Rabbi Avraham Chaim Na'eh (1890-1954) was born in Hebron to Rabbi Menachem Mendel Na'eh, a Lubavitcher chassid and dean of the Magen Avot, a yeshiva founded by the S'dei Chemed. With the outbreak of World War One, the Ottomans, who controlled the Land of Israel at the time, expelled anyone who was not a citizen of the empire. Most of the exiled Jews, including Rabbi Avraham Chaim, gathered in Alexandria, Egypt. During his time there, Rabbi Avraham Chaim founded Yeshivat Eretz Yisrael and wrote the halachic work Shenot Chaim, a concise digest of halachah for Sephardic Jews. In 1918, he returned to Palestine to work for the Edah HaChareidit (a prominent Orthodox communal organization), under Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld.
Rabbi Na'eh best known for his halachic works Ketzot ha-Shulchan and Shiurei Torah ("measurements of the Torah"), in which he converted halachic measurements into modern terms. Contemporary halachic authorities follow his measurements to this day.
During the Three Weeks, from 17th of Tamuz to the 9th of Av, we commemorate the conquest of Jerusalem, the destruction of the Holy Temple and the dispersion of the Jewish people.
Weddings and other joyful events are not held during this period; like mourners, we do not cut our hair, and various pleasurable activities are limited or proscribed. (The particular mourning customs vary from community to community, so consult a competent halachic authority for details.)
Citing the verse (Isaiah 1:27) "Zion shall be redeemed with mishpat [Torah] and its returnees with tzedakah," the Rebbe urged that we increase in Torah study (particularly the study of the laws of the Holy Temple) and charity during this period.
Links:
The Three Weeks
And these words with which I connect with you today… (Deut. 6:6)
Every day these words should be just as new for you as if they were given today. (Sifri)
How could the same mitzvah you did yesterday be new to you today? The same words of Torah as though you never knew them before? The same prayer as though you never said it before?
Through a simple meditation on what is happening when you do that mitzvah, when you study those words, when you pour out your heart in your prayer.
Contemplate that the entire universe is but a glimmer of G‑d’s infinite light. Yet, in this mitzvah, you hold the Creator Himself in your hands. As you learn His Torah, your soul joins with His very essence. In your prayer, you and He are alone as one.
It makes no difference that you feel nothing, that you are not awake to the glory of this moment, that the physical body does not allow you to perceive reality as it is. One day you will see this moment now from a place far beyond this coarse world.
But then it will be only a memory, a souvenir.
Now you have the real thing.
Because, says G‑d, today, in the moment of this mitzvah now, I, just I, beyond any name or definition, I connect with you.
And such a moment is a moment beyond time.