Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi רבי שניאור זלמן מלאדי

Rabbi Shneur Zalman was born at Liozna on 18 Elul 1745 and died on 24 Tevet 1812 in the village of Pyena; he is buried at Hadiach. He studied under the Maggid of Mezhirech, successor to the Baal Shem Tov.

Likkutei Amarim, the book called Tanya from its first word, appeared at Slavuta in 1796. Its design is neither tales of tzaddikim nor a gathering of homilies but a strict description of the inner life of an ordinary man: two souls; the beinoni, who is not holy but is master of himself; and the work of the intellect, out of which alone true feeling is born. Hence the name of the movement: chochmah, binah, da'at—Chabad.

At the Maggid's charge he began about 1770 to compose a code of law anew; what survived was printed posthumously from 1814—the Shulchan Aruch HaRav.

In 1798 he was arrested on a denunciation and held some fifty days in the Peter and Paul Fortress; he was freed on the 19th of Kislev, a day still kept as a festival among Chabad. In 1800 he was arrested again, on the denunciation of Avigdor of Pinsk, and released after the accession of Alexander I.

In 1812, when Napoleon entered Russia, he left eastward with his family and died on the road.

A distinction is worth keeping here: the arrests, the denunciations, the dates of release are documents, held in Russian archives. The heavenly tribunal, the interrogation dialogues, the code composed "at twenty-one" are Chabad tradition, and should be passed on as tradition.