The second "room" in the chamber of daily life.
Sunday, 23rd of Kislev, 5703 (1942).
Lessons: Chumash, they began Parashat Vayeshev, the first section with Rashi's commentary.
Psalms, from chapter 97 through chapter 103 inclusive.
Tanya, on that day one studies the "Approbations of the Rabbis, of blessed memory, whose souls rest in Eden, in the treasuries on high" — the sons of the author of the Tanya, who gave their approbation for the printing of the Tanya, as will be seen further on.
In this passage the Rebbe tells about the various printings that appeared in the different editions of the book of Tanya. There are things that at the time of their occurrence perhaps were not fully understood in their precision and in all their details, and only after years — forty years — did the Rebbe speak about them in a manner that made it possible to understand their significance. So too here, in understanding the reason why specifically the Rebbe began with this detail on the 20th of Kislev, after the festival of redemption.
And indeed, forty years later, in 5743 and afterward in 5744, the Rebbe spoke at great length and made a great campaign of this — that the Tanya be printed in every single place in the world where there are Jews, in every city and every settlement. The Rebbe explained at great length that the whole concept of "spreading the wellsprings outward," the dissemination of Chassidus — which is the theme of the festival of the redemption of the Alter Rebbe, in which the sign and permission were given to spread the wellsprings outward — finds its strongest expression in the fact that in every place in the world there should be a Tanya, which is the foundation of Chassidus, printed in that very place itself. Thus a Jew who is in a certain place, to whom the Tanya is brought and who sees that it was printed literally in his city, feels a much greater connection to the light — not as something brought to him from afar, but as something that is truly his own, belonging to him far more. And this is the whole subject about which, on the second day immediately after the festival of the redemption, the 23rd of Kislev — the Rebbe speaks regarding the matter of printing the Tanya.
Let us examine the details that the Rebbe brings here. First he says: "the printing of the book of the Beinonim — Tanya — for the first time." As is known, the Tanya was originally in manuscript form and circulated through handwritten copies. In the introduction to the printed Tanya that we have today, the Alter Rebbe himself explains why he gave permission to print it: at first he did not want this at all, but rather wished it to remain in a less formal manner, in handwritten copies; however, due to the many copies, numerous errors crept in — some unintentional, and some intentional, planted by the misnagdim, who inserted all sorts of things in order to make it appear as though the book was not in order. For this reason the Alter Rebbe gave permission to print the Tanya, so that it would be a fixed and official work, in which dishonest interested parties could not interfere.
And when was it first printed? "Completed on Tuesday, the 20th of Kislev 5557 in Slavita." Regarding this there is an interesting story: if one looks at the approbations given by the great sages of Israel — such as Rabbi Zusha of Anipoli and Rabbi Yehuda Leib HaKohen — who gave their approbation to print the Tanya at the request of the Alter Rebbe, the date they wrote on the approbation is the month of Elul 5556; yet in practice, as is written here, the Tanya was printed in the month of Kislev, on the 20th of Kislev, several months later.
It is told that when they brought the Rebbe, the Alter Rebbe, the first printed copy of the Tanya — they brought it to him on the twenty-sixth of Kislev, the second day of Chanukah, six days after the printing; they brought the first two hundred books, and the very first copy was brought to the Alter Rebbe — he saw that the printing had been on the twentieth of Kislev. The Alter Rebbe expressed himself, quoting the verse, "Many are the thoughts in a man's heart, but the counsel of Hashem shall prevail": he had very much wanted the book to come out on the nineteenth of Kislev, but it came out on the twentieth of Kislev. At that moment they did not understand the meaning of this. Only in the following year, on the day of the redemption — for it was on the twentieth of Kislev that the Alter Rebbe was released to freedom from the home of the misnaged, where he had stayed after being released from imprisonment, and it was only on the twentieth of Kislev that he left there — did they understand what he had spoken about regarding the twentieth of Kislev: apparently he wished to prevent the matter of the redemption from occurring on the nineteenth of Kislev, and therefore the redemption was postponed to the twentieth of Kislev. This was the Alter Rebbe's response.
The Tanya was first printed in "Slavita," a town located in present-day Ukraine. And what did the Tanya that was printed for the first time in Slavita include? "And it includes: The first part — the Book of the Beinonim," which is familiar to us, consisting of fifty-three chapters; "The second part — 'Chinuch Katan' and 'Shaar HaYichud VeHaEmunah'," which is the second part that we have today. But the third part — Igeret HaTeshuvah and Igeret HaKodesh — was not yet in that edition. Igeret HaTeshuvah had already been written by the Alter Rebbe, but he had not yet submitted it for printing; the first printing included only the first two parts.
The Igeret HaTeshuvah was still circulating in manuscript form, and at that time it was in its first edition, in which it was not divided into twelve chapters as it is today, but was one large continuous manuscript. This manuscript made its way to a city called Zolkva, where they saw it, greatly enjoyed it, and decided to print it. This was the first time that the Igeret HaTeshuvah was printed, in its first edition, not in the current division. And this is what the Rebbe says in the following lines: "Igeret HaTeshuvah, first edition, was first printed in Zolkva 5559." In this city, Zolkva, they printed it for the first time, and they even printed it there another four or five times in repeated printings — but it was still the first edition of the Igeret HaTeshuvah.
The "Mahadura Basra" — the second and final edition of Iggeret HaTeshuvah, in which the Alter Rebbe had already reworked Iggeret HaTeshuvah anew, divided it into chapters, made certain changes in it, and gave it over for official printing — "first printed in Shklov 5566." Shklov is a city in central Belarus, and it was there that the Tanya was printed for the first time by the Alter Rebbe, including all three parts: Likkutei Amarim, the second part — Shaar HaYichud VeHaEmunah — and Iggeret HaTeshuvah. This took place during the lifetime of the Alter Rebbe.
The continuation was already after the passing of the Alter Rebbe, who passed away, as is known, on the 24th of Tevet 5573. And at the conclusion the Rebbe says: "Igeret HaKodesh, first edition, Shklov 5574" — the final section of the Tanya. 5574 is already after the passing of the Alter Rebbe, and as is written in the approbation — which is also the daily lesson studied on the 20th of Kislev, "the Approbation of the Rabbis" — the sons of the Alter Rebbe write there that they are now printing the Tanya and appending to it the Igeret HaKodesh, the specific letters of the Alter Rebbe that they selected, and this became a part of the Tanya.
The next time Tanya was printed in the orderly format familiar to us today was as a "corrected edition of all four parts — Vilna Rom, 5660." Although it is known that Tanya has five parts, here the Rebbe calls it "the four parts," apparently because Kuntres Acharon is included within Igeret HaKodesh as a single continuous whole. "Rom" is a printing house of the Rom family. The year 5660 was during the time of the Rebbe Rashab, and at that time a corrected edition of the entire Tanya was printed as we know it today. "And it was reprinted several times" — from then on it was reprinted many times, and to this day there are numerous printings — already more than eight thousand printings of Tanya in various editions — as the Rebbe requested, which we mentioned earlier, that Tanya be printed again and again in every place where there are Jews.
Very interesting: in an instruction the Rebbe gave in 5742, and again in 5744, the Rebbe spoke about the fact that the Tanya had been printed in so many places, and now there is a need to unite all the Jews in the places where it was printed. How does one unite them all together? The Rebbe requested that a special edition of the Tanya be produced, which was first printed in 5742, and at its end were printed photographs of the title pages of the Tanya from all the places in the world where it had been printed up until 5742. This Tanya was thicker, on account of the photographs of the title pages, and the Rebbe said that this represents the unity of all these places together.
And the Rebbe himself, on the 21st of Nissan, 5742 — his eightieth birthday — personally distributed this Tanya to each and every person, for hours upon hours, together with photographs of the title pages found at its end. Two years later, in 5744, the Rebbe again requested that a special edition be printed — if I am not mistaken, this was the thousandth edition of the printings of the Tanya — one that would include all the printings that had been added over the two years that had passed. This time the Rebbe did not personally stand to distribute to each individual, but rather requested it at a farbrengen, and gave the young men all the packages so that they would distribute to the entire crowd the special Tanya that was printed then, with all the title pages of the printings.
We see how much importance the Rebbe attached to this matter. This is the content of the saying: both the very concept of printing the Tanya, and precisely where it was printed — all the title pages printed together — carry very great significance regarding this matter of spreading the wellsprings outward.