In the previous section we studied the Hakdamas HaMelaket, the Compiler's Foreword: the name of the sefer and its form, how the Tanya came by its name and how it was built. Now we continue with the Alter Rebbe's words in the foreword, and we will clarify whom he has in mind when he writes "ספרים" (books) and "סופרים" (living teachers from whose mouths one hears), where the answers recorded in the sefer come from, and why the exclusive right to print the Tanya was sealed.
Whom does he mean by "ספרים" and "סופרים":
"סופרים" refers to the Baal Shem Tov and the Maggid of Mezritch, may their souls rest in Eden. The teachings of the Baal Shem Tov and the Maggid are well known and publicized, and some of them are hinted at here for those with understanding.
"באיגרות הקודש מרבותינו שבארץ הקודש תיבנה ותיכונן במהרה בימינו אמן" ("in the holy letters of our teachers in the Holy Land, may it be built and established speedily in our days, amen") refers to Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Horodok and Rabbi Avraham of Kalisk. These are the two tzaddikim to whom the Alter Rebbe would travel, and for a certain period the Alter Rebbe was, as it were, a disciple of Rabbi Menachem Mendel. Afterwards they left Russia and went up to the Holy Land, and from then on the connection between them was maintained through letters. In those letters, teachings are hinted at in the name of the Baal Shem Tov and in the name of the Maggid of Mezritch. And the Alter Rebbe adds: "וקצתם שמעתי מפיהם הקדוש בהיותם פה עמנו" ("and some of them I heard from their holy mouths while they were here with us").
Let us return to the opening sentence. The Alter Rebbe is writing the sefer for all those people whom he personally knows, and its entire content is "תשובות על שאלות רבות אשר שואלים בעצה כל אנשי שלומנו ומדינתנו תמיד" ("answers to the many questions on which all anash of our region constantly ask for advice"). Every question that was ever asked has its answer somewhere in this sefer. It follows that every single person finds himself in the Tanya: his heart and his mind are laid out in it, for everything the chassidim revealed of the hidden places of their hearts and minds, all of it the Alter Rebbe wrote into his sefer, "כל אחד לפי ערכו, להשית עצות בנפשם בעבודת ה'" ("each one according to his level, to set counsel in their souls in the service of Hashem").
What makes this sefer unique:
Other books are built on human intellect, and their author cannot possibly address the particular spirit of each and every reader. He does not know who will open his book, so how could he know what will set that particular student on fire? And even if a book is built on Divine intellect, who says its author will be able to identify the needs of every reader? To this the Alter Rebbe responds that his sefer is of another kind entirely: he knows exactly who is learning it. This person, whenever he learns, is known to him, and the sefer was written precisely for him. His problem is written into it, and that is why he finds himself inside the sefer.
Why did the Alter Rebbe have to write a sefer at all? Why not simply continue receiving the chassidim in yechidus, private audience?
"כי אין הזמן גרמא עוד להשיב לכל אחד ואחד על שאלתו בפרטות" ("for time no longer permits answering each and every one on his question in detail"): the chassidim had grown and multiplied, and purely in terms of time it was no longer possible for all of them to come in to yechidus.
"וגם השכחה מצויה" ("and also forgetfulness is common"): even if it were possible to bring everyone in, a person may hear something personal from the Rebbe and, in the course of time, forget it.
Therefore: "על כן רשמתי כל התשובות על כל השאלות למשמרת, להיות לכל אחד ואחד לזכרון בין עיניו, ולא ידחוק עוד להיכנס לדבר עמי ביחידות" ("therefore I have written down all the answers to all the questions, to be preserved, to serve each one as a remembrance between his eyes, so that he will no longer press to come in and speak with me in yechidus"). There is no need to press for a private audience, because the yechidus is found in the sefer itself. "כי בהן ימצא מרגוע לנפשו, ועצה נכונה לכל דבר הקשה עליו בעבודת ה', ונכון יהיה ליבו בטוח בה' גומר בעדנו" ("for in them he will find rest for his soul, and true counsel for everything that is difficult for him in the service of Hashem, and his heart will be firm, trusting in Hashem who completes things for us"). These words are written with no hesitation and not as a hope, but with absolute certainty that the sefer belongs to every single person.
Something similar happened with the Rebbe. At a certain point the Rebbe stopped receiving people for private yechidus in his room, for that very same reason: time no longer permitted answering each one, since the chassidim had grown and multiplied. From then on the Rebbe held general yechidus in large groups, until even these took place only a few times a year. Finally the Rebbe said that the public farbrengens, attended by thousands and tens of thousands, have the status of yechidus. In letters to those who asked him questions the Rebbe would write: you were at the farbrengen, and there you will find the answers to all your questions. In other words, when the Rebbe sits at a farbrengen and speaks, everyone present receives what he needs, and all that is asked of a person is to sharpen his vision. And sometimes he does not see, just as with the Tanya, not everyone saw.
And this is the conclusion: "או מי שדעתו קצרה להבין דבר עצה מתוך קונטרסים אלו" ("or one whose understanding is too limited to grasp a matter of counsel from these pamphlets"). Sometimes a chassid says: I read the Tanya and I do not understand, I do not find myself in the sefer, it seems to me that it is speaking about other people. But the Alter Rebbe established in his foreword that the sefer belongs to everyone, and therefore he adds that this learner too is included, only that "יפרש שיחתו לפני הגדולים שבעירו, והם יבוננו" ("let him lay out his matter before the great ones of his city, and they will make him understand"). Whoever does not see it himself should make himself a rav; let him go to the great ones of his city, and they will explain and find for him in the Tanya the answer to his own personal difficulty.
His request of the great ones in every city:
Now the Alter Rebbe turns with a personal request to those great ones in every city and town of chassidim: "ועליהם בקשתי, שלא לשום יד לפה, להתנהג בענווה ושפלות של שקר חס ושלום" ("and of them is my request, not to put a hand to the mouth, conducting themselves with a humility and lowliness of falsehood, God forbid"). Someone who says "I do not know, I do not understand, it is not in my power" is displaying a false humility. The Alter Rebbe uses sharp language and rules that this is a lie: one who knows is obligated to speak. And more than that, "נודע עונש המר על מונע בר" ("the bitter punishment of one who withholds grain is well known"). A person who in a time of famine has storehouses full of grain and withholds it from those who need it is punished severely. The Gemara says that one who withholds grain is cursed even by people in the lands across the sea; and conversely, great is the reward of one who gives his fellow from what he has.
Our Sages comment on the verse in Mishlei, "רש ואיש תככים נפגשו, מאיר עיני שניהם ה'" ("a poor man and a man of deceit meet, Hashem gives light to the eyes of them both"), that the verse speaks about the study of Torah. A student who does not know is called "רש", poor, because he has no knowledge, and when he comes to the wise man who does know and says to him, "Teach me Torah," and that wise man teaches him, then "Hashem gives light to the eyes of them both." The Holy One, blessed be He, lights up the eyes of the poor one, and the wise man too becomes wiser. And the Gemara adds the reverse: if the wise man does not give to him, the Holy One, blessed be He, can turn the poor one into a wise man and the wise man into a poor one, Heaven forbid.
And the Alter Rebbe concludes: "כי יאיר ה' פניו עליהם, אור פני מלך חיים, ומחיה חיים יזכנו ויחיינו לימים אשר לא ילמדו עוד איש את רעהו וגו'" ("for Hashem will shine His countenance upon them, the light of the King's countenance is life, and may He who gives life to the living merit us and grant us life until the days when no man will any longer teach his fellow, etc."). For of the time to come the prophecy states "כי כולם ידעו אותי" ("for they shall all know Me"), and then a person will not need to search out the great ones of his city; each one will learn the Tanya on his own. As we mentioned in the previous section, Reb Zusha of Anipoli said that with the Tanya we will go out to greet Moshiach, and then everyone will see himself in the Tanya, and will see the great light hidden within the sefer. "כי מלאה הארץ דעה את ה' וגו', אמן כן יהי רצון" ("for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of Hashem, etc., amen, may it be His will").
The close of the foreword: the warning about printing:
The ending follows the same lines as what we saw in the haskamos, the rabbinic approbations: "והנה אחר שנתפשטו הקונטרסים הנזכרים לעיל בקרב כל אנשי שלומנו הנזכרים לעיל בהעתקות רבות, מידי סופרים שונים ומשונים" ("now, after the aforementioned pamphlets spread among all the aforementioned anash in many copies, from the hands of various and sundry copyists"). As we mentioned in the previous section, the "various" ones are the copyists who let mistakes slip into their copying in all innocence, while the "sundry scribes" are those who deliberately slanted things, wanting to insert errors so that improper statements about chassidim would come out of the sefer. And because of the sheer number of copies, "רבו כמו רבו טעויות סופר במאוד מאוד" ("scribal errors multiplied exceedingly"). "ולזאת נדבה רוחם של אנשים הנקובים הנזכרים לעיל מעל הדף" ("and therefore the spirit of the men named above on the previous page moved them"), those men mentioned in the earlier haskamos, among them Rabbi Shalom Shachna, the Alter Rebbe's son-in-law, and Rabbi Shmuel HaLevi, "לטרוח בגופם ומאודם להביא את הקונטרסים הנזכרים לעיל לבית הדפוס, מנוקים מכל סיג וטעות סופר, ומוגהים היטב. ואמינא לפעלא טבא יישר חילא" ("to exert themselves bodily and financially to bring the aforementioned pamphlets to the printing house, cleansed of every dross and scribal error, and thoroughly proofread. And I say to a good deed: may your strength be firm"), that is, I say to this good work: well done.
"ולהיות כי מקרא מלא דיבר הכתוב: ארור מסיג גבול רעהו, וארור בכלל, בו קללה בו נידוי חס ושלום, על כן כיהודה ועוד לקרא קא אתינא" ("and since Scripture states explicitly, 'Cursed is he who moves his fellow's boundary,' and 'cursed' includes within it both a curse and excommunication, God forbid, therefore I come as 'Yehudah and something more to the verse'"). In other words, he comes as an addition to and a reinforcement of the verse. The expression "Yehudah and something more to the verse" comes from the Gemara in Kiddushin. There it is said that if a man used certain expressions to a woman and she agreed, she is betrothed, among them "you are my charufah," since there is a verse, "for she was a woman designated (necherefes) to a man." The Gemara adds that in Yehudah too they would call a woman "charufah," and then asks in astonishment: "Yehudah and something more to the verse?" We already have the verse "a woman designated to a man," so what need is there to add that this is also the custom in Yehudah? The Alter Rebbe adopts this expression and says "like Yehudah and something more to the verse": the verse "Cursed is he who moves his fellow's boundary" already exists, and he comes only to strengthen the matter.
And so he continues: "למשדי גודא רבא על כל המדפיסים" ("to cast a great fence upon all printers"), that is, to set down a great prohibition on all who have the ability to print sefarim, that they not print the aforementioned pamphlets, neither themselves nor by way of "גירא דיליהו" ("their arrow"), meaning not by direct printing and not by sending others and then claiming it was merely indirect causation, not by shooting arrows or dispatching agents, but only with the permission of the men named above. And for how long? "למשך חמש שנים מיום כלות הדפוס" ("for a period of five years from the day the printing is completed"), five years from the conclusion of the printing. "ולשומעים ינעם, ותבוא ברכת טוב. כה דברי המלקט ליקוטי אמרים הנ"ל" ("and to those who listen it shall be pleasant, and the blessing of good shall come. These are the words of the compiler of the aforementioned Likkutei Amarim").
It is well known that the right to print the Tanya has since passed to those who continue to print the sefarim of the Alter Rebbe. Today this means the directorship of Kehot (Karnei Hod Torah, the official publishing house of Chabad chassidus), which the Rebbe headed, and it alone has the authority to print the Tanya. True, the count of five years begins from the most recent printing, after which anyone who wishes may print; but since the Tanya is printed without interruption, the five years have never come to an end, for we are always within those five years, and in this way the exclusive right remains in the hands of the directorship of Kehot.
To summarize: in this section we learned that the "סופרים" of the foreword are the Baal Shem Tov and the Maggid of Mezritch, and that "our teachers in the Holy Land" are Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Horodok and Rabbi Avraham of Kalisk. We saw that the Alter Rebbe wrote the Tanya as a personal response to each and every learner, because time no longer permitted yechidus with every individual and because forgetfulness is common, and that the sefer belongs to every person; whoever does not find himself in it should lay out his matter before the great ones of his city, upon whom rests the obligation not to conduct themselves with a false humility. We also learned of his warning not to print the pamphlets without permission for a period of five years, and from there about the printing rights that remain in the hands of the directorship of Kehot to this day.
In the next section we will take up chapter one of the Tanya: the matter of the "tzelem" of the beinoni, the intermediate person, and of the tzaddik, and the definition of the levels of the soul upon which the entire sefer is built.