הרב מנחם מנדל שניאורסון

Rav Menachem Mendel Schneersohn of Lubavitch (5549/1789–13 Nisan 5626/1866), known for all generations as the Tzemach Tzedek after his responsa — a title that in the customary spelling equals “Menachem Mendel” in gematria — was the third Rebbe of Chabad and among the great poskim of his century. He was born in Liozna to Devorah Leah, daughter of Rav Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the Baal HaTanya, and to Rav Shalom Shachna. His mother was nifteret when he was three, and by her tzavaah his grandfather raised him as a son and taught him Torah. At fourteen he married his cousin Chaya Mushka, daughter of Rav Dovber Schneuri, the Mitteler Rebbe. On his father-in-law’s passing he refused the mantle for some three years, until he yielded to the pleas of the chassidim and took up the leadership of Chabad, which he carried close to forty years.

He lived in the generation of the Cantonist decrees (Tsar Nicholas I in 1827 decreed forced army conscription for Jewish boys as young as 12 into the Russian army for up to 25 years), and the Rebbe worked quickly to find a solution: he raised a committee of shtadlanim to lighten the conscription quotas, and founded the society Chevrat Techiyat HaMeitim for the Jewish boy-soldiers torn from their homes, sending his men to the assembly points to strengthen them in their Yiddishkeit. He fought the maskilim’s schemes to hand Jewish chinuch over to the government; at the rabbinical assembly of 5603/1843 the authorities warned him that his stand was seen as defiance, and it is told that he was arrested twenty-two times in the course of that assembly. He also turned his chassidim toward working the land, settling sixty families in the village of Shchedrin, and the crown named him an “honored citizen” for all his generations. In 5601/1841 he founded a yeshiva in Lubavitch to guard its youth from the spirit of the Haskalah.

He was a master of both nigleh and nistar, and the gedolim of the misnagdim revered him; in the battle against the Haskalah he forged a bond with Rav Yitzchak of Volozhin that warmed relations between chassidim and misnagdim, Rav Chaim of Sanz called him “chacham harazim,” and the Chiddushei HaRim of Ger wished to travel to him as a chassid. She’elot reached him from across the Russian empire; his teshuvot, piskei dinim, and chiddushim on Shas were printed after his passing as the Tzemach Tzedek. He prepared his grandfather’s Torah for print — Torah Or, Likutei Torah, and the siddur with Chassidut — and left Derech Mitzvotecha on the inner reasons of the mitzvot, Sefer HaChakirah — Derech Emunah, the many volumes of Or HaTorah, and Yahel Or on Tehillim; he also composed niggunim, some of which spread far beyond Chabad.

He was niftar on 13 Nisan 5626/1866 and rests in Lubavitch. Of his seven sons, the youngest, Rav Shmuel — the Rebbe Maharash — filled his place in Lubavitch by his father’s tzavaah, while other sons founded the courts of Kopust, Liadi, Niezhin, and Avrutch; the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rav Menachem Mendel Schneerson, descended directly from his eldest son, Rav Baruch Shalom.