Every day, for the last three years, Jewish adults in Montreal, Canada, have devoted almost an hour of their morning to studying the foundational text of Chabad-Lubavitch Chasidic thought. On Sunday, they began it anew for the fourth time.
For Ron Edelman, one of the original students of Rabbi Ronnie Fine’s daily Tanya class at Chabad of Queen Mary, the in-depth study has become so central to his day that when he misses a lesson, he catches up by viewing a recording of the discussion online.
“The class has led me to a better understanding of certain aspects of our faith,” says the fabric salesman, “especially as to why we do certain things.”
Written by the First Chabad Rebbe, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, and published in the late 18th century, the Tanya’s stated aim is to illuminate a path to realizing one’s purpose in the world and developing a deeper relationship with the Almighty. Hundreds of thousands of Chasidim around the world participate in a daily study cycle that begins each year on the 19th day of the Hebrew month of Kislev, which this year, began Saturday night.
Edelman says that learning the text has answered many questions, such as what one accomplishes by following the Torah.
“When we give [charity], for example, we are really bringing G‑dliness into the world,” he explains.
Each day after he drops his daughter at school, Edelman attends morning prayer services at the Chabad House and then stays for the Tanya class. When he isn’t able to come, he logs onto the Jewish Web site Chabad.org to view Fine delivering that day’s lesson.
Edelman’s classmate Harold Weil, who lost his job last year, says that the class helps him begin each day right.
“This has helped to frame my day,” says Weil. Attending the class prevents him from sleeping in and “moping around.”
At the same time, he says, he has learned from the Tanya that he is not the only one with everyday spiritual struggles, such as maintaining concentration during prayer.
“I have lowered my expectation of myself, and I am working to do better,” says Weil. “It is kind of a reality check.”
Instead of getting angry when things go wrong, he now looks at circumstances as messages from Above.
“The day to day frustrations lessen, because I know that they are not such a big deal, and that I can get around them,” he explains. “Now, I get a much more positive attitude to things around me.”
Since he has been in the class for more than a year, Weil feels that he understands the complex concepts better “the second time around.”
“I’m starting to get it as it were,” he states. “It is a different way of looking at the world, at yourself, at life.”
Transformational Discovery
For Shoshanah Rhine of Kansas, watching the class online is part of a long journey back to Jewish observance. Growing up in Missouri, she knew that her mother was Jewish, and that her father was Catholic.
As an adult, she started lighting Shabbat candles and making the traditional Shabbat bread known as challah. She also started buying and reading Jewish books.
“I realized when I was about 40 that my life was not what I wanted at all. Nothing satisfied my spirit. The only thing I cared about was making money and cooking,” she reveals. “But there was this thing that had never gone away. I always wondered about Judaism.”
Looking for information online, she came across Chabad.org.
“I saw videos of this man with a beard. So I watched, then I cried, then I watched more and more,” Rhine says of recordings of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory. “Then, I saw on the daily lessons, ‘Tanya.’ I thought ‘Oh, this must be for women! I wonder who she is.’ ”
She bought Lessons in Tanya, a popular explication of the text published by the Kehot Publication Society, and started writing down words that she did not know how to pronounce in what she called her “Tanya Journal.”
When she found the link to Fine’s class last summer, she began watching. (The Web site, through its Jewish.tv portal, also offers a later-in-the-day live option in a Tanya class taught by Rabbi Joshua Gordon, co-director of Chabad of Encino, Calif.)
In little time, Rhine learned how to pronounce the difficult words in her journal.
Today, in addition to the Tanya class, she also participates in a Rohr Jewish Learning Institute course at her local Chabad House in Kansas City.
“If it weren’t for Chabad,” she says, “I wouldn’t have had the spirit and faith to go forth and improve my life.”
Fine looks at such stories as illustrations of a central point in the Tanya, that Jewish life needn’t be impossible.
“Torah and mitzvahs are very close to you,” he explained at last year’s first class, quoting a verse from Deuteronomy that appears in part on the Tanya’s title page. “They are not across the ocean, they are not a difficult thing that is beyond you. They are near to you, in your mouth, in your heart, that you may do it.”
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