Speaking Unity, Class 3: "Union Through Language": Why is the Baal Shem Tov cited in Chapter 1 of "Gateway to [Divine] Union and Cognizance"?
Marking the 260th yahrtzeit of the Baal Shem Tov, we discuss his teaching on union through speech, whether in prayer, Torah study, or in any other utterance, however mundane. This helps us to understand the significance of this treatise by Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi and its relationship to the fundamental mission of the Baal Shem Tov.
Eli Rubin, a contributing editor at Chabad.org, is the author of Kabbalah and the Rupture of Modernity: An Existential History of Chabad Hasidism (Stanford University Press, 2025). He was a co-author of Social Vision: The Lubavitcher Rebbe's Transformative Paradigm for the World (Herder and Herder, 2019). He studied Chassidic literature and Jewish Law at the Rabbinical College of America and at Yeshivot in the UK, the US and Australia, and received his PhD from the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University College London.
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