מָצְאוּ פִּתְקָא כְּתַב יַד קֹדֶשׁ הַצֶּמַח צֶדֶק וְתוֹכְנָהּ, שֶׁהֶחְלִיט לִלְמוֹד בְּכָל יוֹם שֵׁשׁ שָׁעוֹת בַּלַּיְלָה בַּעֲמִידָה נִגְלֶה, וְתּוֹדָה לָאֵ-ל שֶׁקִיֵּם וְעָבַר עַל שַׁ"ס בַּבְלִי וִירוּשַׁלְמִי וְאַרְבָּעָה חֶלְקֵי שֻׁלְחָן עָרוּךְ בְּעִיּוּן.

A handwritten note was once found1 in which the Tzemach Tzedek recorded his resolve to study six hours of nigleh2 every night, while standing. [As the note concludes,] he carried this out, thank G‑d, and reviewed in depth the entire Talmud Bavli, the Talmud Yerushalmi, and all four parts of the Shulchan Aruch.

Living as a Chassid

In the second half of Kuntreis Etz Chayim, the Rebbe Rashab outlined his plans for the original Tomchei Temimim Yeshivah that was founded in Lubavitch in 5657 (1897). In that work, he made it clear that the Yeshivah’s heavy emphasis on the study of Chassidus was not to come at the expense of the intensive study of nigleh. One of the distinguished alumni of that Yeshivah, R. Betzalel Wilschanski, once related that when, as a teenager, he first applied there for admission, he was put through a gruelling entrance examination on the commentaries to three of the most daunting Talmudic tractates — all from memory.

Seventy years later, soon after a branch of that Yeshivahfor young adultshad been founded in Melbourne, Australia, the Rebbe was visited by one of his prominent emissaries, R. Yitzchak Groner. He asked the Rebbe what kind of products he would like to see emerging from the fledgling institution. The Rebbe’s brief reply used a Hebrew/Yiddish word that signifies heavyweight Talmudic scholars:”Lomdim, plainly and simply.”

To this end, throughout all the years of his leadership, the Rebbe actively encouraged the students of all the Lubavitcher Yeshivos around the world to publish learned monthlies and quarterlies,3 as well as full-scale bound volumes, that were to be packed with scholarly exchanges and the fruits of original investigation.

The Alter Rebbe was the author of Tanya and Likkutei Torah — and is also renowned as the author of the classic Shulchan Aruch HaRav; the Tzemach Tzedek was the author of Derech Mitzvosecha and Or HaTorah — and is widely known by the title of his monumental halachic responsa. So too, as evidenced by the daily study schedule of the Rebbe Rashab,4 a similar pattern was followed by the other Rebbeim.

Indeed, in the study schedule referred to in the above footnote, the Rebbe Rashab included an extensive commentary on how the revealed and the mystical dimensions of the Torah relate to each other. In this spirit, the Rebbe Rayatz writes of how chassidim used to study “Chassidus according to nigleh and nigleh according to Chassidus.” And in our generation, anyone who has studied the Rebbe’s talksin Likkutei Sichos is familiar with the distinctive structure of this genre of Torah study: a learned discussion first cites and analyzes a broad range of Talmudic and Rabbinic sources, thereby challenging and satisfying the mind, and then proceeds to intoxicate the reader by allowing the rich “wine of the Torah,”5 its mystical dimension, to surface.