I know several people who look to Chassidus for a Judaism that is interested in Ha-Shem, mitzvos, community, feeling, and individuality. Mostly they go to Breslov and Chabad for that. And that's fine. However, it isn't necessary to go to Chassidus for that. Non-Chassidic or old Ashkenazi Judaism also shared those values. But you wouldn't know that from what we see today in the Neo-Litvish Yeshivism that dominates everything.
How did we get here? Following the dispersal from Eretz Yisrael, Ashkenazi Judaism developed in Germany and France. It was a pure Judaism that concerned itself with study, mitzvos, mussar, and even mysticism. Yiras Shemayim was central to everything. Around the time of the Vilna Gaon that morphed into Litvish Judaism, which is a name for the Eastern European version of Ashkenazi Judaism. It is hard to know exactly what took place then but from the writings depicting the view of the Vilna Gaon mitzvos and musar were still central and study was eclectic. Mysticism probably retreated from the masses, possibly because of Shabtai Tzvi, and became reserved for kabbalists. It was still a beautiful Judaism, although goyish influences and the weight of exile were affecting the culture, which became elitist and perhaps disproportionately concerned with gehennim and a darker outlook on life. But they were living an agrarian life, didn't have newspaper reports and videos of every atrocity in the the world, so they knew how to take it. Chassidism came to address the elitism and the negative effect the outlook had on some people.
Judaism in the 18th and 19th centuries was still centered in the home and community. You learned from your parents and a maybe a teacher or two. The community rav was the community leader. Roshei Yeshiva stayed in yeshivas and concerned themselves only with that.
Brisker lomdus emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but it was meant as an option not as the approach for all. And many opposed it. There were various types of Talmudic study and the Oruch HaShulchan dominated halacha.
Somewhere in the early 20th century, amid upheavals, WWI, opening of society to Jews, pogroms, assimilation, and increased standard of living, more men went to yeshivas, but still a minority I think. I'm not sure. Brisker lomdus took over even though it isn't the appropriate mode of study for everyone. Many of the yeshivas tried to keep the bochurim in the building in part because of mass assimilation and a decreasing number of scholars.
Then came WWII which smashed everything to pieces. After the war, as yeshivas regrew in America and Israel, a mad dash started to rebuild Jewry and much of this came from yeshivas. Everything at this point was hysterical, and the center of Judaism moved from the home and community to the yeshiva. Yeshivish Judaism became mainstream, with the ideologies that were meant for the small number of yeshiva guys being applied to everyone. Increased affluence helped this along since a fantasy developed that people didn't need a way to earn a parnassah. This was fueled in part by guys from wealthy homes that couldn't see passed their own nose, as well as everyone forgetting the rule of fat years/lean years. The affluence stopped around 1976 but the rhetoric about ignoring the need to earn a parnassah continued.
Come Zionism, come the 60s movement, and the ideology became unhinged - yeshivism was born, the idea that the only valid place in the world was the yeshiva. Along with that came the idea that only Talmudic disputation of abstractions was legitimate study. It's a long way from old time Litvish Judaism to neo-Litvish, but since they call it Litvish one gets confused.
Things got really ugly when Litvish Judaism was moved to New York City and Israel. Old-time Litvish Jews could be classy people. Just picture the alter of Slobodka with his walking stick and R Eliezer Silver with his top hat. The people of NYC and Israel, not so much, to say the least.
If you are new to Judaism you meet these loudmouth guys with their simplistic and ferocious Judaism and think, oh so this is Judaism. I must adapt to it. But it isn't Judaism. It's a modern offshoot.
Chassidus is wonderful and you can pursue that if you like, to whatever degree you like. But you can also be a Litvish Jew who pursues connection with the Divine, works on his middos, appreciates every mitzvah, and studies all kinds of Torah. But you'll have to look back a bit to authentic Litvish Judaism to imagine what it looks like. Today, the Israeli newspapers call this or that Rosh Yeshiva a leader of Lithuanian Judaism, but really most of them are Yeshivists. You can join them too if you like, or you can be an old-time Litvish Jew, whose goals are not the same as the neo-Litvish Jews of today.
