Sechel, are you ever going to understand that outside of your community, the writings of the Lubavitcher rebbe in likutei sichos etc… have little influence?
I’m not interested in reading his thoughts on what is more important in my life. Zos hatorah lonsehey muchlefes. It doesn’t change. Talmud torah keneged kulam – the rambam also writes that there is no mitzvah “that is keneged all the mitzvos” meaning other mitzvos it says “kneged kulam” like yishuv ererz yisroel etc., But none of them are equal to Torah.
And he was after the gemara.
I’m also not interested in the countless commentaries chabad churns out on tanya; it’s a sefer like any other chasidishe sefer, snd it can be learned the same way. I learn it with as much iyun as i did sfas emes and meor aynayim. The tanya actually clarified a lot of ideas for me which i learned in meor aynayim.
I looked up the source in kuntres acharon. Of course, he says no such thing. He says that the ikkar “birur” is through tefilah, even though Torah is higher. That doesn’t mean our ikkar avodah and time investment should be in tefilah. It means that tefilah accomplishes something important which Torah doesn’t in our time. This would actually explain why people who are patur from davening because they’re toraso umnaso (rebbes, according to rav meir shapiro) still daven, because there are things which tefilah alone can accomplish.
It’s also not even his own chidush – he’s just quoting the Arizal!
And he doesn’t mention “the time of the gemara,” rather he just says that “bazman hazeh the ikkar birur is through tefilah” – i don’t know when bazman hazeh started; maybe it was after the churban?
Whoever taught you tanya really did a number on you. That’s a problem with chabad; too much chiddushim on esoteric and lofty concepts which lead to forsaking basic yiddishkeit.