First Tanya Printing in Monroe, New Jersey
In honor of the 108th birthday of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the seventh and final Lubavitcher Rebbe, Chabad Jewish Center of Monroe took part in the campaign to spread Chabad’s fundamental philosophical text by printing 150 copies of Tanya on March 26.
Written in the 18th century by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the first Lubavitcher Rebbe, the 530-page Tanya has 53 chapters representing the 53 days Liadi spent in a St. Petersburg prison in 1798. Liadi wrote Tanya to answer the spiritual concerns of his followers who, like him, were under intense persecution in Russia, explained Rabbi Eliezer Zaklikovsky, Chabad director.
The Tanya printed in Monroe is edition no. 5,332; a few hundred editions have been printed in New Jersey, but none in Monroe before this one. After they are bound off site, the Tanya books will return to the Chabad House, and Zaklikovsky said he plans to distribute them to community members.
“Having a Tanya in your home is a blessing,” Zaklikovsky said.
Ed Lazarus of Monroe, who used to own a printing business in Brooklyn and helped a rabbi there print a Tanya, organized the project with Zaklikovsky. Lazarus was the one who decided it was time to print a Tanya in Monroe, Zaklikovsky said.
“This is giving back to the community,” Lazarus said.
“Every single community that has a Chabad should print a Tanya,” he said.
Since Tanya is based on Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, its study led to resentment from Lithuanian Jews who were opponents of Hassidism. Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein (D-14), in attendance for the printing, said when she learned as a student at an Orthodox day school of that historical tension as well as additional tension sprouting from Hassidism’s emphasis on spirituality and the joy of religion, she thought to herself “Why [was there tension]? That sounds good to me.”
In the 1970s, Schneerson, whose birthday of 11 Nissan fell on March 26, established a campaign to print holy words, Zaklikovsky said. In today’s technologically advanced world, where you can “print something in your living room with a press of a button,” Schneerson’s message was that everything physical has a spiritual soul.
“So, if you publish words of Torah, you are actually bringing holiness to that environment,” Zaklikovsky said.
When the 1,000th edition of Tanya was printed on Schneerson’s 80th birthday, he personally handed out Tanyas to 10,000 people, Zaklikovsky said.
Rose Tyberg of Monroe brought Zaklikovsky a copy of Tanya that belonged to her late husband Albert, who studied at a Lubavitch yeshiva in Montreal. “I just have a lot of respect for it because it tolerates all facets of Judaism,” she said of Chabad’s work.
Richard Knauer of Highland Park called Lazarus “our in-resident expert” on all printing and technological matters, and said the printing of the Tanya was just one of many exciting happenings at Chabad of Monroe because of the energy Zaklikovsky brings.
“We could do a reality TV show with that goes on around here,” Knauer said.
