Shneur Zalman of Liadi
Rabbi Zalman of Liadi Schne'ur (Hebrew שניאור זלמן מליאדי ) (* 4.jul / September 15 1745greg in Ljosna, .. .. † 15.jul / December 27 1812greg in Hadicz ) was the founder of the Hasidic Chabad - Lubavitch movement.
His teacher, Dov Baer of Mezritch was one of the students of Israel ben Eliezer (also known as the Baal Shem Tov ), the founder of Hasidism. The son of Shneur Zalman, Dovber Schneuri, relocated to the movement founded by his father in the town of Lubavitch in present-day Belarus. Here the Chabad - Lubavitch movement remained until 1915.
Shneur Zalman published a systematic review of the Chassidic philosophy, known as Tanya, in 1797. Moreover, he wrote Shulchan Aruch haRav, his version of the classic Shulchan Aruch, halachic decisions and their justifications are performed in the.
The name Schneur in Hebrew means "two lights ". In retrospect, his name was based on his two major works - Shulchan Aruch HaRav in the field of Halacha and The Book of Tanya in the field of Kabbalah. His father, Baruch was a descendant of the Prague rabbi and philosopher Judah Loew.
1760 married Schneur Zalman Sterna, the daughter of magnate Yehuda Leib Segal from Vitebsk. In 1764 he went to study to Rabbi Dov Baer of Mezritch first time. In 1767 he took over the position of the Maggid in the community Ljosna ( Russian: Лёзна, Belarusian: Лиозно ). In 1770 he started at the direction of Dov Baer working on his halachic work Shulchan Aruch. To better distinguish the same Shulchan Aruch of Rabbi Yosef Karo the work of R. Schneur Zalman " Shulchan Aruch HaRav " is called. In 1772, he began with the formulation of the basic teachings of the Chabad philosophy; 1773-1778 he established a yeshiva for selected scholars in the city Ljosna, where he lived and taught. In 1794 he published (for now anonymous) his first work of halachic Hilchot Talmud Torah ( "The laws of Torah study " ), which was later printed as part of the Shulchan Aruch HaRav. In 1797 he published his religion philosophical work, the Tanya. In 1803 he published a Siddur ( prayer book) that follows the rite of Isaac Luria. In 1812 he fled with his family and some of the students in front of the approaching troops of Napoleon and died on 24 Tevet 5573 (December 27, 1812) in the village in the district Hadicz Poltova, where his grave is. He left a large community of students, supporters, scholars and rabbis, who continued his ideas and movement.
Since 1972 is an annual meeting of the descendants of Rabbi Schneur Zalman held ( כינוס הצאצאים ).
In 1980 the book Sefer Ha - Zezaim ( ספר הצאצאים ) containing biographical information on several hundred descendants of R. Shneur Zalman. 2007 biographical data were collected at nearly 6000 descendants for a new edition of the book.