Photo Credit: Jewish Press
Ahead of Gimmel Tammuz, chassidim and admirers of the Rebbe worldwide are uniting in a threefold campaign of learning, unity, and hiskashrus (connecting with the Rebbe), in which all the Rebbeâs printed Torah will be studied.
The Rebbeâs Torah is a complete library of more than 250 â 250! â volumes. These includes Likutei Sichos, Toras Menachem, Igros Kodesh, and many more.
To help the general public decide which sefer to choose, Tzeirei Agudas Chabad HaMerkozis, the Lubavitch Youth Organization, arranged a special website where all the Rebbeâs seforim appear. Anyone can go in and choose to his heartâs delight as much as he wants, whether it is the Rebbeâs talks for one parsha or an entire volume of the Rebbeâs talks. Moreover, if what he wants to learn is already âtaken,â he can find what he wants âopenâ in another chalukah (distribution).
The basis for this endeavor is the Rebbeâs words in the Hayom Yom of 24 Sivan, (and in many places in similar expressions) that âthe desire for hiskashrus can only be satisfied when one learns the Maâamorim and Sichos that the Rebbe says and writes.â And the Rebbe uses the word âonly.â
âThe Rebbeâs incredible genius spanned every discipline. There is no area of the Talmud â Babylonian and Jerusalem â as well as the legal decisors, early and late commentaries, etc., with which he was not intimately familiarâ¦even to differentiating between matters that seem identical, and connecting subjects that seemed entirely disparate and having no apparent link, said Rabbi Yisroel Yitschok Piekarsky, Rosh Yeshiva of the Central Yeshiva Tomchei T’mimim. âThis is the uniqueness of the Rebbe, the completeness of his study in every category of greatness.â
Everyone is aware of the Rebbeâs great leadership and his vast effort to revitalize and elevate the prestige of Judaism among Jews everywhere. However, not everyone is aware of the Rebbeâs greatness as a Torah scholar. Perhaps because he is so well known for his leadership, insufficient emphasis has been placed on his greatness and genius in Torah.
It is beyond the capability of ordinary people to offer an evaluation of the Rebbeâs genius. Anyone who looks, however superficially, into a discourse by the Rebbe is amazed by his extraordinary mastery of all Torah disciplines. Every one of the Rebbeâs discourses is adorned with scores, even hundreds, of references to every part of Torah including the two Talmuds and their commentaries, Scriptural verses, responsa, halacha, Kabbalah, Midrash, and commentaries from the very earliest to the most current. It is doubtful if anyone can be found today, and only a very few in previous generations, who has innovated so much in Torah, and whose immense creative oeuvre spreads across 250 volumes encompassing every aspect of Torah.