Chabad-Lubavitch

Chabad-Lubavitch is a Hasidic court, contained within Hasidic Judaism specifically rather than the broader Haredi umbrella.

Chabad men fasten the belt for prayer as other Hasidim do, though the movement does not keep the fur hat that marks most of the courts.

Chabad is named for the three highest of the sephirot, and its founding work sets out a Kabbalistic psychology as a practical discipline for ordinary people.

Chabad teaching treats Metatron as a real order of being within the Lurianic scheme its own literature works from.

Chabad keeps the angelic texts of the traditional liturgy and reads them through the Lurianic frame set out in the movement's own writings.

Maimonides' Mishneh Torah is held as an authoritative code of Jewish law.

Chabad has catalogued and published its niggunim and teaches particular melodies with named origins, which is why its repertory is the one most often heard outside Hasidism.

Chabad teaching uses gematria freely as an interpretive method within its Kabbalistic frame.

Chabad keeps Raziel within the wider angelic scheme its Kabbalistic literature inherits.

Chabad receives Sandalphon among the angels of the talmudic and Kabbalistic tradition.

The public phylactery campaign, begun in 1967, made the laying of them by any Jewish man the movement's most visible outreach and its most recognisable street practice.

Held, and the seventh rebbe of this dynasty, who died in 1994, has had no successor, so the office is held by a man no longer living.

Chabad maintains its own network of yeshivas whose curriculum places Hasidic texts alongside the Talmud.

Chabad prays Nusach Ari, the recension the movement's founder compiled from the Lurianic sources, which differs in wording from the Nusach Sefard of the other Hasidic courts.

The Shulchan Aruch is held as authoritative; this stream follows the Shulchan Aruch HaRav, Shneur Zalman's own edition, within the wider Shulchan Aruch tradition.

Kept in Chabad-Lubavitch. Tzedakah is a duty of justice rather than an act of generosity, and the word does not mean charity.

Kept in Chabad-Lubavitch. A boy becomes obligated at thirteen and reads from the Torah. A girl becomes obligated at twelve, and the manner in which that is publicly marked varies widely across this body and is not a Torah reading.

Kept in Chabad-Lubavitch. The groom veils the bride before the ceremony.

Kept in Chabad-Lubavitch. The search for leaven is made by candlelight on the night before Passover eve.

Bittul, self-nullification before God, is central to this stream's theology, developed at length in the Tanya's account of the intellectual faculties chochmah, binah and daat.

Kept in Chabad-Lubavitch. Brit Milah is performed by a mohel on the eighth day, and the day is not moved for convenience.

Kept in Chabad-Lubavitch. Burial is in the earth, without embalming, ordinarily within a day.

Kept in Chabad-Lubavitch. Chalitzah is performed where a man dies childless and his brother declines to marry the widow, and it is what releases her to remarry.

Israel's election is affirmed in classical form, underwriting this stream's mission of outreach to other Jews wherever they live.

Kept in Chabad-Lubavitch. The marriage is solemnised under the canopy.

Kept in Chabad-Lubavitch. Orthodox practice holds brit milah on the eighth day without exception unless the child's health forbids, performed by a trained mohel with blessings and the naming, and the day is not deferred for the Sabbath or a festival.

Kept in Chabad-Lubavitch. Coming of age is a matter of obligation taking effect at a fixed age rather than of a ceremony conferring it.

A wordless meditative melody composed by Chabad-Lubavitch's own founding Rebbe, sung only on the movement's own especially significant occasions and understood within the community as a primary form of spiritual communication.

The judge of a rabbinical court sits under the law of the Shulchan Aruch's Choshen Mishpat, which governs the constitution of a beit din, the competence required of those who sit on it and the procedure it follows.

Devekut, cleaving to God, is cultivated through the contemplative discipline of this stream's own system, set out in the Tanya.

Kept in Chabad-Lubavitch. The public fasts of the calendar are kept, the two full fasts from sunset to nightfall and the four minor fasts from dawn.

Kept in Chabad-Lubavitch. Conversion requires acceptance of the commandments before a rabbinic court, circumcision where applicable, and immersion, and conversions performed outside this body are not recognised.

Kept in Chabad-Lubavitch. Hakafot are made with the Torah scrolls on Simchat Torah.

Halakha is held divinely given and binding, the shared Orthodox floor beneath this stream's distinctive contemplative and outreach emphasis.

Hitbonenut, sustained analytical meditation on a concept until it moves the emotions, is the discipline the Tanya sets out and it is what distinguishes this body's inner life.

Kept in Chabad-Lubavitch. Hoshanot are said with the four species on each day of Sukkot.

Kept in Chabad-Lubavitch. Kabbalat Shabbat opens the Sabbath on Friday evening.

Kept in Chabad-Lubavitch. Orthodox observance keeps the full detail: separate dishes and sinks for meat and dairy, a waiting period after meat before dairy, reliance on recognised rabbinic supervision for processed food, and separate arrangements for Passover.

Kept in Chabad-Lubavitch. Visiting the graves of parents and of the righteous is customary before the High Holy Days.

Kept in Chabad-Lubavitch. Betrothal and marriage, once separate by a year, are performed together under the canopy.

Kept in Chabad-Lubavitch. A garment is torn by the mourners.

Kept in Chabad-Lubavitch. Maariv is prayed at night.

Kept in Chabad-Lubavitch. Marriage is contracted by the giving of an object of value in the presence of two witnesses, and it is followed by the seven blessings.

Kept in Chabad-Lubavitch. The dead are remembered at Yizkor on four days of the year.

Midrashic literature is held as authoritative rabbinic interpretation of scripture.

Kept in Chabad-Lubavitch. Immersion is required for conversion, for family purity, and for vessels bought from a non-Jew.

Kept in Chabad-Lubavitch. Mincha is prayed in the afternoon.

The Mishnah is held as authoritative rabbinic tradition reaching back to Sinai.

Maimonides' Mishneh Torah is held as an authoritative code of Jewish law.

Circumcision and the fitness of the one who performs it are governed by the Shulchan Aruch's Yoreh De'ah, which fixes the rite, its timing and the conditions under which it may be deferred.

Kept in Chabad-Lubavitch. Musaf is prayed on Sabbaths, new moons and festivals, and it asks in plain words for the restoration of the Temple and its offerings.

Kept in Chabad-Lubavitch. Mussar, the disciplined work on character, entered the yeshiva world in the nineteenth century and is taught in many of them.

Kept in Chabad-Lubavitch. A boy is named at his circumcision, a girl at a Torah reading.