The forty-seventh "cheder" in the palace of Hayom Yom.
Wednesday, 7 Shevat 5703.
Shiurim: Chumash, Bo, revi'i, with Rashi's commentary.
Tehillim, the 7th of the month, from chapter 39 through chapter 43 inclusive.
Tanya, on this day we begin chapter 18 from its beginning, from the word "uletosefes" until the words "gam dechilu".
In today's lesson a short story about the Alter Rebbe is brought. This story does not appear in the sources and sichos of the Rebbe Rayatz, and apparently the Rebbe Rayatz told it to the Rebbe privately, and the Rebbe publicized it. I will give a bit of background, which is brought at greater length on this subject.
The Tzemach Tzedek, the third Rebbe, told his son, the Rebbe Maharash, the fourth Rebbe, that the Alter Rebbe - grandfather - would speak a great deal in praise of those expelled from Bohemia (today part of the Czech Republic). Those exiles settled on the estate of the Alter Rebbe's father, Reb Baruch, who had an estate; and the Alter Rebbe praised them very much, and said how G-d fearing they were, righteous and exceedingly outstanding in Torah and in wisdom.
One of those men, whose name was Reb Yaakov Tzvi, was - besides being an immense talmid chacham and a great expert - also a remarkable engineer in the science of astronomy. When the Alter Rebbe was a child of nine, Reb Yaakov Tzvi taught him the science of engineering and astronomy. A detail of this is seen right away in the saying.
There is an interesting addition, which also appears in the saying but without the background: the Rebbe Maharash went on and told his son, the Rebbe Rashab, the fifth Rebbe, that his father - the Tzemach Tzedek - received as an inheritance from the grandfather, the Alter Rebbe, holy writings - writings that he wrote, maamarim and so on. Among the holy writings was a calendar for fifteen years that the Alter Rebbe composed when he was a child of ten. In this calendar were noted all the times of the tekufos and the moldos, the days of Rosh Chodesh and the festivals; and even in the first three years of the calendar the fair days were noted - the day on which the merchants would come - the fair days in Liozna were noted in it as well. Thus it was a calendar for fifteen years.
In practice, in the well known fire in the year 5467 many holy writings were burned, and this calendar too was burned. It was then in the Alter Rebbe's own handwriting.
And after this introduction let us read the saying, which states concisely what we have said: "When the Alter Rebbe was nine years old he studied the science of engineering and astronomy" - as we said earlier, Reb Yaakov Tzvi taught him. "At ten he arranged for himself a calendar for fifteen years" - we detailed above what the calendar contained, and a child of ten already arranged it himself; he did not copy a calendar, but rather studied the movements of the times of the moon and so on so thoroughly that he arranged a calendar by himself.
"When he was twelve" - even before the bar mitzvah - "it happened that he taught in public the Rambam's Hilchos Kiddush HaChodesh". A child of twelve taught the public the well known Hilchos Kiddush HaChodesh in the Rambam. There are first chapters there that are easier, and after them chapters that are all calculations of the movements of the heavenly bodies in detail, such that even a learned person, if he is not familiar with the field, does not know what is going on in them. And the Alter Rebbe, as a child before bar mitzvah, taught this in public, "and the geonim who were present at that gathering could not find their hands and feet in the beis midrash" - that is, they simply could not grasp what this child was explaining to them.
What is one of the points that this idea expresses? The intention, G-d forbid, is not to speak in disparagement of those geonim who were present at that time, but rather to emphasize that the approach to Torah in chassidus is as the word of Hashem. The Torah is the word of Hashem, and it is not intellect that one studies for the pleasure of understanding it, but the word of Hashem; and since the Torah is the word of Hashem, one must study all of its parts - even those parts that are not so widespread, halachos that perhaps most geonim are not familiar with at all, for this is Torah, and one must study all the parts of Torah. And this is what the Alter Rebbe teaches us, and what the teaching of chassidus teaches us - that Torah is Torah, in all its parts; and therefore the geonim, who were not connected to chassidus, did not manage their hands and feet in a field with which they were not familiar at all.
This saying appears here in the week of parashas Bo on Wednesday, and the connection between the saying and Wednesday of parashas Bo is very striking. For on Wednesday of parashas Bo the verse "HaChodesh hazeh lachem rosh chodashim" is stated, and there Rashi says that the Holy One, blessed be He, showed Moshe Rabbeinu and said to him "like this see and sanctify". That is, all the halachos of kiddush hachodesh, and the teaching in which the Holy One, blessed be He, tells Moshe Rabbeinu the halachos of kiddush hachodesh, are found on Wednesday of parashas Bo - and therefore this saying fits that day exactly.
And in conclusion - we see in recent days in an interesting way how the sayings correspond to the sequence of the Rambam study. Today there is no need to search much: we are in Sefer Zmanim, and Hilchos Kiddush HaChodesh is the continuation. This entire saying speaks literally about the Rambam's Hilchos Kiddush HaChodesh, as it mentions by that very name. This corresponds exactly, according to the sequence of the sayings, to the order of the Rambam study in Sefer Zmanim.