Shneur Zalman of LiadI. Tanya - Likutei Amarim [Fundamental exposition of Chabad Chassidism]

(CHASSIDISM).

Mordechai Rubinstein

Zolkiew

1799

Second Edition. Title within typographical border. With the haskamoth of R. Zevi Hirsch Meisels of Zolkiew and R. Isaac Samson of Cracow

Vinograd, Zolkiew 545; Mondschein, Tanya Bibliography (1981), pp. 36-43, no. 2

The first appearance of the third section of the Tanya, Igereth ha-Teshuvah (Epistle of Repentance). It differs so radically from the revised version printed subsequently in Shklov in 1806, that chassidim refer to our Zolkiew version as the “first draft” or “Igereth ha-Teshuvah Mahadura Kama.” The Zolkiew version also contains two “hagahoth” or glosses, which are not the handiwork of R. Shneur Zalman but rather a copyist. Chaim Liberman was of the opinion that the Zolkiew edition was printed without the author’s permission. Joshua Mondschein, on the other hand, entertains the notion that as an expression of gratitude for some unknown favor, R. Schneur Zalman not only empowered the publisher R. Jacob of Brod to issue out a new edition of his work but even provided him with additional material. (Compare Rubinstein’s Zolkiew edition of Birkath ha-Nehenin, see next Lot). See Ch. Liberman, Ohel Rachel, Vol. I, pp. 54-58; J. Mondschein, Siphrei ha-Halacha shel Admo”r ha-Zaken - Bibliography (1984) p. 65, n. 5. Despite the fact that nowhere does the book reveal the identity of the author, Mondschein expresses astonishment that a chassidic work would be published in Galicia at a time when the Austrian government forbade the printing of Kabbalistic works. To quote Raphael Mahler, “In 1794 a court decree was issued that explicitly forbade publication of books kabbalistic.” What is clear, is that several crucial passages that could be interpreted as defamatory of non-Jews were either deleted altogether or at least toned down. See Mondschein, Sepher ha-Tanya - Bibliography (1981), pp. 41, 43; R. Mahler, Hasidism and the Jewish Enlightenment (1985), p. 109. The layout of our final page of the Igereth ha-Teshuvah differs significantly from that reproduced in Mondschein p. 39