Perhaps no Jewish holiday is more joyous than Sukkot, when Jews of all backgrounds spend time in sukkahs (mobile or stationary), and shake the lulav and etrog as a sign of Jewish unity. These holidays are often accompanied by various laws and rituals that need to be mastered to correctly perform the mitzvah.
Considered a magnum opus on Jewish law, the Shulchan Aruch of the Alter Rebbe, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, is renowned for its clear codification and analyses on the day-to-day laws of Jewish life. It’s often considered essential for understanding the many mitzvahs performed during holidays throughout the year.
To make these texts more accessible, Sichos in English (SIE) undertook the monumental task of translating this text for the first time into English, employing a team of scholars, researchers and designers. They partnered with Kehot Publication Society, who are the publishers of the original Hebrew version. To date, they have published six volumes of the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch. It has now been published online in a beautiful new side-by-side English translation.
SIE’s groundbreaking translation of this seminal work in English has become a staple in Jewish homes around the world. In a unique partnership with Chabad.org, this extraordinary resource is now also being made available online.
This first online installment features all the laws of the High Holidays: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and those regarding the Lulav and Etrog. Diagrams illustrate and elucidate some of the more complex halachic topics, making this edition particularly useful for understanding how to build a kosher sukkah and the like. Additional installments will cover the entire first volume of the Shulchan Aruch, including the laws of waking in the morning and daily prayers.
A highly specialized engine was developed by Chabad.org engineers to seemlessly digitize and elegantly display the Shulchan Aruch, preserving the intuitive layout of its printed counterpart. Features include the ability to display all the sources, footnotes, and the side-by-side Hebrew and English translations. An all-Hebrew version was also developed for Chabad.org’s Hebrew-language site.
The partnership between Chabad.org and SIE goes back almost two decades. Currently, more than 100 complete books have been published online by SIE on the Chabad.org platform.
According to Rabbi Yonah Avtzon, executive director of SIE publications, “having a work of this magnitude available in English for the first time online is yet another step in our commitment to making core Jewish and Chassidic texts accessible to Jews around the world.”
