What Really Happened at Chabad Headquarters in Brooklyn

In the 17th century, the Zohar became the focus of study for a group of Jewish mystics who gathered in the Galilean city of Safed (Tzfat). Their innovative teachings about this text would, in turn, inspire the founders of Hasidism in 18th-century Poland. One of the most important treatises the Hasidim produced was the Tanya, an extended mystical discourse—deeply rooted in the Zohar and the teachings of the Safed school—composed by Shneur Zalman of Lyady, founder of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.