Would this be considered interference with the shliach’s activities if…
Question:
I live in… where they had a Chabad House run by the local shliach. A lot of things happened with the Chabad House and now is there no properly operated shul. People have no place to daven for more than six months already. We organized a minyan every Shabbos for a few months during the pandemic. The people who come are not Chabad, and some of them just started their connection with Yiddishkeit.
The local shliach is not happy with it, and goes around the community telling people not to attend our minyan.
We are not shluchim, but we gave so much warmth and joy to people that they love to come.
We face a choice: should we continue it as people are requesting and make more machlokes with the shliach or just stop it and let people to go their way without davening?
Would this be considered interference with the shliach’s activities if these Jews who come to us don’t even want to hear about going to the shliach after having negative experiences with him?
Thank you!
Answer:
In general, one is not allowed to take away someone else’s Zechus, in this case, the local shliach, and start your own Minyan. Although there are exceptions to this rule where it’s permissible, and sometimes even encouraged, if it causes machlokes it’s not worthwhile.
Although I can’t judge the situation from afar, I cannot imagine this is what the Rebbe would want.
See also here:
I would suggest working together with the shliach and working something out to encourage as many people as possible to daven properly.
There might be also an issue of hasagas gvul (unacceptable competition) which can be resolved only through an impartial Rov or Beis Din presiding over the matter
You could wait for the Shliach to invite you to a Din Torah, but a more praiseworthy and commendable approach would be to take the first step and suggest this avenue to the local Shliach. This would demonstrate a genuine desire to do what is right and a readiness to invest diligent effort to achieve true peace.
ראה משנה שכיר חו״מ כח. אג”מ חו”מ א סימן לח.
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