Schneur Zalman of Liadi. Sepher Likutei Amarim [“Tanya”]

(CHASSIDISM).

(Moshe Shapiro - son of Pinchas Koretzer)

Slavuta

1796 (printing completed on the 20th Kislev)

FIRST EDITION. Title within type-ornament border.

Vinograd, Slavuta 16; Y. Mondschein, Sepher HaTanya (1981) no. 1, pp. 31-35.

THE EDITIO PRINCEPS OF THE TANYA. THE FUNDAMENTAL EXPOSITION OF CHABAD CHASSIDIC PHILOSOPHY. Composed by R. Schneur Zalman of Liadi (1745-1813) - or the “Alter Rebbe” as he is affectionately referred to - the Tanya is universally acknowledged as a seminal work of Jewish thought. This first edition includes Part One, “Sepher shel Beinonim” (The Book of the Intermediates) and Part Two, “Chinuch Katan / Shaar HaYichud Veha’Emunah” (Gate of Unity and Faith). In the course of subsequent printings, three additional parts would be added, for a total of five parts. Although originally entitled Sepher shel Beinonim, the text is ubiquitously known as The Tanya, after the initial word of the text. With a revolutionary approach, the Alter Rebbe provides here spiritual guidance for the Jew who is neither wicked, nor wholly righteous, but who seeks to set his goal as reaching that level of the “Beinoni” - a middle ground, defined as a struggle between one’s two souls, the Animal and the Divine. The first being the soul that draws down focusing toward the material, and the other, the soul that aspires upward, towards nothing but Godliness. This ongoing dynamic encounter, can be so grueling, that in Lubavitch circles, the highest compliment one may pay a Chassid is that (s)he is the “Beinoni of the Tanya.” A Paradigmatic Work in the Development of Chassidism.