Rare Manuscript in Chabad Hands

By COLlive reporter

David Schottenstein is known for appreciating the finer things in life – helping out Chabad institutions and causes and selling fitted bespoke suits from Astor & Black Custom Clothiers.

The Ohio businessman and philanthropist can add another acquired taste to his collection.

COLlive.com has learned that Schottenstein has purchased the first Tanya that was printed in America and includes manuscript corrections written in the holy handwriting of the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

Kestenbaum & Company, which sold the sefer on Thursday in New York at their Fine Judaica auction, said this edition was printed in Brooklyn in 1953 by Saphograph Co.

Although the Vilna edition has remained the standard layout for all subsequent editons of the Tanya, in preparation for the publication of the first American edition, the Rebbe indicated in pencil a handful of errors in this printer’s proof.

This copy was then forwarded to the printer to be used as a model for the printing of innumerable subsequent editions published all over the world for decades hence, Kestenbaum and Co. said.

Reached by COLlive.com on Thursday evening, Schottenstein confirmed the purchase.

“I am not a collector, but when I read about it on COLlive I thought to myself that this is something that should belong to Chabad and not floating around in some collector’s hands,” he said.

While the amount paid was not disclosed, the auction catalog suggested the bidding will begin from $5,000 to $7,000.

Before the deal was sealed, Kestenbaum provided Schottenstein with a letter from Rabbi Chaim Shaul Bruk, Director of Lahak (editors and publishers of the Rebbe’s teachings), attesting as to which pencilled corrections are indeed the Rebbe’s.

Schottenstein said he will be making the Tanya available to those studying the Rebbe’s teachings as it has been suggested that additional corrections throughout the sefer are also in the hand of the Rebbe.

Asked if he made additional purchases, Schottenstein agreed to reveal one other: The last edition of the Tanya printed before the Second World War in Lithuania and which belonged to the famed Yeshivas Chachmei Lublin in Poland.