Loading the player… The letters that comprise Iggeret HaKodesh were written over many years and assembled in their present order by the sons of the Alter Rebbe after his passing, as they explain in their introduction (“Approbation”) to Tanya (Vol. I, p. 19ff., in the present series). It is clear from internal evidence, as the […]

Loading the player… To resume the discussion of R. Shimon bar Yochai: וגם פלפול הקושיות ותירוצים, דמסטרא דרע ורוח הטומאה, אשכחן ברבי שמעון בר יוחאי, דעסק ביה טובא Moreover, we find that R. Shimon bar Yochai dealt considerably (not only with the mere statements of law in the Mishnayot, but) also with the argumentation of […]

Loading the player… The Alter Rebbe will now point out that a careful reading of the passage from Ra’aya Mehemna reveals that it is not the laws themselves nor the study of them that are termed the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Rather, this term is applied to the actual food or other […]

Loading the player… אבל הלימוד בתורה, אף הלכות איסור והיתר, טומאה וטהרה But the study of Torah, even the laws of issur and hetter, impurity and purity, i.e., not the objects but the laws concerning them, שהם המשניות וברייתות שבגמרא those being the Mishnayot and the Beraitot in the Gemara that address these issues, ופוסקים, […]

Loading the player… The Alter Rebbe will now answer another question which he himself had posed earlier. The Ra’aya Mehemna had stated that so long as the bipolar influence of the Tree of Knowledge of [both] Good and Evil is dominant in the world, Torah scholars (who are likened to the Shabbat and festivals) are […]