To what extent do you agree disagree?

[Rabbi Zwecker]

Please share your thoughts, this is after all a discussion group :)

In HaYomYom of 7 Kislev the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Zatza"l
wrote from his father in law the Rayatz:

There are three schools of thought:

1. The discipline of nullification of the material by indicating the
repulsive and abhorrent nature of all that is bodily and material.
This is the school of Mussar.

2. The school of recognition of the superiority of the "inner form"1
and the spiritual - the dimension of character-traits and
intellectuality2 - and instruction as to how one may come closer to
attaining these. This is the school of Chakira, philosophy.

3. The discipline of predominance of form over matter. This school
teaches the unique quality of the material when it is purified, and
the unique quality of "form" when integrated with the material; the
two are to be so thoroughly fused that one cannot detect where either
of them begins or ends - for "Their beginning is wedged into their
end, and their end into their beginning."3 The One G-d created them
both, and for one purpose - to reveal the light of Holiness of His
hidden power. Only both of them together will complete the perfection
desired by the Creator. This is the school of (the teachings/
instruction of) Chassidus.4

FOOTNOTES
1. Heb. tzura, "form," as opposed to chomer, "matter"; e.g. the
body's life-force - the soul - is its "form," its inner spiritual
dimension; the body itself is the outer physical dimension, the
"matter."
2. As opposed to the dimension of bodily matters.
3. See 16 Adar I Footnote.
4. See also On The Teachings of Chassidus (Kehot, NY) ch. 11-18 where
these three schools of thought are discussed at length.