Sometimes, when I hear people complain about Chabad and its influence on the world, I can’t help but start wondering about the nature of humans. I wonder why people find it so important to argue against the people that are often closest to them, the kinds of people that are, for the most part, on their side, but for whom they have some specific disagreements with.

For example, the people who are against Chabad don’t choose to spend their time fighting antisemitism, or domestic violence, or bullying in schools, or any other evil things. These religious folks prefer to spend their time fighting their own kind.

What inspires them? What moves them? It’s hard to know.

My guess is that it’s safer to attack someone that’s close to you. For example, there are men who berate their wives and children after a bad day at work because they have control over them and no control in their work life. It’s so much easier to attack the people in your family when you’re feeling weak than to attack and fight against the real difficulties of life.

This is a theory, and I’m sure there are other reasons. But the point here is that many Jews spend much of their energy attacking and destroying each other, when they could be doing much more productive things. In essence, they are the husband who verbally abuses his wife. And just in the same way as that husband, they accomplish nothing more than destroying their family.

It’s a fact of being Jewish that we all disagree, that we all have our own opinions, that we see things in different ways. But Judaism is designed to allow multiple opinions. Without multiple opinions, Judaism becomes just a religion, G-d forbid.

The problem is when people become so dogmatic in their own beliefs, and so insecure in themselves, that they choose to make it a mission to attack, berate, and tear down those who disagree with them. There’s a difference between disagreeing and attacking. And the people who attack Chabad are often on the wrong side of that difference.