Reb Zalman Schacter-Shalomi as an Icarus

Darya Petrovna commenting to mentalblog.com: The Shelichus of Reb Zalman:

This is not a mud fight. This is lining up to kick a dead horse, done with self-righteous determination. One cannot to deny that at least the in hindsight SZ's life's work came to amount to feel-good pandering and nostalgic kitsch. Yet I question if it ever inflicted any real harm to anything, aside from perhaps providing a religious cover to the Democratic party platform a few elections ago. He never mounted a serious theological, intellectual or spiritual challenge to existing Orthodox institutions (God sees they needed one) that could undermine them; and his "followers", if you could call them that, were not the kind of spiritual seekers that could have been drawn into anything more authentic or rigorous in any case.

At the same time, you have to give him credit for having recognized the real plight of American (and all other present-day) Jewry. It is that religious and other institutions have absolutely nothing to offer to them; spiritually and demographically secular Jewry is melting away like a block of ice on a hot day. Kiruv organizations reach only the very few who find themselves at the crossroads of their lives and are otherwise amenable to crude and silly manipulations plied by kiruv hacks.

At least SZ tried to draw them in with something he thought was more relevant and spiritually attractive to them than the spiritless dogma (along with endless embarassments and scandals) emanating from Orthodox institutional pillars. He is not alone in having failed at this formidable task; Jewish and world histories are replete with attempted efforts at spiritual renewal.

SZ proved to be woefully inadequate to that task. What is more, he often took the easy way out and resorted to pandering that made him darling to pushers of political agendas. Ordinary people, for their part, were attracted primarily by voguishness and chintz. With his ersatz Yiddishkeit moribund even before his own demise, it is now obvious that he had neither a lasting message nor followers worthy of that name.

Yet he stepped up to the plate where others, respected and recognized figures, did nothing or worse. This alone makes him more deserving of our compassion rather than unmitigated scorn.