Rabbi Nissen Mangel
As a yeshivah student of marriageable age, I decided to consult with the Rebbe. The next time I had an audience with him, during a visit from Montreal in 1958, I presented a few matchmakers’ suggestions I had received. Surprisingly, however, the Rebbe didn’t approve of any of them. Instead, he turned to me with a suggestion of his own.
I thought he was about to present the name of a prospective partner for me. Instead he began speaking to me about two works by the Alter Rebbe – his Shulchan Aruch, Code of Jewish Law, and Likkutei Torah, a collection of chasidic discourses. Both of these works needed some revisions, the Rebbe explained: They had mistakes, certain sections of the Shulchan Aruch had been deleted by Russian censors, and others were missing source notes. “My suggestion,” he concluded, “is that you undertake to do this work.”
“I’ll be very happy to do it,” I replied.
“And which would you like to do first?”
In an audience the year before, the Rebbe had instructed me to study Likkutei Torah five times, and thank G-d I had managed to learn it very thoroughly. “I think I already know Likkutei Torah a little,” I told the Rebbe, “so I would prefer to choose Shulchan Aruch.”
The Rebbe agreed, and I went back to Montreal to work. For every law the Alter Rebbe wrote, I would write what the sources of that law were, from the Talmud down through the later Halachic authorities like Maimonides, the original Code of Jewish Law, the Magen Avraham, etc. I did this for a few chapters, and then came back to the Rebbe to see if he approved of the way I was doing it. (more…)