Lessons in Tanya started out as a weekly radio program on the Tanya taught by Rabbi Yosef Wineberg. Each of the lectures was examined and amended by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneersohn, before it aired so that much of the material includes the Rebbe's insights and explanatory comments. In the new production of the classic curriculum, Rabbi Ben-Tzion Krasnianski, director of Chabad Upper East Side, adds hundreds of hours of further elaboration and brilliant links to everyday life. more about the project

The project's Goals:

• To provide for a TANYA curriculum that is coherent, ‘user-friendly’ and extensive.
• To give the individual the knowledge and the motivation to nourish, cultivate, strengthen and to internalize the innate and inherent faith that is our birthright until it becomes a passionate, vibrant and joyous part of our lives, woven into the very fabric of our being.
• To give the individual the tools to articulate his relationship with G-d.
• To provide a framework for people to enjoy lifelong learning of the crown jewels of the Torah.
• To advance the project and to get the LIT community to join-in and thereby broaden the conversation.

The project's Principles:

• The Laws of Torah are fundamental, The project, its content and actions must be in complete accordance with Halachah, (Jewish Law.)
• The project is a global public resource that must remain true to its source, unbiased, undiluted and unadulterated.
• The project must be open to any individual regardless of knowledge background, belief, affiliation or nationality.

A brief introduction to the Tanya.
(Extract from intro. to Tanya By RabbiNissan Mindel M.A. PH.D.)

The author of the Tanya made no claim to originality for his work. On the contrary, he emphasized his dependence on his predecessors. Among the “books and sages” which influenced his thinking, the Scriptures, Talmud and Lurianic Kabbalah must be given foremost place. The author draws abundantly from the Zohar and the Tikunei Zohar.

Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s interpretations and doctrines are based upon the teaching of the Ba’al Shem Tov, the founder of general Chassidut, and his own “master,” Rabbi Dov Ber of Miezrich, the Ba’al Shem Tov’s successor, and Rabbi Dov Ber’s son Rabbi Abraham, the “angel.”

Rabbi Schneur Zalman worked on the Tanya for twenty years, elaborating its style and form so punctiliously that it came to be regarded by his followers as the “Written Torah” of Chabad, where every word and letter was meaningful.

To Rabbi Schneur Zalman, as to Kabbalists in general, the Torah, The Jewish Written and Oral Law embodied in the Bible and Talmud (the latter including both the Halachah and Aggadah), was more then a Divinely inspired guide to the summum bonum.It constituted the essential law and order of the created universe. The Kabbalah, in its interpretation, was nothing but inner, esoteric dimension of Torah, its very “soul”. Without this dimension the Torah could not be fully understood. Consequently, when he looked for the “inner,” or esoteric, meaning of Biblical and Talmudic texts it was not for the purpose of adding homiletic poignancy to this exposition, but rather to reveal their inner dimension. In his system the esoteric and exoteric, the Kabbalah and Talmud, are thoroughly blended and unified, just as the physical and metaphysical, the body and soul, emerge under his treatment as two aspects of the same thing. The polarity of things is but external; the underlying reality of everything is unity, reflecting the unity of the Creator. To bring out this unity of microcosm and macrocosm, as they merge within the mystic unity of the En So (the Infinite) – that is the ultimate aim of his system.

It has been wisely said that the proper approach to a problem is in itself half a solution. Quite often it is the approach to the problem, and the method of treating it, that displays the greatest degree of ingenuity and originality, and in themselves constitute the main contribution of the thinker. This is true of R. Schneur Zalman and of the Chabad system which he created. For, while his basic concepts have been gleaned from various sources, his doctrines nevertheless present a complete and unified system, and there is much refreshing originality in its presentation and consistency.

But R. Schneur Zalman did more then that. Very often he has so modified, reinterpreted or remolded the ideas which he had
assimilated, as to give them an originality of their own.