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(CHASSIDISM). Aharon Halevi Horowitz of Strashelye. Avodath HaLevi [Chassidic discourses on Chumash and Festivals]. * Bound with: Likutim. FIRST EDITION.  Several parts bound into one volume. Divisional title-pages. ff. (2), 93, (1), 76, 56, (1), 76, (2), 17, (4), 106. Lightly browned. Later boards. Large 4to. Vinograd, Lemberg 740; Habermann, Sha’arei Chabad, in Alei Ayin (Salman Schocken Festschrift) no. 190; Stefansky, Chassiduth 450 (with a variant title). Lemberg (Lvov), S.L. Flecker, 1861. Important Work of the Starosselje Branch of Chabad Chassidism. R. Aharon Halevi Horowitz (1766-1828) was for thirty years the preeminent disciple of the Alter Rebbe, R. Shneur Zalman, until the later’s death in 1812. A controversy then arose over succession, with some Chassidim accepting the oldest son R. Dov Baer as the new Rebbe, and others embracing R. Aharon Halevi. Ideologically, the son and the disciple differed over their approach to Avodah. R. Aharon encouraged an ecstatic form of prayer, while R. Dov Baer (referred to later as the Mitteler Rebbe) taught that worship must be focused inward and not display outer manifestations. To answer the challenge of the Starosselje school, R. Dov Baer penned Kuntress HaHithpa’aluth ('Tract on Ecstasy') a remarkable analysis of different spiritual states. In the first half of the twentieth century, R. Avraham Dov Baer Hakohen Levine (known as the 'Malach') encouraged his disciples (including many former students of Yeshiva Torah Voda’ath in Brooklyn) to study the works of R. Aharon Halevi of Starosselje. The present copy has the name of the printer and date in Latin letters (see Haberman no. 190). Although Vinograd and Stefansky state the Hebrew date to be 1842, Habermann correctly adds another “Kaf” from the acrostic verse, thus indicating that the secular and Hebrew dates correspond. This copy has 32 more leaves than noted by Habermann and Stefansky. See L. Jacobs, Seeker of Unity: The Life and Works of Aaron of Starosselje (1966); R. Elior, Torath Ha’Elokuth BeDor HaSheni shel Chasiduth Chabad (1982); M. Rosman, Founder of Hasidism (1996), pp. 189-211; R. Dov Baer Shneuri, Kuntres HaHithpa’aluth, in Ma’amrei Admo’r Ha’Emtza’i (1991) pp. 37-196.