Vizhnitz

Um, uh, no one has a heter not to be a Breslover when it comes to zemiros on the Shabbos table.

Doesn't matter where you're holding in life, doesn't matter how Yeshivish, Lubavitch, or Vizhnitz, or modern, or zei, whatever it is, everyone has to learn the Breslov zemiros.

I got very inspired today.

I was, uh, on a moshav, and, uh, I saw the person who really taught me most of the Breslov nigunim that I know, and that's, uh, Ben Zion Solomon.

Mm-hmm.

They knew right away we're not going to go to Vizhnitz or anything like that.

That was already considered extreme.

So I visited every single yeshiva.

Where you still had, yeah, it was still very from, but you had the Hasidim were mostly like Kesar, Kesar Village.

Kesar, yes.

Right, which was Vizhnitz.

But even like surrounding that area, you had Litvish people.

And then that becomes my primary responsibility.

Rather than I'm, let's say, a Gera Chassid or a Vizhnitz Chassid or some other sector within the Haredi space.

And that's my all-in identity and the place where I invest all of my resources, whether financial or human or whatever.

No, we want to invest our resources in the great project that's called the Jewish people and the state of Israel, which is the nation state of the Jewish people.

It's a radical switch.

It's a switch from one track to the other track and it's a switch in identity.

Your identity in the Haredi space is Vizhnitz, Ger, Sfadi, whatever it is.

All of a sudden, your identity becomes Israeli.

So I guess Ben-Gurion liked his book on Kotzk also.

And he writes on Breslev and on the Choyza and on the Apterov and on the Baal Shem Tov and on Ger and on Vizhnitz and on... on general the history of Chassidus.

And it just goes on and on and on and on.

He also used to speak about his writing style.

He was a rabbi of a shul.

He had other jobs.

And he, like I said, he wrote on other history too, on religious Zionism, on B'nai B'rith and other things, but most of his writings are on the history of Hasidus, Mechkarei Hasidus, Ha-Hasidus, and he, like I said, he wrote on Ger, on Vizhnitz, on the Chayzeh, on the Baal Shem Tov, on the Apter Rav.

I think I mentioned most of this earlier, and on many, many, many others.

Most Chassidim are not to enter Yiddish besides a few.

Kaleen, Bells, and Vizhnitz, a few other ones like that.

But most of the general population is not to enter Yiddish.

In America, it's way more.

There are significant internal divisions.

The Hasidic groups, Ger, Bells, Vishnitz, tend to be more insular, more opposed to secular education and workforce participation.

The Lithuanian stream, sometimes called the Litvaks or the Yeshevish world, has historically been more open to certain kinds of secular engagement, though they're still deeply conservative.

And then there's the Sephardic Haredi world, centered on the Shah's party, which has always had a somewhat different relationship to work and to the state.