The Rebbe Talks About Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi

The 24th day of the month Tevet is the yahrzeit (anniversary of the passing) of the first Rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch, Rabbi Shneur Zalman (1745-1812). His successor, the seventh Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, would often convene a special gathering (known as a farbrengen) to commemorate this date. This video is from the gathering held in the year 5741 (1981).

After being freed from Russian prison on the 19th of Kislev, 1798, the Alter Rebbe wrote a letter describing the circumstances surrounding his liberation. It is striking to see how much emphasis he places on the impact his liberation had on the non-Jews of S. Petersburg.

With the Alter Rebbe's release from prison in 1798, he began to teach Torah's secrets in a way that would brighten every Jewish home, and would permeate the outside world.

It happened once on Shabbos that in the midst of prayer, the Alter Rebbe removed his Tallis and went to the edge of the town. There, he found a woman who had just given birth. The Alter Rebbe had sensed that she needed help...

The Alter Rebbe would read the Torah in public. One year, he was away during the Torah reading of Ki Savo, and his young son and future successor, Rabbi Dovber, heard someone else read the portion, which includes G-d’s severe rebuke of the Jewish people. The son became so distressed that he fainted, and weeks later it was still questionable whether he’d be able to fast on Yom Kippur. The chasidim later asked him: “In previous years you didn’t faint; what happened this year?” The boy responded, “When father reads it, I don’t hear curses.”

Once, after Rosh Hashanah prayers, the Alter Rebbe asked his son, the Mitteler Rebbe, “With what meditation did you pray this Rosh Hoshanah?” He replied, “With the verse, ‘All mankind shall prostrate themselves before You’.” Then the Mitteler Rebbe asked his father, “With what meditation did you pray?” The Alter Rebbe responded, “I prayed with my lectern.”

After his liberation from Czarist prison on the 19th of Kislev, 1798, the Alter Rebbe recounted that the souls of his masters, the Baal Shem Tov and Maggid of Mezritch, had visited him in prison, explaining that his ordeal on earth was the result of a decree against him in Heaven above, because of his widespread dissemination of Chasidic teachings. When he asked if he should stop teaching, his masters replied: “On the contrary. Your liberation from prison will be the Heavenly sign that you must not only continue, you must increase!”

There are many similarities between Maimonides and the Alter Rebbe, the Founder of Chabad Chassidism. They both faced extreme opposition to their teachings, yet the opposition fell away. Eventually, their detractors became ardent disciples.

On the 19th of Kislev 5559 (November 27, 1798) the founder of Chabad Chasidism was released from prison after being falsely accused of treason. A Jewish leader sacrifices his own standing to find every Jew in need of guidance and ensure that they receive it.

The mystical secrets of Torah were always studied by the Jewish people, but during most of Jewish history they were guarded and only accessible to a scholarly elite. In later generations these teachings were disseminated to a wider extent, but even then, they were only comprehensible to the initiated; the spiritual illumination of these teachings reached the outside world through those who studied them.

Song lyrics: “My soul thirsts for You, my flesh longs for You; (as one) in a desolate and dry land without water, so (I thirst) to see You in the Sanctuary, to behold Your might and glory.” (Psalm 63)

“My soul thirsts for You, my flesh longs for You; (as one) in a desolate and dry land without water, so (I thirst) to see You in the Sanctuary, to behold Your might and glory.” (Psalm 63) This Niggun was first taught by the Rebbe on 28 Nissan, 5714 – 1954.