A new volume in the series of Chasidic discourses by the fourth leader of Chabad-Lubavitch, Rabbi Shmuel Schneersohn, covering the year 5642/1882, has just been released by the Kehot Publication Society.
The year 1882 was a year of great upheaval for Russian Jewry. A large wave of anti-Jewish riots swept through south-western Imperial Russia from 1881-1884. In that period more than 200 anti-Jewish events occurred in the Russian Empire. During these pogroms, which continued for more than three years, thousands of Jewish homes were destroyed, many families were reduced to poverty, and large numbers of men, women, and children were injured.
Marking the passage of two hundred years since the journey of the Alter Rebbe, Rabbi Schneur Zalman, author of the Tanya and the Shulchan Aruch, to Barditchev in the year 5570 [1800], and marking two hundred and fifty years since the passing of the Baal Shem Tov - one of the aims of the said journey being to pray at his gravesite in Mezubush - a Hebrew language book has been published describing that journey.
The Chabad-Lubavitch publishing house, Kehot Publication Society, has announced the publication of an important new book on the history of Chabad.
The Hebrew volume: "History of Chabad in Czarist Russia – Selected Chapters – 1770-1920," was compiled by Chabad historian Rabbi Shalom Dovber Levine, director of the Central Chabad-Lubavitch Library and Archive Center.
BOOK REVIEW: LETTERS OF RABBI YOSEF YITZCHAK SCHNEERSOHN VOL. XV, kehot publication society: brooklyn, 2010
As the subtitle of the book informs us, this volume contains the letters of the sixth Rebbe of the Chabad chasidic dynasty, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, to his son-in-law and eventual successor, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and to his daughter Rebbitzen Chaya Mushkah Schneerson. Significantly, the volume also includes relevant extracts from Rabbi Menachem Mendel’s letters to his father-in-law.
While it has been published as the fifteenth volume in a series it should in truth be viewed as an independent book, worthy of singular attention and an identity of its own. Other volumes in the series have collected a wide variety of letters, addressed to many different personalities and representing a very colorful tapestry of the R. Yosef Yitzchak’s activities and interests as well as a virtual treasure trove of historical narrative and anecdotal insight into the idealistic past of the Chassidic movement. This, however, is the first in the series to focus entirely on a single theme. These letters tell the story of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak’s private relationship with the individual upon whose shoulders his hopes and dreams for Jews and Judaism would be carried into the future. Perhaps herein lays a crucial key with which to decipher the journey of the Chabad dynasty, and the broader path of the Chabad movement, through the uncertainties of the twentieth century and into modernity.
A so-called 'biography' of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn has stirred much controversy and debate as to how committed he actually was to Chabad and the Chassidic (or even Orthodox) way of life. Much ink has already been spilled (most extensively at The Seforim Blog) in which the 'scholarship' of the author's is unmasked as being at the very best extremely lacking, and more probably, deliberately misleading. I do not intend to reiterate or add to the numerous examples of blatant falsification, nor do I intend to attack their central thesis directly. My intention here is simply to provide some context, lending perspective and better allowing the reader to appreciate the story of the Rebbe's life, who he was and what he did.
The Rebbe's conduct, prior to becoming Rebbe in general, and specifically during his sojourn in Berlin and then Paris, reminds of the following episode (as recorded in Shmues Vesipurim Vol 1, page 69):
There has recently been a renewed interest in the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s activities and lifestyle during the period that he spent in Berlin and Paris between the years 1927-1940.
Apparently there has been some speculation "that [the future Rebbe] Menachem Schneerson… was never completely engaged by his chasidic upbringing, preferring instead the modernizing and secularizing influences that made such significant inroads among young Jewish intellectuals in early 20th-century Russia and Europe." As evidence they point to the fact that he chose “to trim his beard, wear modern suits, and distance himself from the chasidic community in Paris, where he and his wife, the daughter of the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, lived after their marriage.”
I will not dispute the assertion that, though “there is no question he was an observant Jew... he lived in places where Chasidim didn’t live, and he did things they wouldn’t do.” Another point that I won’t dispute is that the Rebbe may never have thought of himself as a candidate for the position of Rebbe. However, if this is to lend credence to the author’s claim that the Rebbe veered away from the path of his forbearers and father-in-law and essentially lived the life of a modern orthodox Jew rather than that of a Chassidic Jew, the authors must have ignored a large swath of readily available information, which conclusively proves this thesis to be incorrect. While no one will argue that the Rebbe dressed like a Chossid during his years in Berlin and Paris, there is no doubt that he remained a Chossid in every sense of the word and was absolutely committed to the service of his revered father-in-law, the Previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, as we will demonstrate.
I came across a free sample edition of the new, beautifully produced and bilingual (Hebrew/English) “Treasures of the Chabad Library” (the full editionis available here for the discounted price of $42.46), although I had a brief look at the book itself when it first came out on Hei Teves, I had not yet had a chance to check out the contents properly.
Of course, we must thank Rabbi Berel Levin, an archivist and historian par-excellence, both for his outstanding authorship of this monumental work and for making this sample available to the public. As an aside, I would like to point out that Rabbi Levin deserves recognition far beyond any that he has received. Apart from his highly acclaimed footnotes to the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aurach and various other bibliographical, Halachic and historical works, he constantly endeavors to provide top quality information and materials to the public free of charge (see here), and I believe that we owe much of what is available on hebrewbooks.org to his collaboration with the hebrewbooks.org team.
The sample editions are available, in Hebrew here and English here.
The volume is a large coffee-table size, printed on good-quality glossy paper and illustrated throughout with beautiful photographs and facsimiles. The introduction constitutes a general description of the Library, detailing the history of its various collections over the past 200 years. A large part of the original Library was repossessed when the Communists came to power in Russia, and languishes to this day in the Moscow archives. Although the iron-curtain has long since been torn down the Seforim of “The Lubavitch Collection” have yet to cross the divide. The various other collections have suffered similar tribulations, cumulating in the famous “Hey-Teves” victory which confirmed the Library as the collective property of Chabad Chassidim. In recent years the Library’s collections have been expanded, a reading room has been opened for researchers and an exhibition has been opened to the public.
The Library Exhibition
The rest of the book is split into various sections with such titles as “Rabbis and the Rabbinate” (which details among other things, aspects of the History of Rabbi Yaakov Ibn Tzur [Yaabetz] Rabbi of Fez and Mekenes, and the correspondence of Rabbi Yitzchok Elchonon Spector, Rabbi of Kovno, Lithuania), “Books and Publishing” (including three letters of Rabbi Yitzchok Meir Kagan, the Chofetz Chaim), “Rare Manuscripts” (including some containing the original handwriting of Rabbi Moshe Cordovero [the RaMaK], the Alter Rebbe, and others containing the Torah insights of Rabbi Yehonason Eibeschutz and Rabbi Akiva Aiger), “Portraits and Photographs” (including portraits of Rabbi Yosef Hatzadik, Son-in-Law of the Nodeh BiYehudah and the Rabbi of Pozen, and Rabbi Akiva Aiger), “Sacred and Historic Objects”, “Engagements and Marriage”, the list goes on…
A manuscript volume containing a commentary on the Zohar by the RaMaK. Attached to the cover is a cutting from the catalog of the dealer who sold the volume to the Rebbe Rashab, on the right side of the cutting the Rebbe Rashab has written in his own hand, “The commentary is from the RaMak of blessed memory, and it seems to be a shorter version of his great work [entitled] Ohr Yakor, and regarding this [the authorship of the manuscript] the author of the catalog erred in his estimations.”
Rabbi Levin and the team at Kehot Publishing have managed to strike a perfect balance, producing a work both popular and scholarly. They have achieved this by limiting the English section to a briefer and more general description of each manuscript, artifact or document, leaving the scholarly minutiae to the Hebrew section. Similarly, the many photographs and facsimiles are featured more prominently and more numerously in the Hebrew section, while the English section acts as a kind of general guide both to the items exhibited and to the scholarly insights provided in the Hebrew section.
Obviously, I can hardly expect to do justice to the comprehensive and well documented history, which Rabbi Levin has succinctly compiles in his seven page introduction and certainly not to the entirety of this wonderfully informative and wide-ranging work. Rabbi Levin’s expert scholarship and discerning judgment, not only in matters of Chabad History but also in matters of general Jewish scholarship, is clearly evident throughout and there are so many items of special interest that I am obliged to advise my readership that they must peruse this highly recommended volume at their own leisure.
An envelope, with the address inscribed in the handwriting of the Rebbe Maharash in Russian
