The 24th of Tevet (coinciding with January 24 this year), is the yahrzeit of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of Chabad Chasidic philosophy.
Rabbi Shneur Zalman opened a new path that allowed the teaching of the previously hidden aspects of the Torah - P'nimiyut HaTorah - to be comprehended through the intellect and thus reveal additional G-dliness within the world.
But Rabbi Shneur Zalman was not only a master in the area of the more esoteric aspects of the Torah. Even as a child, he was considered a great scholar of the revealed parts of the Torah - Nigle d'Torah, as well.
This quality of Rabbi Shneur Zalman's is alluded to in his name, Shneur, which can be broken up into two Hebrew words, "Shnei" and "ohr" which mean "two lights." Rabbi Shneur Zalman illuminated the world with his greatness in the two lights of the Torah.
In Rabbi Shneur Zalman's magnum opus, Tanya, he writes: "The Messianic Era... is the fulfilment and culmination of the creation of the world, for which purpose it was created." This means that our spiritual service will reach its full completion only with the fulfilment and culmination of the entire creation which will take place when Moshiach is revealed.
The Tanya is part of the daily study regimen of Chitas. Chitas (or Chitat תח”ת) refers to a daily practice of studying three Jewish texts: Chumash, Tehillim, and Tanya. These texts are considered to be basic and essential for the spiritual growth and development of a Jew, and their daily study was instituted by the Sixth Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Shneersohn, of righteous memory.
The Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, encouraged this regimen and also added the daily study of Maimonides' Mishneh Torah—either three chapters daily, or one chapter daily, or in a parallel study of Sefer Hamitzvot (Book of Commandments).
