The Tzemach Tzedek צמח צדק
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, third Lubavitcher Rebbe
His mother Devorah Leah was a daughter of the Alter Rebbe; she died when the boy was three, and his grandfather raised him. He married his first cousin, the daughter of the Mitteler Rebbe—so his uncle became his father-in-law too. After his father-in-law's death he took the leadership and led Lubavitch for nearly forty years.
In 5603 he was summoned to Petersburg to a conference on the ordering of Jewish schools—Rabbi Yitzchak of Volozhin was there, and on the other side the maskil Max Lilienthal. The government wanted schools under its supervision with non-Jewish teachers; the Tzemach Tzedek stood against it, and Chabad tradition keeps the count: over the course of the sessions he was placed under arrest twenty-two times. His works are the responsa Tzemach Tzedek, by which he is named, Derech Mitzvotecha and Or haTorah. After his death seven sons went out to separate courts—Kopust, Liadi, Niezhin, Avrutch; only the Lubavitch line of the youngest, the Maharash, survived.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- Responsa “Tzemach Tzedek” — the halakhic corpus by which he is named
- “Derech Mitzvotecha” — an explanation of the reasons of the commandments
Documents of the period
- Records of the Petersburg conference of 5603 — the dispute over Jewish schools under state supervision
Basis: documents and evidence.