Works

The Shulchan Aruch ha-Rav is a halachic work that has no equal for conciseness combined with clarity, and legislation combined with explanation. What goals did Rabbi Schneur Zalman set for himself in this work? Why did it earn such widespread recognition?

Scholarship is usually associated with literacy and text, but in the Jewish tradition, oral discourse has always played at least an equal role. Text is static. It is both limited and limiting. But a conversation is fluid and the possibilities are endless...

For some seventy years chasidim had noted the variations in the chasidic liturgy in the margins of their traditional Ashkenaz prayer books. Of course this situation was far from ideal, and led to all kinds of liturgical and grammatical inaccuracies. Rabbi Shneur Zalman’s prayer book was the first authoritative chasidic prayer book, and likely the first ever codification of the Arizal’s prayer liturgy into a complete and unified text.