Auction 45
Lot 268:
Likkutei Amarim Tanya (Kama edition) with parts filled in. First edition, 1982, the Rebbe’s 80th birthday. [8], 622 pages, 8, 183, [1] pages. Spine detached, bookmark, overall good condition.
The Kama edition (based on a Tanya manuscript), first printed here, was produced upon the Rebbe’s orders for 1982. This book has printed in the margins thousands of changes and rewordings present in the nine manuscripts of the Tanya known to the printers, as well as exegeses on the differences between the Kama and Batra editions.
The Rebbe explained in one of his sichot the importance of the Kama edition: “in Shas there are halachot which are only ‘First Mishnah’, and more than that they said ‘Mishnah does not leave its place’, and more. In the Arizal in the Etz Hayyim is written in a few places ‘Mahadura Tanina’, ‘Mahadura Kama’…and based on the differences between the Batra and Kama edition one can understand more deeply the conclusions reached by the Admor HaZaken which are brought in the Tanya as we have in front of us”, and in a few instances the Rebbe focused himself on the differences between the two editions in expounding on the Tanya.
In 1790 the Admor HaZaken was the only Chassidic leader in Belarus. In those years, according to Russian documents, there were tens of thousands of followers. In those years there many people were coming to the Admor to ask for advice and blessing, sometimes waiting days to get yechidus with him. The Admor wrote three letters at the time, requesting that people who had already seen him be limited in coming again, which would allow new people to visit him more easily.
On that basis the Admor wrote booklets to chassidim on Avodat Hashem, so that they would not need to visit him in person. These he gave to be copied in 1792, and then he would correct and update them occasionally. From these booklets was produced later Sefer HaTanya. After inexact copies were spread around, the Admor HaZaken chose, at the end of 1796, to edit and republish the booklets as the Tanya itself.
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