Time in the Teachings of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi

mitsvat yedi‘at ha-Torah
]
24
and the 
commandment of “Thou shalt meditate therein day and night” [
ve-hagita bo yomam 
tsadik
), namely, between two ethical paradigms. The 
beinoni 
has the potential to sin, yet he always 
manages to suppress his urge to do so, whereas the 
tsadik
not only never sins, but is also able to 
transform evil into good. While the level of 
tsadik
is attainable by a very small group of saintly 
individuals (if it is attainable at all – see LT 
Tazri‘a
22b), the level of 
beinoni 
seems to be designed to 
be the ethical ideal of Rashaz’s followers, who were predominantly householders and businessmen 
(see Etkes, “Darko shel R. Shneur Zalman,” 353; idem
Ba‘al ha-Tanya
, 168). On the problem of 
transposing the categories of 
beinoni 
and 
tsadik
from 
Tanya
to the sermons, see Moshe Hallamish, 
“Yahasei tsadik ve-‘edah,” 90; Dan and Tishby, “Torat ha-hasidut,” 792-93. See also Etkes, 
Ba‘al ha-
Tanya
, 208, where he resolves this problem by defining the categories from 
Tanya 
as abstract ideals, 
which the Hasidim should strive to achieve, and the categories prevalent in the sermons as 
descriptions of real-life people that emerged from Rashaz’s direct contacts with his followers. 
20
The importance of such a stratification of the Jewish community in Habad ideology is evident in a 
letter written by the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Yosef Yitshak Schneersohn, in 1932, in which he 
emphasizes the traditional difference between businessmen [
ba‘alei ‘asakim
], including those who 
spend a good deal of time on study, and scholars [
yoshvei ohel
], sharply criticizing the modern idea 
that “everyone should be equal” as wasteful [
mevaleh
] and destructive [
mekhaleh
]. See his 
introduction to Shalom Dovber Schneersohn, 
Kuntres ‘ets ha-hayim
, 7.
21
HTT 3:4, 847a. 
22
HTT 3:4, based on 
b
Menahot,
 
99b. 
23
HTT, 
Kuntres aharon,
3:1, 843b. 
24
On the novelty of this notion, see Foxbrunner, 
Habad
, 138-140. 

---

174 
va-lailah
, Jo 1:8].
25
These two components are interrelated. On the one hand, despite 
the apparent superiority of 
mitsvat yedi‘at ha-Torah
over 
ve-hagita
,
26
achieving the 
former does not exempt one from the latter. On the other hand, the inability to 
achieve the former does not amount to transgressing the commandment of Torah 
study; in this case, the focal point is moved to the latter part of the commandment 
[
ve-hagita bo
], which is fulfilled by setting special times for Torah study, while the 
criterion for fulfilling the commandment of knowing the Torah is relativized, to 
adjust to individual intellectual dispositions. Therefore, a layman still ought to fulfil 
the obligation of knowing the Torah, but in his case, this means that he should “grasp 
and comprehend as much as it is possible for his soul to grasp from the knowledge of 
the Torah [
yedi‘at ha-Torah
].”
27
Moreover, the commandment of “Thou shalt 
meditate therein day and night” obliges the unscholarly to invest every moment free 
of work in Torah study, as anything else is considered by Rashaz as “idle chatter” 
[
devarim betelim
].
28
Similarly, Rashaz prohibits studying gentile wisdom on the 
grounds of the sin of neglecting the Torah [