Two previously unpublished letters between the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, and two famed Jewish legal authorities were recently released by the Chabad-Lubavitch publishing arm.

Released by the Kehot Publication Society and appearing in the ongoing weekly series of scholarly pamphlets known as Hitvadut published by Lahak Publications, the letters focus shed light on the Rebbe’s correspondence with Rabbis Menashe Klein and Shlomo Zalman Braun.

In the 1959 letter to Klein, author of the 17 volumes of legal determinations known as the Mishneh Halachos and about three dozen other works, the Rebbe answers a question dealing with a position held by the Third Chabad Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch, regarding the public reading of a Torah scroll on certain fast days. The Rebbe points out a difference between those fasts kept by private individuals and those incumbent upon an entire community, and adds four other sources that shed more light on the subject.

The March 1949 letter to Braun, author of Shaarei Metzuyanim Behalachah, was written prior to the passing of the Rebbe’s father-in-law and predecessor, the Sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, of righteous memory. In it, the Rebbe writes that he received Braun’s latest volume on Jewish law and, acknowledging Braun’s request for a meeting, states that he has time in the coming week “on Monday night at 9:00 or on Wednesday night at 9:00.”

The particular issue of Hitvadut where the letters appear can be downloaded by clicking here.