor and goods), washing down the bullshov with "who do I have to backstab to secure my spot as a counselor in CGI ___ .
My friends, I strongly believe that this character change along with the transfer of focus amongst bochurim could be attributed to the strong general shift in Lubavitch as a whole from bona fide, candid, true-born authenticity to executive hierarchical synthetic garbage.
BRING BACK THE ״אמת׳ע ליובאוויטש״
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