Rabbi Yehoshua Kaganoff is a rav and baal horaah for 45 years. A close talmid for many years of the Novominsker Rebbe, he received semicha him and also from Rav Yosef Breuer, Rav Shimon Schwab.
Besides shimush from the dayanim of Washington Heights, he also received shimush from Rav Yisroel Belsky, and yibadel l’chaim, Rav Dovid Cohen. He received training in practical rabbinics from Rav Shlomo Rottenberg, Rav Avraham Twerski, MD, and Rav Berel Wein.
He is the author of Is Alternative Healing Kosher, published in March 2025 by Mosaica Press. It provides an in-depth analysis of the halachic sources and explains how they apply to medical practices available today.
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like seriously. breathing is not and should not be “work”
God breathes us.
walking could be work. thinking could be work. it’s about pushing or retraining the default or lazy or poorly conditioned “natural” behavior.
I know.
Our concept of avoda is davening. Not only breathing, but directed service of the heart including the text of Anshei Knesses Hagedola.
By all means, deepen or slow tour breathing and relax when you need. But please let’s up our davening.
Has he learnt Chassidus?
a medical practitioner doesn’t need to learn torah at all, let alone chassidus. a morah horaha doesn’t necessarily need to learn chassidus to paskin a shaaloh.there’s mashpia for avoda questions, rav for halacha questions, and doctor for medical questions
Whether he has or not is moot, because he is paskening based on the codes of Jewish law.
We dont open a maymar and pasken.
Maybe you need to study more Halacha to give a halacha based rebuttal, if there is one.
And if you are concerned with his spiritual level, offer him a chair USA in Chasidus!
.
Try to be a bit compassionate
The Rabbi starts out saying the Boreh is completely separate from the creations!! Not exactly the Chassidic way of thinking.
Right!
Good point.
He is essentially likening Chassidus to Lehavdil A”Z R”L.
From the way he is describing it.
I’m not saying this his intention r”l, but it definitely carries that subtle implication
Glad to hear an unequivocal halachic voice. The community needs to understand what scientific evidence is, what a study means, who are the ones qualified to understand scientific research, that news stories are not research, that nothing in science is ever proven (as discussed by the Rebbe himself), and that rabbonim must understand the scientific method in order to pasken about whether something is it isn’t evidence based.
Yashar koach, Rabbi Kaganoff.
And COLlive for airing this interview.
Such a good host!
This guy?
https://collive.com/the-breathwork-program-that-crown-heights-rabbonim-approved/
Chassidus explains that everything that hashem created is for his glory and meant to be used for his Glory so when we take something and use it to improve our day. In the service of God we are transforming it and elevating it to what it’s meant to be and that’s amazing
His entire theory is built on the opposite of מלא כל הארץ כבודו If we are separate from hashem. And we are a metzius. That is avoda zara right there. Also, he says that anything that is not scientifically proven may be an issue with avoda zara. There is a big issue with that statement. There are so many types of medications and therapies these days.. The part that is most troubling is no one is asking why are so many in our community suffering so much that they need these things in the first place? Instead, we are standing… Read more »
Hashem is everything.
And everything is hashem.
ממלא כל עלמין וסובב כל עלמין
People say meditation is avoda zara too..
Without even knowing what that is.
Tanya is full of so many meditations.
Unfortunately our generation has so many distractions, but when someone wants to pause for a second, we call it avoda zara.
This rov would have an issue with every page in Tanya
is this a vilna gaon tzimtzum kipshuto website?
As someone who experienced with MDMA in therapy, I most relate to what Rabbi Kaganoff said about “instead of healing, it causes more harm”. These are very powerful drugs and can often open up a person to certain events or awarenesses that in itself can be as traumatizing or even more traumatizing then the events in our life which we are trying to heal from.
Psychedelics is like open heart surgery.
It is dangerous, can help those who need it if it’s done with the right tools, by the right person. I good therapist is key.
Timing is also very important.
You have to be a keili. It’s not for everyone.
But just because it was a difficult and uncomfortable experience, doesn’t mean the surgery didn’t go well..
Those who are looking for the easy pill to heal everything. It’s definitely not the easy way. I wish there was a easy fix.
He just finished explaining how much you need scientific evidence to determine kosher or not.
Then he goes to make a judgement and determination based on hearsay on a group setting of breathwork being irresponsible.
We’re is the scientific evidence that doing as a group is not responsible? I think the underlying points he made which maybe good are ruined by his quick judgement of a group setting and the assumptions that anyone who does breathwork is looking for a quick fix.
Scientific method has been so manipulated, it’s very complex to navigate and make judgments. Clinical studies are most likely to be conducted when there is money involved so not having a clinical study doesn’t mean something is invalid. When he says we need to do something about societal problems , he doesn’t offer a direction.
What is his opinion of him? I was thinking of going to his workshop, I know lots of people that experienced out-of-body experiences, like they said they connected to the source. Is this ok?
The exact opposite of everything we were taught as Chassidim, אלץ איז אלקות און אלקות איז אלץ. And the whole שער היחוד והאמונה is about אין עוד מלבדו literally. Does an extremely poor job in calling it עבודה זרה because they believe everything is God?! To me, actually it’s the opposite – saying something isn’t God is the exact root of עבודה זרה, the saying דקרו ליה אלקא דאלקייא. He needs to make a better point – if it’s used as a power of its own, then it might be problematic, but if it’s כגרזן ביד החוצב that’s exactly Jewish.… Read more »
Can an AI summary/transcript of this conversation be posted?