What is chabad?

Its quite likely that youve been in a Chabad House. You probably know a Chabadnik,
quite possibly are related to one. Its also likely that youve been approached by a
Chabadnik to wrap tefillin or light candles for Shabbat. And you are, after all,
visiting Chabad.org. But what is Chabad?
Thats what were discussing here: Not what Chabad does, but what Chabad is.
It would be inaccurate to call Chabad a movement, or an ideology, or even a particular
stream within Chassidut. Perhaps the best description is that Chabad is a way of
doing Chassidut. As I wrote in the entry on Chassidut, the Baal Shem Tovs teachings
were able to elicit the essence of the Jew and the essence of Torah, injecting vital
energy into Jewish life. Chabad takes that power one step further by placing those
teachings directly in the hands of each one of us. In a way, Chabad is do-it-yourself
Chassidut. The tzaddik still plays a crucial roleperhaps even more crucialbut more
as a facilitator than a powerhouse.

Historical background
Each member of the inner circle of the Baal Shem Tov was an expert scholar of Torah
before he came to his teacher. Shortly after the Baal Shem Tov passed on, his seat was
filled by Rabbi Dov Ber, the Magid of Mezeritch, an expert in
both Talmud and Kabbalah and a master of profound metaphor, with penetrating insight
into the human psyche. His disciples, in turn, were men of great stature, each with his
own background, his own approach, his own way to apply his masters teachings. Some
excelled in ecstasy and joy, others in longing prayer, others in their intense study and
profound insight, yet others in their love for every creature, great and small.
Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi was the youngest member of this inner circle, and also a
brilliant scholarso much so that the Magid asked that he compose a new edition of
the Shulchan Aruch (the authoritative code of Jewish law) that would include elaboration

and explanation. He too came with his unique approach, one he had developed even
before arriving in Mezeritch: Every idea he learned from his teachers had to be
internalized through intense, focused contemplation, until it was felt palpably in the
heart. In the mind, after all, it was just an idea. Once in the heart, however, an idea has
the power to transform a person. It could become real.
Every idea had to be internalized by the mind until it was felt palpably in the heart.

Undoubtedly, the other disciples of the Magid also engaged in deep contemplation. R.
Schneur Zalman, however, saw this as the path for every Jew.
Many of the other disciples of the Magid understood Chassidut as a form of leadership.
The righteous man lives by his faith, goes the verse, but these disciples read it slightly
differently: The righteous man gives life through his faith. The
enlightened tzaddik would be privy to the secret teachings and spend much time in the
ecstasy of prayer and mystic union, and thereby that life would emanate to his flock as
well.
Rabbi Schneur Zalman sharply took issue with this view. He read that verse in its simple
sense, that each person, to be righteous, had to live with that deep faith, that
quintessence of the soul that the Baal Shem Tov had made accessible, and make it the
driving force of every faculty of his or her own person. The tzaddik was there to
facilitate, but each person had to do the work him- or herself. Life, after all, is not
something you receive like a puppet, through anothers hand; life is something integral
to the person himself.
Only with this approach, R. Schneur Zalman argued, would the Jew truly integrate the
vitality of Chassidut into his life. He cited the Talmudic adage of the thief who digs a
tunnel beneath the house of a wealthy man. About to break through the floor at night,
knowing that he is risking his life and ready to take the life of anyone who stood in his
way, he whispers an earnest prayer, G-d help me!1
The thief truly believes in G-d. Yet his faith is incongruous with his actual life: He knows
that G-d doesnt approve of his profession, but that knowledge remains in one

compartment, his way of life in another. In other words, he has failed put together his
inner convictions with his outer persona. R. Schneur Zalman understood the role of
the tzaddik as a healer of this rift, suturing together soul and body, illuminating the outer
mind and heart of the Jew with the quintessential spark hidden within.
The Chabad approach took the Baal Shem Tovs teachings to their logical extent.

The Baal Shem Tovs G-d was one who could be found everywhere and in everything,
as the Zohar says, There is no place void of Him. To say that the knowledge of G-d
could enter only the elevated minds of great tzaddikim, but not those of the ordinary
man or woman, was to assert a void of G-dliness, a place where G-dly light could not
come. The Baal Shem Tovs teachings, then, could reach their ultimate fruition only
once each and every person could take ownership of them.

Whos praying?
Heres a story that illustrates the distinction between the two schools of thought:
Rabbi Schneur Zalman had one disciple who was a merchant, as were many Jews at
the time. In chassidic parlance, a disciple is called a chassid and his teacher is called
his rebbe. This chassid would travel on occasion to the large markets together with a
friend, a disciple of Reb Chaikel, one of R. Schneur Zalmans colleagues. Eventually,
this Chabad chassid merchant came to his rebbe with a complaint:
Each morning, at the inn where we stay, he rises early and I rise early, described the
chassid. If there is no mikvah, he immerses in a nearby river or stream, and I do the
same. Then he begins to say his prayers with such excitement and enthusiasmevery
morning the same, without failure!
And I? I review a teaching of the rebbe. I try as hard as I can to focus my mind, to
remove all thoughts of the journey, the market, the merchandise, the dealingsand to
focus only on the thoughts of that teaching, to visualize it in my minds eye. Then I

struggle to say my prayers. Some mornings, I can eke out a little inspiration. Other
mornings . . .
But my friend? Every morning, the same fervor, the same fire aflamein an instant, he
prays effortlessly!
To which R. Schneur Zalman responded flatly, He prays? Reb Chaikel prays!

The Book for Everyone

To this end, R. Schneur Zalman presented his approach in two short works, combined
into one volume that he called A Collection of Sayings, modestly stating in the
frontispiece that these were collected from books and from scribes. Today it is
generally called The Tanya, after the first word of the first chapter. The first part of this
book is aptly titled The Book of the Everyman.
Admittedly, thats a loose translation, but it carries the gist of the books focus: Rather
than a guide for the pure soul to find its path to enlightenment, R. Schneur Zalman
speaks to the down-to-earth Jew who wrestles daily with his basest impulses. He
provides him a restructured self-concept and plain advice, showing him how he too can
serve G-d with love and joy, at least to the degree that he can keep winning those
wrestling matches. Most radically, he provides this ordinary man glowing
encouragement, telling him that his constant battle with those incessant urges brings a
pleasure to G-d that the tzaddik cannot provide, for the tzaddik lives in a world of light,
while he faces the darkness head-on and elicits a light that transcends anything to
which the tzaddik can reach.
The Tanya and psychology

The approach in Tanya bears a strong resemblance to what psychologists nowadays

call cognitive reframinghelping a person adjust his concept of himself and his place
in the cosmos until he effects a change in attitude and behavior. R. Schneur Zalman
described it as the longer-shorter way. Longer, because you have to do the work

yourself, step by step opening your mind to the light of your soul until it can awaken the
heart. Shorter, because it brings you directly in contact with that light. 2
Most of the teachings of R. Schneur Zalman, however, were oral. These came to be
called maamarim (plural form of maamar), and were memorized and committed to
writing by his students (including his own son and grandson) and later published, often
with much elaboration and explanation. They served as the material which a Chabad
chassid would contemplate before and during his prayers, as instructed in the Tanya.
With each generation, each successive rebbe would expand upon these maamarim,
creating the vast library of Chassidut Chabad we have today, with which a Chabad
chassid occupies himself on a daily basis.
In his scholarly work on Chabad, Roman Foxbrunner sums up the harmony of character
traits that R. Schneur Zalman and his successors cultured within their chassidim:
Scholarly yet sociable; reticent, yet a capable singer of Hasidic melodies and relater of Hasidic tales
and traditions; austere and somewhat ascetic, yet possessing a refined appreciation of this worlds
pleasures; earnest but not humorless or somber; deeply religious but not unctuous or pietistic;
modest but self-confident; devoted to RSZ [R. Schneur Zalman], but fully capable of thinking for
himself: this Hasid personified the profound and paradoxical system that came to be known as
Habad Hassidism.3

Why the name Chabad?

Other disciples of the Magid emphasized the enthusiasm and excitement of prayer. R.
Schneur Zalman emphasized the contemplation before and during prayer that could
spontaneously generate that enthusiasm. He therefore distinguished his school of
thought by calling it Chabad:

STANDS FOR . . .

Ch

Chochmah

COMMON TRANSLATION

Wisdom

REFERS TO . . .

conception of an idea

Binah

Understanding

cognating an idea

Daat

Knowing

realizing an idea

The cognitive approach proved its potency in more ways than one. In late nineteenthcentury Czarist Russia, Jews were rapidly being exposed to the secular thought of
Western Europe. Jewish youth were ignited by the ideals of social reform, spurning
religion as backward, irrelevant and silly. Rabbi Shalom Dovber, the Chabad rebbe of
that time, responded by opening a yeshivah in which young men would study Chassidut
Chabad alongside their Talmudic studies, but with the same revolutionary spirit as those
who were studying Marx and Engels. Later, in Poland, his son was to encourage young
women to form societies to do the same.
With the rise of Stalins totalitarian regime, practice of any religion became a lifeendangering matter. Again, the self-empowering approach of Chabad came to play.
Chabad chassidim, in particular those who had studied in the Chabad yeshivahs,
refused to surrender their religious observance under the most oppressive conditions.
One after another was executed or sent to Siberia for counter-revolutionary activities.
As virtually every other Jewish establishment crumbled beneath the persistent pounding
of the Yevsektsiaand the KGB, Chabad remained a stalwart force, with a wide
underground network that kept the coals of Judaism glowing through the darkest years
of religious persecution.
The Chabad approach proved itself invincible and potent under every sort of crucial
challenge.

When the sixth rebbe of Chabad, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, arrived in America during the
Second World War, he carried with him that same indefatigable spirit. Almost
immediately upon arrival he declared, America is no different! His son-in-law,
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, took over the helm in 1950, yet even
beforehand he was involved in making Chabad a worldwide agency, a lifeline for the
Jewish soul.

Upon accepting the mantle of leadership by reciting his first public maamar, the Rebbe
immediately reaffirmed the Chabad approach. In general, in Chabad, he announced,
each one is expected to do his own job on his own, not relying on the rebbes. The
Rebbe then went on to describe the difference between the two interpretations of
A tzaddik lives by his faith, as described above. He then continued:
But us, Chabad, each one of us must do his job himself, with every limb and every sinew of his body,
and every limb and every sinew of his soul.
I am not saying that I will not help, G-d forbid. I will help as much as I am capable. But, since all is in
the hands of Heaven, except for the fear of Heaven, therefore, without the work you do on your
own, what will it help that I give out writings, sing melodies and say with you lchaim?4

Chabad today
As the Chabad approach proved its strength in the traditional shtetl, against the
cynicism of revolutionary Russia and under the religious persecution of the Bolshevik
regime, so too it has demonstrated its viability in the secular, mobile and interconnected
modern world. The externalities adjusted for each period, but the inner thrust remains
the same: Chabad is an approach that has faith in the spark that lies within each of us
without any doubt, and empowers us to find that spark and fan its flames. Not through
coercion, not through guilt or tirades from the pulpit, nor by promises of instant
enlightenment does Chabad reach the Jew, but by facilitating each one in his or her own
path.
Each Jew has a mitzvah to which he or she finds an affinity, the Rebbe would say.
Dont argue with a Jew. There is no need to convince him or her of anything. Just find
that mitzvah and help the Jew get it done.
And then, as the Mishnah promises, One mitzvah pulls along with it yet another
mitzvah.

The same idea was expressed in the Rebbes words to another rabbi who complained
about the obstinacy of American Jewry. The Rebbe insisted that they were nevertheless
good Jews. You cant make them do anything, the Rebbe admonished him. But you
can teach them everything.
You cant make them do anything, but you can teach them everything.

Just as the approach is essentially the same, so too the objective has not changed: to
elicit that essence-light of the Jewish soul and of our holy Torah, to let it shine from
within the hearts of each one of us with such intensity that the rest of the world, as well,
will be moved by that light, until all the world is filled with its splendor.
At the end of the entry on Chassidut, I described the Baal Shem Tovs experience of
the Moshiach telling him he would come when your wellsprings spread to the outside.
Just as Rabbi Schneur Zalman stuck to the simple meaning of A tzaddiklives by his
faith, so the Rebbe, the Chabad leader of our generation, stuck to the simple meaning
of the Baal Shem Tovs words, explaining: It is not the water of the wellsprings that
must spread to the outside, it is the wellspringsthemselves. Each one of us, no matter
how distantly outside we consider ourselves, must become one of those fountains of the
waters of life of the Baal Shem Tov.

For classes in Chassidut Chabad, contact your local Chabad rabbi. We also have a
selection of classes in Tanya here on our site. Or browse our collection of classic
chassidic texts. Throughout our site, youll find essays, videos and audios that are
presentations of Chassidut Chabad in a contemporary style.