When most people talk about chabad, they usually don’t get lumped in with chassidim, although this pisses off diehard chabadnicks, for the most part the stereotype is pretty true. Some of you may blame it on the fact that unlike the “real” chassidim, chabadnicks don’t wear funny hats, sure they take perfectly good, pimp looking black hats and crush them – but they don’t wear cool fur hats like “normal” chassidim. If you really want to get into dcetails, we could blame the Rebbe’s mother in law for not giving him his fathers Spodick – thereby creating this scenario where chabadnicks are their own sect – but lets face it – we all know there’s more to being chassidishe than having the garb.
As the title states, chabadnicks are definitely chassidic, they are into their dynasty, yichus (hey call it gezhe) and an unwavering cultish following of their rebbe. They also have crazy customs which they cannot explain, only to tell you that is the way the Rebbe did it, so they have their chassidic custoims – but to call them chassidishe would be a strectch.
Why chassidic, but not chassidishe?
Simply, because in the grand scheme of things – chabadnicks on a whole are not frummies. I’m not sure I could ever fully explain this to people who don’t understand what I’m trying to explain, but it’s kind of like trying to classify black hat modern orthodox people, they are not yeshivish, no matter how badly they want to be (in some circles we call them Harry’s) Likewise, chabad is different from most chassidim. They let their women leave the house, keep their hair and wear the color red – apparently chabad is full of untznius ladies and when I asked a shaliach’s wife about this once – she told me that being mekarev (they don’t use that word – they use bring them closer or something of the sort) frier yidden was morte important than hooker boots and red.
So when you talk about chassidim with almost any frum person, they will never ever be talking about chabad, which is probably a good thing – because the conversation will invariably be negative and chabad usually doesn’t burn do violent protests or beat up women for walking down the wrong street. Not only this, but chabad women drive, learn gemara and are coworkers in the chabad house realm.
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