Chasidut is unfortunatly a cult.

Chasidut is unfortunately a cult; a wildly successful cult but a cult none the less.
I have had the sad experience to see all the reported abuses of the worst gurus to be mirrored by most orthodox rabbis and certainly chasidic admorim. This does not refer to heads of yeshivot who actually spend time learning Talmud. This is really a completely different category and they should not be called rabbis so that it should be possible to distinguish them from the orthodox rabbis who have a completely different set of values from the Talmud.
And this should be noted by heads of yeshivot so that they don't get blamed for the evils of orthodox rabbis.



This is sad because the actual books that Judaism is based on (Bible, Talmud, Mishna) are great books and do provide a path and a means to oneness with God.
I think the dividing line was when the rabbis of Spain went against "The Guide for the Perplexed" of the Maimonides.

Breslov too is not far from becoming a cult along with the rest of chasidut. In general I see Rebbi Nachman as a force of liberation and I feel the place of his grave is a source of positive energy in the world. But I think that there has been a constant effort on the part of the Dark side to subvert the place by means of people that call themselves Breslov.

The type of service of God which I think leads attachment with God is the path of the Rambam. --ie study of Talmud physics and Metaphysics.
(That would mean years in a yeshiva like the Mir in Brooklyn (that is Talmud learning the whole day --not so called halacha books which are in general not valid. The name for most halacha books is "maharil"ism. It is a type of Judaism founded after Jews were herded into the ghetto and the rabbis had nothing to do all day long but invent more and more laws (chumrot)).