Here is a story about how the Rebbe increased learning of the Mishneh Torah with the blessing of Rav Ovadia Yosef...
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/900030/jewish/Daily-Study-of-Maimonides-Works.htm
Daily Study of Maimonides' Works
By Dovid ZaklikowskiIn the spring of 1984, the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of righteous memory, called for an innovative addition to the daily study schedule of every Jewish man, woman and child. He suggested that everyone study a portion of Maimonides' compendium of Jewish law, known as the Mishneh Torah or simply as Rambam.
While many people had been turning to the fourteen-volume work to supplement their study of the Talmud or Jewish law, it was not being studied as a text on its own. Maimonides' work was somewhat neglected, as the chief rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, wrote at the time, "The Rebbe brought Rambam back from being a book for scholars to being a book for the masses to study from."
Part of the reason for this neglect was because the Mishneh Torah includes many laws that are not relevant today for daily life—laws that only applied during Temple times, and will again be pertinent during the Messianic Era. So people turned, instead, to the works that focus on Jewish laws that are immediately applicable.
But it was for precisely this reason that the Rebbe recommended studying the Mishneh Torah: "It gathers all of Jewish law in a concise and clear fashion." Every individual is commanded to study the entire Torah, a goal not within reach for most people. However, it is possible to study the whole Torah as compiled by Maimonides.
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