Time in the Teachings of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi

3. Setting time for Torah study in Rashaz’s mystical teachings. 
This discussion of the mystical aspects of Torah study at set times aims to 
reintroduce the worldly aspect of Rashaz’s doctrine into the scholarly Habad 
discourse. Admittedly, the quest for transcendence is of paramount importance in 
early Habad, but it is crucial to keep in mind that Rashaz was the leader of a broad 
community of Hasidim who were fully engaged with the world rather than a 
secluded group of mystics and pneumatics. His hasidic leadership was not limited to 
the delivery of mystical sermons but comprised a good deal of halakhic teachings, 
too. It is not surprising, therefore, that the endeavour to incorporate ordinary 
householders in the hasidic experience he offered constituted an important aspect of 
his project. For the majority of his followers, the opportunity to find God within their 
mundane existence must have been much more compelling than a highly abstract and 
sophisticated quest for transcendence. Placing the routine of Torah study at set times 
within a mystical framework was an expression of the worldly and practical 
dimension of the early Habad doctrine, and one of the ways by which Rashaz 
injected hasidic spirituality into the everyday religious experiences of his followers.
 
 
3.1 Setting time for Torah study as repentance. 
One of the reasons why the halakhists embraced the obligation of setting times for 
study was to incorporate Torah learning into a daily routine. Allotting times for 
study was meant to prevent neglect of the commandment to study twice a day under 
the pressures of everyday life.
38
However, in one of his discourses, Rashaz presented 
this ostensibly commonsensical idea as underlying his mystical concept of 
repentance [
teshuvah
]. In Habad tradition, setting times for Torah study is related to 
repentance in nonmystical ways, too, as the praxis that helps to keep away from 
sin;
39
here, however, Rashaz explored the literal meaning of the Hebrew word for 
38
Shulhan ‘arukh Rabenu ha-Zaken
, Orah hayim, Hilekhot talmud Torah, par. 1. 
39
See for example Dov Ber Shneuri, 
Pokeah ‘ivrim
, 54. 

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178 
repentance
40
in order to present setting times for study as an actual act of return to 
God from profanity and mundaneness: 
When businessmen [
ba‘alei ‘asakim
], who are not always for God but only 
sets [sic!] times for Torah study, returns from dealing with mundane affairs 
to learning, then this is called repentance [
teshuvah
], for he returns [
shav
] 
from what he was dealing with at first, etc. In this way ecstasy [
hitpa‘alut
] 
becomes more intensive than if he had not been dealing with worldly matters 
at first […] for ecstasy is an essential change [
shinui mahut
] […]. Ecstasy 
comes about because his essence has changed, from dealing with worldly 
matters to being a Torah student […]. Scripture says: “According to the days 
of thy coming out of the land of Egypt will I shew unto him marvellous 
things” [Mi 7:15], namely, like at the Giving of the Torah [
matan Torah
], as 
Scripture says: “The Lord spoke face to face” [Dt 5:4]. The disclosure of God 
below is in the aspect of “face,” for the prior concealment of the face [
hester 
panim
] during the 212 years of the exile in Egypt was necessary so that later, 
“face to face” would be possible.
41
This excerpt encapsulates several ideas that recur throughout Rashaz’s writings and 
here are intertwined into the praxis of setting times for Torah study and the concept 
of repentance. The concept of repentance presented above seems to lack an element 
that is usually perceived as its condition sine qua non – the commitment of a sin.
42
Here, the tradesmen are not sinners; they do not transgress Jewish law, and yet 
everyday matters separate them from God. For them, the setting of times for Torah 
study, defined by the 
halakhah
as the absolute minimum required for observing the 
law of Torah study, becomes both a vehicle for the return to the divine and an inner 
transformation.
43
The latter is tantamount to a transformation of the attributes [
midot
] 
40
Teshuvah
literally means “return.” 
41
LT 
Shir ha-shirim
44d-45a [Appendix 2]. 
42
LT 
Shir ha-shirim
75a; on repentance which is not related to sins, see TO 74a; LT 
Re’eh
24d, 33a, 
Nitsavim
48d, 
Rosh ha-shanah
60d, 
Shabat shuvah
65c, 66c, 
Ha‘azinu
77b, 
Shir ha-shirim 
44d; 
MAHZ
 5565
, i, 493-94; 
5572
, 5; 
Seder tefilot
, 226a. 
43
Although in several discourses (MAHZ
 5571
, 84, 92, 106, 119) Rashaz mentions people who are 
completely “unable to study and to fix times,” and for that reason their worship is based exclusively 

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179 
through redirecting them from mundane desires to the desire for God. This process, 
which entails a pivotal change of self, demands the eradication of one’s interests in 
this world by way of complete nullification [
bitul amiti
], drawn from the 
“Kindnesses of the Father” [
hasadim de-aba
], a place that is beyond the reach of the 
“external” [evil] forces [
hitsoniyut
]. In this description, setting times for Torah study, 
a routine ritual demanding no special intellectual or spiritual abilities, proves to have 
an advantage over permanent studies, which allow one to reach only the “Kindnesses 
of the Mother” [
hasadim de-ima
], a divine aspect that lies below the “Kindnesses of 
the Father.”
44
In the idea that by means of setting times for Torah study, one can prepare 
oneself for the experience of a personal Exodus and the Giving of the Torah, one can 
discern echoes of the commandment to remember the Exodus everyday,
45
and the 
talmudic dictum that everyone should see himself as if he had personally come out of 
Egypt [
b
Pesahim 116b]. In Rashaz’s doctrine, however, the ritual of remembrance 
becomes an actual act of personal redemption. When ordinary people turn their mind 
away from mundane affairs to delve into the Torah, they actually go forth out of 
Egypt [
Mitsrayim
], which was decoded by Rashaz as the “boundaries and limits” 
[
metsarim u-gevulim
]
46
of materiality and finitude. They thereby reconnect 
themselves to the spiritual and infinite divine.
47
Indeed, routine study twice a day 
becomes the personal experience of the Giving of the Torah [
matan Torah
], during 
on good deeds, one can surmise that they are still obliged to recite the 
Shema’
, which in certain 
circumstances is considered Torah study, too.
44
MAHZ 
5565
, ii, 873. “Father” and “Mother” are two