Time in the Teachings of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi

bitul
on Sinai, when they said 
na’aseh ve
-
nishma’
. Rather than finding 
an inconsistency in Rashaz’s view of Amalek’s redemptive prospects, I read this 
ma’amar
as an 
elaborate interpretation that draws on the tradition of erasing Amalek’s name but transforms it into 
Amalek’s redemption by playing on the meanings of 
bitul
as both concrete eradication and self-
nullification.
74
LT 
Mas’ei
89b-c; based on 
Pesikta rabati
, pis. 1, 2a.

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136 
1.4 The imminence of the messianic advent. 
Rashaz’s numerous references to messianic times and Israel’s task of bringing them 
closer raise the question of his view of the imminence of the redemption. Some of 
his statements appear to suggest that he believed the end of days to be near and was 
even engaged in calculations of its precise date [
hishuvei kitsin
], although it should 
be noted that statements of this nature occupy only a marginal place in his vast 
lore.
75
Nevertheless, some scholars have taken them to be representative of Rashaz’s 
messianic orientation. According to Tishby, for example, Rashaz’s definition of his 
own times as the era of “the footsteps of the Messiah” [
‘ikveta di-meshiha
] attests to 
the presence of messianic tension in early Habad.
76
“The footsteps of the Messiah,” a 
common concept in Lurianic kabbalah, stands for the time of the purification of the 
sparks entrapped in the feet of either 
Adam Beliya’al
or 
Adam kadmon
.
77
It originates 
in the Bible [see Ps 89:51], and is used in the Mishnah
78
to depict the calamities that 
will immediately precede the advent of the Messiah, following the continuous 
erosion of man’s spirit, morality and wisdom over numerous generation. Echoes of, 
on the one hand, the sense that the task of purification is nearing completion, and on 
the other hand, of the notion that the decline of the generations is about to reach its 
lowest point, can be heard in Rashaz’s teachings associated with the time of 
‘ikveta 
di-meshikha
.
At the beginning of 
Tanya
, Rashaz explains that despite the fact that all the 
Jews possess a divine soul that is equally a part of God, there are some souls that 
stem from a higher and others from a lower aspect of the Godhead. This creates a 
hierarchy of souls, which has both synchronic and diachronic dimensions: 
And though there are myriads of different gradation of souls, rank upon rank,
 
ad infinitum
, as with the superiority of the souls of the Patriarchs and of 
Moses our teacher above the souls of our own generations [who live in the 
75
See Mondshine, 
Migdal ‘oz
, 483-8. Moreover, one of the texts published there and attributed to 
Rashaz suggests the futility of any attempts to calculate the time of the end of days. See ibid., 509. 
76
Tishby, “Ha-ra’ayon ha-meshihi,” 512-3.
77
Wolfson, “Walking as a Sacred Duty,” 194. 
78
m
Sotah 9:15. 

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137 
period] of the footsteps of Messiah, which are as the very soles of the feet 
compared with the brain and head, so in every generation there are the 
leaders of the Jews, whose souls are in the category of “head” and “brain” in 
comparison with those of the masses and the ignorant.
79
 
From the synchronic perspective, the souls of the leaders of the Jewish people derive 
from the highest, intellectual