Menachem Mendel married Schneersohn's daughter Chaya Mussya (1901–1988) in 1928.
The couple lived in Berlin and, from 1933, in Paris. In both cities Rabbi Menachem Mendel attended university courses, earning a diploma in electrical engineering from the Ecole Speciale des Travaux Publiques engineering college in Paris. He was also involved in editing the Habad rabbinic journal Ha Tamim, published in Warsaw from 1935 to 1939. This combination of secular study with traditional Torah knowledge was unusual in the Eastern European Hasidic movement, which championed the exclusive study of the Talmud and related literature. The Habad branch of Hasidism had always emphasized rationality. The term Habad (popular spelling: Chabad) is an acronym of three Hebrew words meaning wisdom, understanding, knowledge. The combination of "worldly" knowledge with intensive religious concern was to characterize Rabbi Menachem Mendel's later work as a religious leader.
When World War II broke out Rabbi Joseph Isaac was trapped in Poland and Menachem Mendel in France. Eventually the U.S. branch of Habad managed to rescue both rabbis and some of the members of their families; other relatives perished in the Holocaust.
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