Rashi: Is This the Tishrei the Rebbe Envisioned?

Presented by an exciting collab between a prude bochur with no friends x ChatGBT, another exciting COLlive op-ed has just dropped. The real danger facing Chabad isn't all the unmarried spinsters frying out, it's that they might in fact meet a guy and end up married. Right after Tishrei finished, Berke Chein's younger self felt the need to reflect on other people enjoying chag and took to the pages of COL to give us a good moral scolding that girls enjoying and being involved in Yiddishkeit is super bad. The silver lining is that if you look at the comments on the article, most of them are absolutely roasting this bochur alive.

You can easily tell the type of bochur who wrote this. The type of guy who calls himself "a bochur who cares" because "a bochur with no friends" sounded worse to the COLlive focus group. He opens with the classic move: weaponizing the Rebbe’s kavod to wage a personal jihad against fun. “Is this the Tishrei the Rebbe envisioned?” Spare me. The Rebbe envisioned mashpiim, not mall cops. Let's dive right into Paul Blart's stupidity.

Every Tishrei, thousands of girls pour into Crown Heights, hoping to be near the Rebbe… But what’s been happening lately should make every Lubavitcher stop and ask: what is going on?

What’s going on, my simple-minded bochur, is that women exist. And sometimes, brace yourself, they even laugh in public. I know that’s shocking for someone whose only exposure to women is through the search bar on your browser, but that’s not a crisis. It’s called life.

Because let’s be honest — this isn’t about a few isolated incidents anymore. It’s become the norm. Crowds of young women dancing and shouting in the middle of Kingston Avenue at night, filming themselves for social media as men pass by. Girls pushing and shoving to get on the subway — and yes, stealing rides without paying. Groups laughing and yelling in public areas, with little sense that they are in the Rebbe’s shchunah, in front of the world’s eyes.

Oh no! Women are enjoying the party in Crown Heights! Clutch dem pearls! Wait, girls are filming themselves for Instagram? That is truly an outrage! Oh crap, and they're even pushing and shoving to get on the subway? That means they're becoming... gasp! New Yorkers?! And laughing? These women must be sent to Williamsburg immediately where such behavior is not tolerated.

This isn’t the Tishrei the Rebbe envisioned. This is not what being a Chassidah looks like.

What is far less chassidish is how you clearly spent your entire Tishrei functioning as a hall monitor for the girls on Kingston Ave. Had you spent your chag with your friends enjoying and having a good time, you would not have had to spend it ensuring others are equally miserable as you. Maybe next year, you and Berke Chein will fulfill the Rebbe's vision and set up a hotline for reporting joy in progress.

Crown Heights isn’t a festival ground. It’s not a stage. It’s not a place to perform for likes or to make “fun memories” with friends. This is the Rebbe’s neighborhood — every street, every shul, every step is holy. How can it be that girls come “to the Rebbe” but act as if He isn’t here?

Bro, are you a BT or a snag? Like seriously. You walk around expecting everyone to turn into square, miserable tzadikim for a whole month. Where did you get this retarded worldview from? Are you in yeshiva in Brunoy? Because that’s the only reasonable place I can think of where you could have picked up such inverted, cloistered ideas. The Rebbe didn’t build 770 so you could play TSA agent for women’s skirts. If holiness collapses because someone took a TikTok, maybe it wasn’t that holy to begin with.

It’s the same disease infecting every moral panic: the belief that other people’s joy is dangerous. The secular left bans laughter because it’s “offensive,” the frum right bans it because it’s “unholy.” Same control, different costume.

Let’s call things by their name. When girls act in ways that violate basic tznius, when they create public scenes that embarrass the name of Lubavitch, when they come to Crown Heights not for davening, not for inspiration, but to socialize and look for shidduchim — it is a chilul Lubavitch and, worse, a chilul Hashem.

Jewish girls looking for a Jewish shidduch equals chilul Hashem? Bro, what in the hell are you smoking.

As one of the smarter commenters on this trash article noted: one of the biggest problems with the yidden of this generation is intermarriage, so if people are coming to Crown Heights to “find a shidduch,” perhaps this is solving the problem going on with yidden these days.

The Shechunah is not a garbage place.

It's also not a safe space. Go back to New Square.

If you truly came “to the Rebbe,” then act like it.

Right. Stop checking out the girls and acting as the self-appointed gatekeeper of Crown Heights.

Honestly, this article is such drivel, I'm shocked COL posted it, even with their low standards. The good news is that basically everyone was universally repulsed by this bochur who obviously has struggles keeping his eyes to himself and decided to put it all on us. This “concerned bochur” clearly needs assistance with his pornography addiction and all his other personality issues. This whole piece isn’t Torah. It’s trauma. The kind that turns joy into something suspicious and turns the Rebbe into a hall monitor for your insecurities.

The Rebbe doesn’t need security guards. He needs Jews who are alive. Who bring simcha, noise, color, and life into his shchunah. If you think holiness means everyone acting like you, sterile, anxious, and joyless, you didn’t come to the Rebbe, you came to a museum.

So to the bochur who “cares,” go care about your davening, not our dopamine. The girls are fine. The problem isn’t their joy. It’s your jealousy.

Gut Yom Tov, clown. And next Tishrei, instead of writing another tantrum, maybe try dancing. Who knows, you might even find a girl brave enough to look at you.