We are in the tenth lesson in the chain of lineage. We have reached the final portion of the life of the Alter Rebbe, the ninth part concerning the Alter Rebbe. Today we will learn about the brothers, sister, and brothers-in-law of the Alter Rebbe, as well as about the writings of the Alter Rebbe.
Let us begin with his brother. His brother, the great Rav and gaon, the chassidic Rav, Rabbi Yehuda Leib. He is called the Maharil. Maharil is an acronym for Moreinu HaRav Yehuda Leib, called the Maharil of Yanovitch. He was born in the year 5509. Rabbi the Alter Rebbe was four years older than him. The Alter Rebbe said about him, about his brother, he said thus: "My brother the gaon, the Maharil, has a straight intellect, and it was he who told me to go to Mezritch." The book of maamarim "Torah Or" of the Alter Rebbe, the greater part of it, consists of the transcriptions of the maamarim of the Alter Rebbe which the Maharil wrote. The Alter Rebbe said about what he wrote that it was very, very precise, and that he was exact according to how the matters were said. He also composed a book called "She'erit Yehuda" on the laws of salting, and he is buried in Yanovitch.
The next brother of the Alter Rebbe, who appears here, second, the great Rabbi, Rabbi Mordechai. His family name was Posner. The Tzemach Tzedek related about him that he was sharp, wonderful, and possessed of straight reasoning. When the Alter Rebbe established the chadarim, which we already mentioned earlier in the history of the Alter Rebbe, that he founded cheder aleph, cheder beit, and so on, then the one who was responsible over them—the Alter Rebbe appointed his brother, Rabbi Mordechai, to be responsible over them. He was a rabbi in the city of Orsha. In his appearance he greatly, greatly resembled the Alter Rebbe, and he passed away on the 11th of Adar 5583. He is buried in Kapost.
The third brother of the Alter Rebbe, the third, is the great Torah scholar, Rabbi Moshe. Little is told about him. What we know is that he was a rav in several places, in the city of Kiev, in Liflia and in Rudnia. His family name too is Posner, and he passed away during the lifetime of the Alter Rebbe, and is buried in Rudnia. These are the brothers of the Alter Rebbe.
What we have here now is the sister of the Alter Rebbe and his brothers-in-law. The Alter Rebbe's sister was called Rebbetzin Sarah, and the Alter Rebbe had two brothers-in-law, because the Alter Rebbe had one sister, and his wife, Rebbetzin Sterna, also had one sister. So their husbands are in fact the brothers-in-law of the Alter Rebbe.
The first brother-in-law, his brother-in-law Reb Yisrael, known as Reb Yisrael Kazak, was the husband of his sister. Reb Yisrael was the husband of the Rebbetzin Sarah. It is told about him that he was truly engaged with self-sacrifice on behalf of the release of the Alter Rebbe from the well-known imprisonment in the year 5559. As is related in Beis Rebbi, that immediately when they took the Alter Rebbe to prison, the Alter Rebbe told him to travel immediately to Petersburg, and there it is detailed—we will not go into all the particulars—how one of the ministers who was searching for him according to the guidance of the Alter Rebbe, that he should meet him, so he ultimately passed through him a note in the handwriting of the Alter Rebbe, on which was written "Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad," and he passed it to him inside a pumpkin, which he threw to him from the window. And this was a message to the chassidim that the Alter Rebbe was alive. He lived a very long life after the Alter Rebbe as well.
The second brother-in-law, his brother-in-law Rabbi Akiva Perdkin of Shklov, was married to his wife's sister. That is, the wife of the Alter Rebbe, Sterna, had one sister, and this was her husband, Rabbi Akiva Perdkin. When the Alter Rebbe was in the home of his father-in-law and mother-in-law, we already related earlier that he suffered much there. But the sister of the Rebbetzin Sterna, that is, the daughter of his father-in-law and mother-in-law, she did recognize the holiness of her brother-in-law, of the Alter Rebbe, and she cautioned her sister, the Rebbetzin Sterna, that she should not listen to what they were telling her, that she should insist not to divorce the Alter Rebbe. She said to her: Do not listen, you have a holy husband. And in secret, without the knowledge of her father, she did everything she could to improve the situation of the Alter Rebbe, and to obtain for him everything he needed. And the Alter Rebbe, all his days, held her in gratitude for the self-sacrifice she had, without the knowledge of her parents, to help him in that place.
The last part, what remains for us, are the books of the Alter Rebbe. Here is the list of the Alter Rebbe's books. In the list of books, the first item that appears is (a) "Hilchot Talmud Torah." As we already recounted, the first laws that the Alter Rebbe printed without his name at the time were "Hilchot Talmud Torah." Next we have (b) "Birchot HaNehenin." This was also printed on its own, the Alter Rebbe's "Seder Birchot HaNehenin."
Afterward we have the "first edition" of the "Tanya." The Tanya, as is known, is one of the most famous books of the Alter Rebbe, and also one of the most frequently printed Jewish books. To this day we are talking about around six thousand different editions and printings, and it is also a book that has been translated into many languages. It has been translated to date into Yiddish, English, Italian, French, Spanish, Arabic, Russian, Portuguese, German, Georgian, and also into Braille. These are all the translations of the Tanya.
Afterward, a "kama" edition appears here, that is, the first edition of the Tanya that the Alter Rebbe wrote; afterward he wrote a second edition. One of the prominent differences between the first edition and the second edition is chapter 32 in Tanya, which in the mahadura kama did not exist at all, and was inserted only in the mahadura basra. Following an instruction of the Rebbe, in 5742 they printed the mahadura kama of the Tanya, with all sorts of comparisons and references, showing the difference between the two editions of the Alter Rebbe.
The next item that appears in the seforim is the Siddur, the version of the Siddur that the Alter Rebbe arranged. After that, the next item is the Shulchan Aruch, which the Alter Rebbe wrote according to the instruction of the Maggid. After that, we have a sefer of She'elos U'Teshuvos. The She'elos U'Teshuvos of the Alter Rebbe were initially printed within the Shulchan Aruch, at the end, a not-large collection of she'elos u'teshuvos, but over time, when additional she'elos u'teshuvos that the Alter Rebbe wrote were discovered, it came out as a sefer in its own right, a rather respectable sefer called the sefer of She'elos U'Teshuvos of the Alter Rebbe.
Afterward we have the Biurei HaZohar. The Biurei HaZohar are essentially maamarim that the Alter Rebbe said as explanations on the Zohar. He said these maamarim in particular to his sons, and the one who wrote down these maamarim was the Mitteler Rebbe, one of the Alter Rebbe's sons. Therefore, many times the book Biurei HaZohar is attributed to the Mitteler Rebbe, since he actually wrote it. But these are essentially maamarim of the Alter Rebbe, and therefore it is counted among the books of the Alter Rebbe.
Afterwards we have Torah Or and Likkutei Torah, the famous works of the Alter Rebbe, which the Tzemach Tzedek edited. Then we have a book called Boneh Yerushalayim. What is Boneh Yerushalayim? These are short maamarim of the Alter Rebbe. All of these maamarim were later also printed in the Sefer HaMaamarim HaKetzarim, which we will mention shortly. The one who printed this was Rabbi Chaim Elazar Bichovsky, and it is one of the first books of the Alter Rebbe's maamarim to be printed, and he gave it the name Boneh Yerushalayim. Why did he call it Boneh Yerushalayim? Because when one learns Chassidus, then Chassidus will bring the Geulah, and Yerushalayim will be rebuilt. Therefore he called it Boneh Yerushalayim.
Afterwards we have the list of the maamarim of the Alter Rebbe, which he details. The first of these is called Hanachos HaRaP. What is Hanachos HaRaP? These are maamarim written down by the chassid Reb Pinchas Reizes. He was known as a very, very special precisionist, who was extremely exacting in the words of the Alter Rebbe, and this is a sefer that consists entirely of what he wrote. That is why it is called Hanachos HaRaP—the acronym of HaRav Pinchas.
Afterwards we have a book called Es'halech Liozniya. Es'halech Liozniya consists of maamarim that were said by the Alter Rebbe in Liozniya, between the years 5556 and 5562. And why is it called Es'halech? Because the first maamar that is printed in this book is on the verse "Es'halech lifnei Hashem be'artzos hachaim" (I shall walk before Hashem in the lands of the living). So therefore the entire book is named after the first maamar, with the word Es'halech.
Afterwards we have the maamarim of 5562. There are two volumes of this. 5563 also has two volumes. Then there is 5564, then 5565, also two volumes. 5566, also two volumes. 5567. 5568, also two volumes. 5569, 5570, 5571, and 5572 and 5573, which is essentially already the year of the passing of the Alter Rebbe. We are talking about thousands of maamarim of the Alter Rebbe.
In addition to this, there are further unique books that are not arranged according to the years. One is called Sefer HaMaamarim HaKetzarim (the Book of the Short Discourses). Sefer HaMaamarim HaKetzarim consists of discourses whose style makes it evident that they were said during the period referred to among the chassidim as "before Petersburg." That is, discourses that the Alter Rebbe said before the well-known imprisonment—at that time the discourses were short, in a concise style, and they are all gathered in Sefer HaMaamarim HaKetzarim. Some of them are also found in Sefer Boneh Yerushalayim, which we mentioned earlier.
Afterwards there are the Igrot Kodesh of the Alter Rebbe. There are two volumes of letters of the Alter Rebbe. Some of them are found in the Tanya, in the section called Igeret HaKodesh, and there are additional letters that the Alter Rebbe wrote which are found on their own in the book Igrot Kodesh of the Alter Rebbe.