Room two hundred twenty-nine in the palace of Hayom Yom.
Wednesday, 11 Tammuz 5703.
Shiurim: Chumash, Balak, Revi'i, with the commentary of Rashi.
Tehillim, 11th day of the month, from chapter 60 through chapter 65 inclusive.
Tanya, on this day we begin a new section in the sefer Tanya — Iggeret HaTeshuvah. The daily shiur is from its beginning, from chapter 1, which begins with the words "Tanya besof," until the beginning of the next page at the top of folio 91, and the conclusion of the shiur is at the word "haBraita."
The daily saying is brief, and indeed relates to Iggeret HaTeshuvah — the section in Tanya that we begin learning on this day. The Rebbe writes: "In the Tanya of the Zholkva printing, the year מבש"ר טו"ב [=5559]" — when the Tanya was printed at the press of the place called Zholkva, it was printed in the year 5559. Many times they would inscribe the numerical value of the year 5559 by allusion, in the words "mevaser tov" (a herald of good): "mevaser" has the numerical value 542, and "tov" 17, and together they come to 559 — the numerical value of 5559.
He continues: "Iggeret HaTeshuvah, first edition, was printed" in the year "mevasser tov" (a bearer of good tidings), which is the year 5559, when they printed the Tanya, in which the third section, called Iggeret HaTeshuvah, was added for the first time. Until then, the Tanya contained only the first section — Likkutei Amarim — and the section of Shaar HaYichud VehaEmunah. Then Iggeret HaTeshuvah was printed for the first time, the first edition, according to its first manuscript.
He continues, "and it was not divided into chapters, and there are also several differences in the content of the letter" — there are differences between Iggeret HaTeshuvah as it appears in the first edition, and Iggeret HaTeshuvah as it was ultimately printed in the second edition — first printed in the year 5566 — which is the version we have before us. In what do these differences consist? The Rebbe elaborates: the most prominent difference is that the Iggeret HaTeshuvah before us is divided into twelve chapters, but in the first edition it was one continuous text, without division into chapters and without the markings from 1 to 12.
Likewise, there are several differences in the content of the letter between the first and second editions, as detailed in the book "HaBibliografia" by Rabbi Mondshine, who wrote about the various printings of the Tanya and specified there the differences. For example, at the end of chapter ten in the Tanya before us, there appears in Iggeret HaTeshuvah a mention regarding Shabbat — that on Shabbat there is an ascent of the worlds — and this matter did not appear in the first edition (mahadura kama). Similarly, there are additional differences in the mentions of various source-references, which were not in the mahadura kama and are found in the later edition (mahadura basra).
An additional difference: in the first edition this section was not called "Iggeret HaTeshuvah," but rather "Seder HaTeshuvah," and also "Tanya Katan" — different names. In contrast, the Iggeret HaTeshuvah before us is the later edition, the final edition, of the Tanya's Iggeret HaTeshuvah.