Toras Chaim Overview

Toras Chaim: Is a two-volume work of Maamorim on the books of Bereishis and Shmos by the second Chabad Rebbe, Rabbi Dovber Schneuri. Otherwise known as the Mitteler Rebbe. The work is arranged according to the weekly Torah portion. The Maamorim in Toras Chaim are noted for their length and complexity, as well as their elucidation of concepts discussed in Likutei Torah and Torah Ohr. Toras Chaim was published slowly over the course of many years. The various editions slowly expanded the multi-volume work with the first printing during Mitteler Rebbe's lifetime in Kapust, 1826. This edition only contained Maamorim on the first half of Sefer Bereshis. The next edition was published in Warsaw, in 1866 by Rafael Mordechai Schneerson, the great-nephew of the Mitteler Rebbe, together with Schneur Schneerson, a grandson of the Mitteler Rebbe. This edition included Maamorim covering the second half of the book of Bereishis. In 1946, the Chabad yeshiva in Shanghai and the central Chabad publishing house, Kehos, republished the Warsaw edition of Toras Chaim. Additionally, a series of unpublished Maamorim from the Mitteler Rebbe covering Sefer Shmos were included in a separate second volume. The edition was published. The second volume was never typeset. Instead, those Maamorim remained a photocopy of the original handwritten transcripts. Until they were reprinted by Kehos in Brooklyn. The 2004 edition is a three-volume set; the Shmos Maamorim have been typeset and all Maamorim include extensive footnotes and annotations.