Time in the Teachings of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi

Migdal 
‘oz 
version, whereby Rashaz ecstatically loses consciousness as he experiences 
devekut 
(cleaving to the Divine). Remarkably, Rashaz’s experience is triggered by 
hearing his wife talking to other women, and it is followed by his kabbalistic 
exegesis, spoken out apparently still in front of the female gathering, which renders 
his personal experience a discourse about the feminine and masculine (
Malkhut
and 
Ze‘ir anpin
) aspects of the Godhead, alluding to the supremacy of the female in the 
future to come [
le-‘atid la-vo
]. Indeed, this version turns the message of the story 
from 
Migdal ‘oz
on its head, showing women as both playing an important part in 
triggering the mystical experience, and as recipients of a mystical teaching. It stands 
to reason, however, that the version from 
Ha-yom yom
is more recent than the one 
from 
Migdal ‘oz
and should be perceived as expressing the 20
th
century stance of 
Habad’s last leaders, rather than the 18
th
century stance of its founder. Indeed, many 
other Habad stories stand in contrast to the 
Ha-yom yom 
version, claiming that early 
Habad masters refrained from dealing with women.
21
Furthermore, the story as 
presented in 
Ha-yom yom
is not only much more elaborate, and as such most likely a 
revised version of the older, plainer version published in 
Migdal ‘oz
, but 
Migdal ‘oz
, 
unlike 
Ha-yom yom
, actually provides us with the names of the transmitters of this 
tradition.
22
The way the story has been retold resembles other attempts of the sixth 
leader of Habad, Yosef Yitshak Schneersohn, to revise and re-write the history of 
Habad, so as to adjust it to his vision of the movement in the 20
th
century.
23
20
Schneerson, 
Ha-yom yom
, entry for 23rd Shevat, 22 [Appendix 2]. 
21
See Rapoport-Albert, “The Emergence,” 19*-23*. 
22
The editors of later edition of 
Ha-yom yom 
claim that the version presented in 
Migdal ‘oz 
is of 
lower credibility: “It is however known that there [in 
Migdal ‘oz
] it is only an oral tradition [
mi-pi ha-
shemu‘ah
], and this suffices for him who understands” (
Ha-yom yom
, 251 n. 1). In other words, they 
attribute more credibility to the version of the story supported by the authority of their own leader. For 
yet another version of the story, see Menahem Mendel Schneerson, 
Sihot kodesh 5713
, 137. 
23
See Rapoport-Albert, “Hagiography with Footnotes.” In this context it is worth mentioning the 
memoirs of Yosef Yitshak Schneersohn, which also enhanced anachronistically the notion of the 
special attitude to women in early Habad. The memoirs were first published in Yiddish in instalments 

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212 
In fact, the story presented in 
Ha-yom yom
is a compilation of three layers of 
tradition. First of all, the anecdote about Rashaz rebuking his wife has been merged 
with a concept presented in a homily of Dov Ber of Mezeritch, in which the verse 
“Go out and see, daughters of Zion” refers to the act of going forth out of 
corporeality, which is triggered by gazing at women.
24
Notably, in the retold story in 
Ha-yom yom,
the mystical experience is no longer prompted by looking at women 
but by hearing them, perhaps because gazing at women did not seem to accord with 
the standards of modesty maintained by Habad in the 20
th
century. Moreover, 
elements of Rashaz’s teachings are indeed present in the 
Ha-yom yom
version, for 
this story, unlike its Maggidic source, introduces the idea of a dynamic relation 
between the masculine and feminine constellations [
partsufim
] now and in the 
future-to-come, which is a recurrent motif in Rashaz’s writings. 
Feminine imagery occurs throughout Rashaz’s lore, and to describe it in full 
would require a separate monograph. The present chapter will focus on the use of 
feminine imagery in Rashaz’s discourse on time. It will begin with a brief overview 
of hasidic attitudes toward women and their reverberations in the teachings of 
Rashaz. This will be followed by a discussion of the relation between time and 
femininity, discerning a range of temporal modes related to women as well as to the 
gender category of the female. Finally, I shall try to establish a link between, on the 
one hand, the theosophical discourse on time in relation to the female, and on the 
other hand, the religious praxis and the reality of flesh-and-blood women. 
in the 
Morgen zhurnal 
from October 7, 1940 to February 23, 1942, and subsequently appeared as a 
book in 1947. An English translation by Nissan Mindel was published as 
Lubavitcher Rabbi’s 
Memoirs
, Brooklyn, Kehot, 1949. Solely on the basis of the memoirs, Nahman Shemen in his Yiddish 
book on the attitude to women in Judaism (
Batsiyung tsu der froy
, 334-338) singled out Habad’s 
approach to women, to which he devoted a separate subchapter. On the non-historical character of 
these memoirs, see Rapoport-Albert, “Hagiography with Footnotes,” 154-55. 
24
See Dov Ber of Mezeritch,
 Magid devarav le-Ya‘akov
, 7c-d, par. 19, discussed in Rapoport-Albert, 
Women and the Messianic Heresy
, 269-70. On gazing at women as a route to mystical experience in 
Kabbalah and Hasidism, see Moshe Idel, 
Kabbalah and Eros
, 153-78; idem, “Female Beauty,” 317-
334; idem, 
Hasidism
, 61-64. 

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