page_title: Shneur Zalman of Liadi
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Shneur Zalman of Liadi / Biography / Early life
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Иллюстрация из Еврейской энциклопедии Брокгауза и Ефрона (1906—1913). Факсимиле Шнеур Залмана. English: Illustration from Brockhaus and Efron Jewish Encyclopedia (1906—1913).
context_page_description: Shneur Zalman of Liadi, was an Orthodox rabbi and the founder and first Rebbe of Chabad, a branch of Hasidic Judaism, then based in Liadi in the Russian Empire. He was the author of many works, and is best known for Shulchan Aruch HaRav, Tanya, and his Siddur Torah Or compiled according to the Nusach Ari. Zalman is a Yiddish variant of Solomon and Shneur is a Yiddish composite of the two Hebrew words "shnei ohr".
  Zalman of Liady is also known as "Shneur Zalman Baruchovitch," Baruchovitch being the Russian patronymic from his father Baruch, and by a variety of other titles and acronyms including "Baal HaTanya VeHaShulchan Aruch'", "Alter Rebbe", "Admor HaZaken", "Rabbenu HaZaken", "Rabbenu HaGadol"", "RaShaZ", "GRaZ", and "HaRav".
context_section_description: Shneur Zalman was born in 1745 in the small town of Liozna, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (present-day Belarus). He was the son of Baruch, great⁵-grandson of the mystic and philosopher Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the "Maharal of Prague". [According to Jewish tradition, the Maharal's family descended patrilineally from the Babylonian Exilarchs (during the era of the geonim) and therefore also from the Davidic dynasty. He was a prominent (and the youngest) disciple of Dov Ber of Mezeritch, the "Great Maggid", who was in turn the successor of the founder of Hasidic Judaism, Yisrael ben Eliezer, known as the Baal Shem Tov.
  He displayed extraordinary talent while still a child. By the time he was eight years old, he wrote an all-inclusive commentary on the Torah based on the works of Rashi, Nahmanides and Abraham ibn Ezra.
  Until the age of twelve, he studied under Issachar Ber in Lyubavichi (Lubavitch); he distinguished himself as a Talmudist, such that his teacher sent him back home, informing his father that the boy could continue his studies without the aid of a teacher.
  At the age of twelve, he delivered a discourse concerning the complicated laws of Kiddush Hachodesh, to which the people of the town granted him the title "Rav".
  At age fifteen he married Sterna Segal, the daughter of Yehuda Leib Segal, a wealthy resident of Vitebsk, and he was then able to devote himself entirely to study. During these years, Shneur Zalman was introduced to mathematics, geometry and astronomy by two learned brothers, refugees from Bohemia, who had settled in Liozna. One of them was also a scholar of the Kabbalah. Thus, besides mastering rabbinic literature, he also acquired a fair knowledge of the sciences, philosophy, and Kabbalah. He became an adept in Isaac Luria's system of Kabbalah, and in 1764 he became a disciple of Dov Ber of Mezeritch. In 1767, at the age of 22, he was appointed maggid of Liozna, a position he held until 1801.
caption: Writing sample from the Brockhaus and Efron Jewish Encyclopedia (1906–1913)
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