Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson

Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, known affectionately as "Reb Levik", was born on 18 Nisan 5638 (1878) in the town of Podobrianka near Homel, to Zeldah Rachel and Rabbi Baruch Shneur, a great-grandson of the Tzemach Tzedek of Lubavitch. He was recognized early as a prodigy of unusual sharpness, and by the time he reached marriageable age he was counted among the most learned young men of his circle. In 1900 he married Rebbetzin Chana, daughter of Rabbi Meir Shlomo Yanovsky, rabbi of Nikolayev, joining a distinguished rabbinic family that became a warm home to him for the rest of his life. He received rabbinic ordination from, among others, Rabbi Chaim of Brisk and Rabbi Eliyahu Chaim Meizel of Lodz — two of the foremost authorities of his generation. From 1902 he was active in public affairs under the direction of the Rebbe Rashab: he took part in the campaign to supply matzah to Jewish soldiers in the Russo-Japanese War, and helped gather evidence for the defence of Mendel Beilis in the notorious blood libel trial. In 1909 he moved to Yekaterinoslav (later Dnepropetrovsk) and served as rabbi of the city's Hasidic community. After the passing of Rabbi Pinchas Gelman in 1921 he moved to the city centre and served as the recognized rabbi of the entire Jewish community until 1936. In those years he stood at the head of a small group that kept Jewish life alive under Communist rule, supporting teachers, cantors, ritual slaughterers and clandestine instructors. As pressure on the clergy intensified he gave up his official post, yet continued to lead the community informally. In 1939 he was arrested for spreading Judaism, which Soviet law prohibited; after more than a year of imprisonment, interrogation and torture he was tried and exiled to the town of Chili in Kazakhstan, where he spent some four years. In 1944 he moved to Alma-Ata and was appointed rabbi of the local synagogue — and that same year, on 20 Av 5754 (1944), he died of a serious illness at the age of 66. The notes he wrote during his exile, produced under the harshest conditions, were later published by his son, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, in the volumes Likkutei Levi Yitzchak — glosses on the Tanya, the Zohar and his letters — and Torat Levi Yitzchak, novellae on the Talmud. Most of his writings were confiscated by the Soviet authorities at the time of his arrest. His grave in the Jewish cemetery of Alma-Ata has drawn visitors for decades, and each year on the anniversary of his passing many come to pray at the site. His memory endures not only as that of a master of both the revealed and the hidden Torah, but as a man who served God with simplicity, suffering and song. The central Hakafot melody of Chabad, known to this day, was transcribed from him, and he testified that it was handed down as the melody sung at the Hakafot of the Alter Rebbe; his scholarly legacy was continued and deepened by his son, and his writings are studied by many each year.

He left a legacy of self-sacrifice under a hostile regime and of rare kabbalistic scholarship. His writings, published by his son, became a treasured resource in the study of Hasidism, and his grave in Alma-Ata remains a place of prayer for the many who visit each year.