Six Ma'amarim (discourses) of Chabad Chassidism from R. Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch ("Tzemach Tzedek"), and his son and successor R. Shmuel (Mahara"sh)

(CHASSIDISM).

(Lubavitch, Russia)

1860’s

Aschkenazic cursive script. Many hands

These six discourses are designated by the initial words (dibur ha-mathchil): 1) Ba-Chodesh ha-shelishi (ff.1-16). 2) Shir ha-Shirim (ff. 17-22) - published in Torath Shmuel, Sepher TRK"Z [1867] (Brooklyn: Kehot, 2000), pp. 264-272. 3) Lehavin mah she-kathuv be-Idra Rabbah (ff. 23-26) - published in Bi'urei ha-Zohar - Tzemach Tzedek (Brooklyn: Kehot, 1990), Naso, pp. 471-479 ("Liozhna, circa 1799"); the manuscript is lacking the conclusion of the discourse and reaches as far as p. 475 in the printed version; the manuscript is also devoid of the "kitzurim" or synopses, which must have been added at a later date; 4) Zachor eth yom ha-Shabbath le-kadsho (ff. 27-34); 5) Lo yakum ed echad ba-ish (ff. 35-49); 6) Untitled (missing beginning of discourse)(ff. 50-53). R. Menachem Mendel (1789-1866) was the grandson of the founder of Chabad Chassidism, R. Shneur Zalman of Liozhna (and later Liadi), son of his daughter Devorah Leah and her husband Shalom Shachna. Orphaned of his mother in infancy, Menachem Mendel was brought up in his grandfather's home, developing an extremely close relationship, which made him privy to the Alter Rebbe’s way of thinking. Upon R. Menachem Mendel's death in 1866, he was succeeded in Lubavitch by his youngest son, Shmuel (1834-1882), known as the Rebbe Mahara"sh. We have located two of the six ma'amarim, one by the father (Tzemach Tzedek), an explication of a difficult passage in the Zohar, Idra Rabbah, dated by the editors of the printed version "Liozhna, circa 1799"; the other, a public discourse delivered by the son in the year 1867, almost immediately after succeeding his father as Rabbi of Lubavitch. In 1799, Menachem Mendel was but ten years old; it is difficult to imagine that at such a tender age he possessed mastery of the Zohar. Rather, it stands to reason that this bi'ur ha-Zohar was delivered by the grandfather, the Alter Rebbe, and his young grandson merely recorded it, in subsequent years adding notes of his own