The two hundred eighty-fifth "cheder" in the palace of Hayom Yom.
Wednesday, 8 Elul 5703.
Shiurim: Chumash, Teitzei, Revii, with Rashi's commentary.
Tehillim: from the 8th of the month one recites chapter 44 through chapter 48 inclusive; and from the additional chapters recited in the month of Elul, on the 8th of Elul one recites chapters 22, 23 and 24.
Tanya: On this day we continue studying Iggeret 12 in Iggeret HaKodesh. The daily portion is on page 118, beginning with the word "uverur" and ending with the words "bematzref vechur."
The daily teaching is an excerpt from a letter written by the Rebbe Rayatz on this date, 8 Elul 5699, four years before 5703. The letter is addressed to a chassid named Rabbi Shneur Zalman Shmotkin, who was among the founders of Tomchei Temimim in Warsaw. In his later years he was engaged in the book trade and published various seforim, and, following the directive of the Rebbe Rayatz, he brought out a new edition of the sefer "Torah Or," the maamarim of the Alter Rebbe on Bereishis and Shemos.
In a letter, Rabbi Schneur Zalman poses a question: upon opening the title page of "Torah Or," he found written there "Part One," and therefore he asked where Part Two of "Torah Or" is to be found. There is no Part Two of "Torah Or," only a single part. So what is the second part? It is the "Likkutei Torah," which is in fact the second part of "Torah Or," except that it was published under a different name; and one must understand the reason for this.
The Rebbe Rayatz describes to him at great length the entire history of the matter, how it began. He opens with the Tzemach Tzedek, who, as is known, is the one who arranged all the maamarim of the Alter Rebbe — "Torah Or" and "Likkutei Torah." He recounts the order of the Tzemach Tzedek's study already from his youth: from the age of nine he began writing maamarim of Chassidus, and afterward, at the age of ten, he already had a beautiful and swift handwriting, and within a short time he wrote a very great deal; and there is a description there that he had a fixed schedule of three hours a day for writing maamarim of Chassidus.
He recounts there that in the year 5561 he began to gather the maamarim of the Alter Rebbe and to transcribe them, and from the year 5564 onward he established for himself a fixed daily study session — to learn the maamarim of the grandfather, the Alter Rebbe, and to adorn them with glosses and notes: with source references to the teachings of Chazal and the maamarim of the Zohar, and with their explanation according to the works of Kabbalah and the works of philosophical inquiry. He truly labored over the maamarim of the Alter Rebbe.
Continuing on this theme comes the passage found in the daily teaching. Let us read the text: "The Tzemach Tzedek enumerated three things by whose merit he succeeded in the year 5603 in Petersburg at the rabbinical assembly". In 5603 there was a confrontation with the Haskalah movement, one that demanded very great patience, and the Tzemach Tzedek succeeded greatly in it. And when he enumerated the merit through which he succeeded, he counted three things, "and one of them is the merit of the 32,000 hours in which he toiled and labored over the discourses of the Alter Rebbe during the thirty years from 5564 until 5594".
For thirty years, the arrangement was that he would invest twenty hours a week. Doing the math: twenty hours a week times thirty years — thirty-two thousand hours. These are the thirty-two thousand hours that he invested in the Torah of the Alter Rebbe, in preparing it and writing it and adding all the notes, and in whose merit he was privileged to succeed at the assembly of rabbis in 5603.
And what about the thirty years? As we read earlier, the Rebbe Rayatz summarizes this in his letter in parentheses: "In the year 5564 he set for himself a special schedule to study the discourses of Rabbeinu HaZaken, and in the year 5594 they began to occupy themselves with printing them." From 5564 until 5594 — thirty years — these are the thirty-two thousand hours that the Tzemach Tzedek invested in the maamarim of the Alter Rebbe, in order to prepare them for print.
In any event, the answer to the question posed by the chassid — what is the second part of "Torah Or" — is of course "Likkutei Torah". For a certain reason it was necessary to change its name, on account of the decree concerning the printing of books, as elaborated at length in the letter. The letter is also printed at the end of "Likkutei Torah", and one can see it there.