Igrot Kodesh - Alter Rebbe

First published as part of the Igrot Kodesh, Holy Epistles, series in 1980, the initial collection featured letters by Rabbi Schneur Zalman and his successors, his son Rabbi Dovber and grandson, Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch. Additional material was collected in a supplement, printed in 1981, and a second edition, printed in 1993. Central to the current volume, the first to feature only letters from Rabbi Schneur Zalman, is the 66 page introduction surveying the major themes and historical insight into the 183 letters. The letters fill some 600 pages and span the years 1781-1811. Themes include Rabbi Schneur Zalman`s activism on behalf of early Chasidic settlers in the Holy Land; his activism to improve the conditions of the Jewish population in the the Russian Empire; tracts on the importance of prayer; an articulation of the foundations of the Chabad Chasidic movement, and relations between the nascent Chasidic movement and the Lithuanian rabbinic establishment.