Everything about Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn totally explained
Yosef Yitzchok (Joseph Isaac) Schneersohn (
1880-06-09 OS -
1950-01-28 NS) was an
Orthodox rabbi and the sixth
Rebbe (spiritual leader) of the
Chabad Lubavitch chasidic movement. He is also known as the
Frierdiker Rebbe (
Yiddish for "Previous Rebbe"), the
Rebbe RaYYaTz, or the
Rebbe Rayatz (an acronym for Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak). After many years of fighting to keep
Orthodox Judaism alive from within the
Soviet Union, he was forced to leave; he continued to conduct the struggle from
Latvia, and then
Poland, and eventually the
United States, where he spent the last ten years of his life. He was one of the most influential world leaders of Jewry.
Early life
Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn was born in
Lyubavichi,
Russia. He was appointed as his father's personal secretary at the age of fifteen; in that year, he represented his father in the conference of communal leaders in
Kovno. The following year (
1896) he participated in the Vilna Conference, where Rabbis and community leaders discussed issues such as: genuine Jewish education; permission for Jewish children not to attend public school on Shabbat; the creation of a united Jewish organization for the purpose of strengthening Judaism. He participated in this conference again in
1908.
On 13
Elul 5657 (
1897) at the age of seventeen he married a distant cousin,
Rebbetzin Nechama Dina Schneersohn, daughter of Rabbi Avraham Schneerson of Kishinev.
As he matured, he campaigned for the rights of
Jews by appearing before the
Czarist authorities in
Saint Petersburg and
Moscow. During the
Russo-Japanese War of
1904 he sought relief for Jewish conscripts in the Russian army by sending them
kosher food and supplies in the
Russian Far East. the head of the
Abwehr), he was finally granted diplomatic immunity and given safe passage to go via
Berlin to
Riga, and then on to
New York City, where he arrived on
March 19 1940.
When Schneersohn came to America, two of his chassidim came to him, and said not to start up all the activities in which Lubavitch had engaged in Europe, because America is different. To avoid disappointment, they advised him not even to try. Schneersohn wrote, "Out of my eyes came boiling tears", and undeterred, the next day he started the first Lubavitcher Yeshiva in America, declaring that "America is no different."
Launch of Lubavitch Activities in the USA
During the last decade of Schneersohn's life, from
1940 to
1950, he settled in the
Crown Heights section of
Brooklyn in
New York City. He was often too ill to stand. The community in Crown Heights remained small, and the synagogue records show that at some points during 1950 they struggled to form a regular
minyan.
Schneersohn was already physically weak and ill from his suffering at the hands of the
Communists and the
Nazis, but he'd a strong vision of rebuilding
Orthodox Judaism in America and he wanted his movement to spearhead it. In order to do so he went on a building campaign to establish religious
Jewish day schools and
yeshivas for boys and girls, women and men. He established printing houses for the voluminous writings and publications of his movement, and started the process of spreading Jewish observance to the Jewish masses world-wide.
He began to teach publicly, and many came to seek out his teachings. He began gathering and sending out a small amount of his newly trained rabbis to other cities - a trend later emulated and amplified by his son-in-law and successor Rabbi
Menachem Mendel Schneerson.
In
1948 he established a Lubavitch village in the
Land of Israel known as
Kfar Chabad near
Tel Aviv, on the site of an abandoned onetime Arab village of Safria.
He passed away in
1950 and was buried in the Borough of
Queens in
New York City. He had no sons, and his younger son-in-law, Rabbi
Menachem Mendel Schneerson succeeded him as Lubavitcher Rebbe, while the older son-in-law, Rabbi
Shemaryahu Gurary led the Chabad Yeshiva network
Tomchei Temimim. His gravesite, known as the
Ohel, became a central point of focus for his successor, who would visit it regularly for many hours of prayer, meditation, and supplication for Jews all over the world.
Controversy
Schneersohn's response to the Holocaust was criticized by some scholars and some members of the rabbinate who were members of an organisation called to save European Jews.
Published works
Hebrew and Yiddish
- Sefer Hamaamarim – 5680-5689, 8 vol.
- Sefer Hamaamarim – 5692-5693.
- Sefer Hamaamarim – 5696-5711, 15 vol.
- Sefer Hamaamarim – Kuntresim, 3 vol.
- Sefer Hamaamarim – Yiddish
- Sefer Hasichot – 5680-5691, 2 vol.
- Sefer Hasichot – 5696-5710, 8 vol.
- Likkutei Dibburim, 4 vol.
- Kuntres Torat Hachasidut
- Kuntres Limud Hachasidut
- Admur Hatzemach Tzedek U’Tenuat Hahaskalah
- Kitzurim L’Biurei Hazohar
- Sefer Hakitzurim – Shaarei Orah
- Kitzurim L’Kuntres Hatefillah
- Sefer Hazichronot, 2 vol.
- Moreh Shiur B’Limudei Yom Yom – Chumash, Tehillim,
Tanya
Seder Haselichot
- Maamar V’Ha’ish Moshe Anav, 5698
- Igrot Kodesh, 14 vol.
Hebrew translations
- Likkutei Dibburim, 5 vol.
- Sefer Hasichot – 5700-5705, 3 vol.
- Sefer Hazichronot, 2 vol.
English Translations
- Lubavitcher Rabbi’s Memoirs
- On Saying Tehillim
- The Tzemach Tzedek and the Haskala Movement
- On Learning Chasidut
- On the Teachings of Chasidut
- Some Aspects of Chabad Chasidism
- Chasidic Discourses, 2 vol.
- Likkutei Dibburim, 5 vol.
- The Principals of Education and Guidance
- The Heroic Struggle
- The Four Worlds
- Oneness in Creation
CD/Video
- America Is No Different
Further Information
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