Israel’s Postal Service Releases Tanya Stamp

Israel’s Postal Authority released a stamp honoring the foundational work of Chasidic thought known as the Tanya and commemorating 200 years since the passing of its author, the First Chabad Rebbe, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi.

Designed by Aharon Shevo, a Bezalel Art School graduate whose other credits include coins for the Bank of Israel, medals for the Israel Government Coins and Medal Corporation, and stamps for the Israeli Philatelic Service, the 2012 stamp features an open book with the word “Tanya” written on it, while an inscription recognizes Rabbi Schneur Zalman as the founder of Chabad-Lubavitch Chasidism.

Rabbi Schneur Zalman “changed the way in which hundreds of thousands of people around the world perceived life,” Sapir Academic College lecturer Yechiel Harari writes in a broadside accompanying the stamp. “This is the fulfillment of the Baal Shem Tov’s vision of bringing forth the Messiah by spreading the inner wellsprings of the Torah, which include a deep knowledge of the human soul and discovery of the Creator’s reality.”