[Avodah] Who First Said it?

[Zev Sero]

Akiva Blum wrote:

> It's in the Mekor Baruch vol. 3 Chap 20.  I would translate it but the hebrew
> there is too flowery.
> 
> He quotes the Rebbe reb Mendele (Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, Zemach Zedek) in
> conversation with the Aruch haShulchan, that the Rebbe said to his father-in-law
> and grandfather-in-law that the chassidim owe an enormous debt of gratitude to
> the Gra, and they agreed with him. The Rebbe explained the chassidus might have
> gone 'off the tracks', and the Alter rebbe, due to the Gra's battling, kept it
> straight.

Exactly.  I believe that is the original source of this nonsensical story.
His entire narration of his father's supposed weeks learning with the
Tzemach Tzedek (not the Rashab), the close relationship they had, and the
conversations they supposedly had during that time, is a complete fantasy.
No such thing ever happened.  Had someone spent that sort of time with
the TzTz, it would have been remembered, and when he later became famous
the story would have been handed down through the generations.  MB simply
made up this entire story, as he made up many others.



>  In addition, he wrote the Shulchan Aruch haRav to keep the chassidim
> connected to halachah.

More nonsense.  He wrote it at the Maggid's direction, very early in his
life, because the Mechaber's SA was 200 years old, and there was a need
for an updated SA that would take into account the work of the achronim.
When the misnagdishe world rejected the SAH because of its author, it
still needed a sefer to fill that role, so the Chayei Adam wrote one.

-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                     - Margaret Thatcher