By Tzemach Feller – Chabad.org
The current edition received its impetus when Rabbi Mendel Cohen, a mashpia—Chassidic teacher and mentor—would spend hours preparing Tanya classes for his students at Yeshiva Ohr Elchonon—Chabad in Los Angeles, and often turned to Lessons in Tanya—or, as its Yiddish version is titled, Shiurim B’Sefer Hatanya. In time, this would lead to his playing a key role in preparing the remastered edition of the book, a benefit to countless students around the globe.
Authored by Rabbi Yosef Wineberg, Lessons in Tanya elucidates and makes accessible the mystical terms and concepts throughout the Tanya, and fills many gaps in what the terse Tanya text assumes to be the reader’s background knowledge. Lessons in Tanya’s creation began in 1960, when Wineberg began a weekly Tanya class in Yiddish on The Jewish Daily Forward’s WEVD radio station in New York.
Each week Saturday evening at 10:00 p.m., after the conclusion of Shabbat, Wineberg’s made-for-radio narrator’s voice would begin with his trademark greeting, “Ah guteh voch—a good week to the esteemed listeners and students of our lesson,” before launching into the week’s class. The class had the immeasurable benefit of the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—personally reviewing and annotating Wineberg’s notes each week before they were delivered on air, and so the lesson that was always replete with the Rebbe’s own added explanations.
These classes were later adapted by Wineberg, Rabbi Moshe Pinchas Katz and Rabbi Mendel Tenenbaum, members of the Vaad L’Hafotzas Chassidus (the Committee for Spreading Chassidut), into a Yiddish book titled Shiurim B’Sefer Hatanya which was published by the Kehot Publication Society. In the 1980s the work was translated into English by Wineberg’s sons Rabbi Sholom Ber Wineberg, who directs the Chabad House Center of Kansas City, Missouri; and Rabbi Levy Wineberg, dean at Hama’or Centre in Johannesburg, South Africa, and published as Lessons in Tanya.
In partnership with Kehot—and in close coordination with its director, Rabbi Yosef B. Friedman—Lessons in Tanya has been available online at Chabad.org since 1997.
With Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s 200th yahrtzeit approaching in 2013, Cohen undertook a labor of love: he would dedicate at least 200 hours thoroughly updating the work and incorporating as many of the Rebbe’s annotations as possible.
“Our goal is to include as much as possible of what the Rebbe explained and amended,” says Cohen. “In some cases, the Rebbe instructed that something be removed from the class. In those instances, it’s important for readers to understand why it was removed. In addition, there are questions on the text that the Rebbe answered years later; these will now be included as well.”
He reached out to the staff of Kehot Publication Society, who were working on a reprint of Lessons in Tanya spearheaded by Rabbis Mendel Laine and Yirmi Berkowitz. With the copies of the Rebbe’s notations obtained from Kehot, Cohen noted wherever a correction was needed, and his work was folded into the new edition, which would contain a slew of features that would make the now-remastered elucidation even more accessible to students of the text.
Another source of input were many of the hundreds of thousands of readers who have benefited from Lessons in Tanya online since the original version was uploaded to Chabad-Lubavitch in Cyberspace in 1997 by the legendary Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Kazen, “the founder of the Jewish Internet.” Many diligent students found typos that had crept into the original text, and these were shared with Kehot as well.
“We did whatever we could to make it more helpful, precise and user-friendly across the project,” said Rabbi Avraham D. Vaisfiche of Kehot, who incorporated Cohen’s notations along with Kehot Editor Rabbi Dovid Olidort.
A significant upgrade to the Tanya’s user-friendliness was adding nekudot—Hebrew vowels, as well as punctuation to the Hebrew text of the Tanya. In its original—as is the case in many Jewish works including the Torah and the Talmud—the Tanya contains no nekudot and precious few punctuation marks, presenting a challenge to readers who may not be familiar with the work.
The book is laid out as a linear translation, which is designed to clearly differentiate between the words that are translation of the Tanya proper, the added words which serve as bridges within the translation, and the explanatory commentary.
Back in Los Angeles, Cohen’s students have already benefited from the copious work that has gone into the remastered edition, with the added bonus of being treated by their teacher to a behind-the-scenes look at how the new Lessons in Tanya was created, even as the completed edition was being digitized 2,500 miles away.
Rabbi Cohen really understands what he learns, best teacher by far
Rabbi Cohen is truly a master of the Tanya and chassidus, in general. We are so fortunate here in yoec to be able to revel in his outstanding and superlative knowledge. In addition, to making such a strong impact in so many of our lives. He holds all of this in utmost humility!!!
Thank you rabbi Cohen for helping us reach our fullest potentials and for your extraordinary shiurim
As a daily user of shiurim besefer hatania, i find this post as an opportunity to write my ideas regarding it. Someone should start working on re-doing the one in hebrew, theres a lot of small ‘mistakes’ and a lot of different points, dots, dash, and underscore that instead of clarifying, often the do the opposite. That besides that the actual book need a new format. The one its not bad is the one format printed on “dvar malchus” like the talmud and rashi format. But theres many other options to have the original “daf” together with the explanations, like… Read more »