The eighty-ninth "cheder" in the palace of Hayom Yom.
Wednesday, 19 Adar I, 5703.
Shiurim: Chumash, Ki Tisa, revi'i, with Rashi's commentary.
Tehillim, 19th of the month, from chapter 90 through chapter 96 inclusive.
Tanya, we are in the middle of chapter 30. The daily shiur is from the words "v'chol shelo", until the end of the shiur on page 39, at the words "hatzedakah v'chahai gavna".
The daily teaching is taken from a letter that the Rebbe Rayatz wrote on the fourth day of Chanukah in the year 5702 to the administration of Yeshivas Tomchei Temimim, and the passage before us appears within it. In this letter the Rebbe Rayatz opens with great pain over the fact that the students have no knowledge of Scripture - most of them do not even know Chumash with Rashi's commentary, and of Nevi'im and Kesuvim they have no concept at all. He further writes that they have no ability to write, and not only is their handwriting poor and full of errors, but it is barely possible to understand what they are writing. He emphasizes that it is a disgrace for a ben Torah not to know Tanach and the meaning of the words in an orderly fashion.
And then comes the daily teaching. Thus he writes: "The chassidim, even the beinonim, were fluent in Tanach, and they had an established custom" - there was a fixed order among the chassidim, "that after learning the shiur of Mishnayos following the morning prayers", that every morning, after davening, they would learn a shiur of Mishnayos, "while folding the tallis and tefillin they would say a shiur of Tanach" - at the time they folded the tallis and tefillin. That is, every day they had a fixed order to say a few chapters of Tanach at a certain pace, "in a manner that within three months they would complete the Tanach" - every three months they would finish it, and through this they had great fluency in Tanach.
If we return to the letter of the Rebbe Rayatz, he writes there that the administrative committee must take care to bring the students into this matter, and he explains several advantages in learning Tanach with the students. In brief: the first advantage - that the students should know, through the teachers who will teach them, the spiritual richness in the stories of Tanach. The second - that they should acquire lashon hakodesh and attain at least a surface knowledge of grammar, and thus many matters of Torah and prayer will afterwards be easier for them, and they will be able to express things correctly. The third - that they should know the cantillation, and the usefulness of this also for the shul and for communal prayer, and even for a livelihood. The fourth - that they should have knowledge, at least on a basic level, of Jewish history. And the fifth advantage - that they should have proper writing, and write nicely and correctly.
The Rebbe Rayatz strengthens this greatly, and when the administration of Yeshivas Tomchei Temimim entered for yechidus with the Rebbe in the year 5725 in Adar I, the Rebbe asked them to publicize this letter and to do their utmost to arouse attention to the matter.
To complete the picture: in the sichos of the Rebbe Rayatz in 5704, which were said after the writing of the letter, he explains that indeed in the distant past all the chassidim were fluent in Tanach, but what happened afterwards that a disconnect was created? - the maskilim came, and tried by means of the study of Tanach to instill their corrupt views. Out of this a situation arose in which Chabad chassidim rushed through the study of Tanach, out of concern that the maskilim would, heaven forbid, draw them after them. But today, when the concern about the maskilim does not exist to the degree that it once did, therefore the Rebbe Rayatz again arouses in this letter - and likewise the Rebbe, in placing this teaching into "Hayom Yom" - regarding the great need for the study of Tanach and fluency in it.
And an interesting instance of hashgachah pratis: in the month of Adar 5782 a new manuscript of the Shulchan Aruch of the Alter Rebbe was discovered on siman 155 - several se'ifim that were newly discovered - and in a line that was not known previously it is written thus: "And one must also be well versed in the books of the Prophets in their rebuke, and in all the rest of the twenty-four books, in order to instill in his heart the fear of Heaven". That is, the Alter Rebbe says that a person needs to be fluent in Tanach, and this instills in him fear of Heaven. This is the content of the daily teaching.
And let us complete the connection to the Mishneh Torah of the Rambam. We are still in Sefer Hafla'ah, and although in the previous teaching we saw a hint to Hilchos Nedarim and Hilchos Nezirus, we have not yet left that; there is still a hint here in Hilchos Nedarim. It is interesting that in Hilchos Nedarim, at the end of chapter 1, it is written: "One who says to his friend, let us rise early and study a chapter - he is obligated to rise early and study" - that one who says to his friend, get up tomorrow morning to learn a chapter, this is like a vow. This teaching too speaks about rising early in the morning to rise and read a chapter of Tanach, in order to be wonderfully fluent in it, as the Rebbe noted in the letter.