Special Days on the Chassidic Calendar

"Chai Elul" - the 18th day of the month of Elul - is the birthday, in 1648, of the founder of Chassidism, Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov. It is also the day on which his " spiritual grandson," the founder of Chabad, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, was born, in 1745

The 19th day of the Hebrew month of Kislev marks the "birth" of Chassidism: the day it was allowed to emerge from the womb of mysticism into the light of day, to grow and develop as an integral part of Torah and Jewish life

Careful note was taken of all written materials, and anything else they considered suspicious. Additional investigators measured the Rebbe's study hall; the astonished chassidim could not figure out what they were trying to find...

The sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson, passed away on this date in 1950. Exactly one year later, Rabbi Menachem Mendel accepted the leadership of the movement, and set about transforming the face of world Jewry...

The real completion of a Sefer Torah (Torah scroll) --the Rebbe said--is in the sefarim, the printed Torah books --such as the ones returned to us on the 5th of Tevet