Musar literature is didactic Jewish ethical literature which describes virtues and vices and the path towards character improvement. This literature gives the name to the Musar movement, in 19th century Lithuania, but this article considers such literature more broadly.
Definition
Musar literature is often described as "ethical literature." Professor Geoffrey Claussen describes it as "Jewish literature that discusses virtue and character."
Professors
Isaiah Tishby and
Joseph Dan have described it as "prose literature that presents to a wide public views, ideas, and ways of life in order to shape the everyday behavior, thought, and beliefs of this public."
[Isaiah Tishby and Joseph Dan, Mivhar sifrut ha-mussar (Jerusalem, 1970), 12.] Musar literature traditionally depicts the nature of moral and spiritual perfection in a methodical way. It is "divided according to the component parts of the ideal righteous way of life; the material is treated methodically – analyzing, explaining, and demonstrating how to achieve each moral virtue (usually treated in a separate chapter or section) in the author's ethical system."
[Joseph Dan, "Ethical Literature" Encyclopaedia Judaica, ed. Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik, 2nd ed., vol. 6.]
Musar literature can be distinguished from other forms of Jewish ethics literature such as aggadic narrative and halakhic literature.
Early Musar literature
Ethical monotheism originated in early Judaism, and along with it came the highly didactic ethics in the Torah and later works.
Mishlei is commonly regarded as a musar classic in its own right and is arguably the first true sefer musar. In fact, the Hebrew word musar (מוסר, 'discipline'), being the eponymous name for the literature, stems from the term's extensive use in the biblical book.
An example from the Tanakh is the earliest known text of the positive form of the famous "Golden Rule":[Gunther Plaut, The Torah — A Modern Commentary; Union of American Hebrew Congregations, New York 1981; pp.892.]
Hillel the Elder (c. 110 BCE – 10 CE)[[http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=730&letter=H Jewish Encyclopedia: Hillel]: "His activity of forty years is perhaps historical; and since it began, according to a trustworthy tradition (Shab. 15a), one hundred years before the destruction of Jerusalem, it must have covered the period 30 B.C.E. -10 C.E."] taught the verse as the most important of the [[Torah]]. Once, he was challenged by a ''[[ger toshav]]'' who asked to be converted under the condition that the Torah be explained to him while he stood on one foot. Hillel accepted him as a candidate for conversion to Judaism, but, drawing on , briefed the man:
Pirkei Avot is a compilation of Jewish ethics and related teachings the Rabbis of the Mishnah period and part of didactic Jewish ethical musar literature. Because of its contents, it is also called Ethics of the Fathers. The teachings of Pirkei Avot appear in the Mishnaic Talmud Avot, the second-to-last tractate in the order of Nezikin in the Mishnah. Pirkei Avot is unique in that it is the only tractate of the Mishnah dealing solely with ethical and moral principles; there is little halakha found in Pirkei Avot.
Medieval Musar literature
Medieval works of Musar literature were composed by a range of rabbis and others, including rationalist philosophers and adherents of Kabbalistic mysticism.
Joseph Dan has argued that medieval Musar literature reflects four different approaches: the philosophical approach; the standard
Rabbinic Judaism; the approach of Chassidei Ashkenaz; and the
Kabbalistic approach.
Philosophical Musar literature
Philosophical works of Musar include:
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Chovot ha-Levavot by Bahya ibn Paquda
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Hilchot Deot in Sefer ha-Madah of Mishneh Torah by Maimonides
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Sefer Hayashar (the ethical work, not to be confused with the many other unrelated works of the same name), published anonymously
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Shemona Perakim ("The Eight Chapters"):, the introduction to Pirkei Avot in Maimonides' commentary to the Mishnah.
Standard Rabbinic Musar literature
Rabbinic Judaism Musar literature came as a reaction to philosophical literature, and tried to show that the Torah and standard rabbinic literature taught about the nature of virtue and vice without recourse to Aristotelian or other philosophical concepts. Classic works of this sort include
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Ma'alot ha-Middot by Rabbi Yehiel ben Yekutiel Anav of Rome
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Shaarei Teshuvah (The Gates of Repentance) by Rabbi Yonah Gerondi
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Menorat ha-Ma'or by Israel Al-Nakawa b. Joseph of Toledo
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Menorat ha-Ma'or by Isaac Aboab
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Orchot Tzaddikim ( The Ways of the Righteous), by an anonymous author
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Meneket Rivkah by Rebecca bat Meir Tiktiner
Similar works were produced by rabbis who were Kabbalists but whose Musar writings did not bear a kabbalistic character: Nahmanides' Sha'ar ha-Gemul, which focuses on various categories of just and wicked people and their punishments in the world to come; and Rabbi Bahya ben Asher's Kad ha-Kemah.
Medieval Ashkenazi-Hasidic Musar literature
Chassidei Ashkenaz (literally "the Pious of Germany") was a Jewish movement in the 12th century and 13th century founded by Rabbi Judah the Pious (Rabbi Yehuda HeChassid) of
Regensburg, Germany, which was concerned with promoting Jewish piety and morality. The most famous work of Musar literature produced by this school was
The Book of the Pious (
Sefer Hasidim).
Medieval Kabbalistic Musar literature
Explicitly
Kabbalistic mystical works of Musar literature include
Tomer Devorah (
The Palm Tree of Deborah) by Moses ben Jacob Cordovero,
Reshit Chochmah by Eliyahu de Vidas, and
Kav ha-Yashar by Tzvi Hirsch Kaidanover.
Modern Musar literature
Literature in the genre of Musar literature continued to be written by modern Jews from a variety of backgrounds.
Mesillat Yesharim
Mesillat Yesharim is a Musar text published in Amsterdam by Moshe Chaim Luzzatto in the 18th century. It is perhaps the most important work of Musar literature of the post-medieval period. The
Vilna Gaon commented that he could not find a superfluous word in the first seven chapters of the work and stated that he would have traveled to meet the author and learn from his ways if he'd still been alive.
Ottoman Musar literature
According to Julia Phillips Cohen, summarizing the work of Matthias B. Lehmann on Musar literature in
Ottoman Empire Sephardic society:
Beginning in the eighteenth century, a number of Ottoman rabbis had undertaken the task of fighting the ignorance they believed was plaguing their communities by producing works of Jewish ethics ( musar) in Judeo-Spanish (also known as Ladino). This development was inspired in part by a particular strain within Jewish mysticism (Lurianic Kabbalah) which suggested that every Jew would necessarily play a role in the mending of the world required for redemption. The spread of ignorance among their coreligionists thus threatened to undo the proper order of things. It was with this in mind that these Ottoman rabbis--all capable of publishing in the more highly esteemed Hebrew language of their religious tradition--chose to write in their vernacular instead. While they democratized rabbinic knowledge by translating it for the masses, these "vernacular rabbis" (to use Matthias Lehmann's term) also attempted to instill in their audiences the sense that their texts required the mediation of individuals with religious training. Thus, they explained that common people should gather together to read their books in meldados, or study sessions, always with the guidance of someone trained in the study of Jewish law.[Julia Phillips Cohen, http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=26171]
Among the most popular works of Musar literature produced in Ottoman society was Elijah ha-Kohen's Shevet Musar, first published in Judaeo-Spanish in 1748.[Matthias B. Lehmann, Ladino rabbinic literature and Ottoman Sephardic culture, 6, 9] Pele Yoetz by Rabbi Eliezer Papo (1785–1826) was another exemplary work of this genre.
Haskalah Musar literature
In Europe, leaders of the
Haskalah made significant contributions to Musar literature.
[Shmuel Feiner, David Jan Sorkin, New perspectives on the Haskalah, page 49][David Sorkin, The transformation of German Jewry, 1780-1840, page 46] Naphtali Hirz Wessely wrote a Musar text titled
Sefer Ha-Middot (Book of Virtues) in approximately 1786. Menachem Mendel Lefin of
Satanov wrote a text titled
Cheshbon Ha-Nefesh (Moral Accounting) in 1809, based in part on the ethical program described in the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.
[Nancy Sinkoff, Out of the Shtetl: Making Jews Modern in the Polish Borderlands (Brown Judaic Studies, 2020), pp. 50-167; Shai Afsai, " Benjamin Franklin’s Influence on Mussar Thought and Practice: a Chronicle of Misapprehension," Review of Rabbinic Judaism 22, 2 (2019): 228-276; Shai Afsai, "The Sage, the Prince & the Rabbi," Philalethes 64, 3 (2011): 101-109,128.]
Hasidic Musar literature
One form of literature in the
Hasidic movement was tracts collecting and instructing mystical-ethical practices. These include
Tzavaat HaRivash ("Testament of Rabbi Yisroel Baal Shem") and Tzetl Koton by Elimelech of Lizhensk, a seventeen-point program on how to be a good Jew. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov's Sefer ha-Middot is a
Hasidic classic of Musar literature.
Mitnagdic and Yeshivish Musar literature
The "Musar letter" of the
Vilna Gaon, an ethical will by an
Mitnagdim of the Hasidic movement, is regarded by some as a classic of Musar literature.
[ "The Mussar Way" , Mussar Institute website, accessed 11-22-2010] Many of the writings of Yisrael Meir Kagan have also been described as Musar literature.
Literature by the Musar movement
The modern
Musar movement, beginning in the 19th century, encouraged the organized study of medieval Musar literature to an unprecedented degree while producing its own Musar literature. Significant Musar writings were made by leaders of the movement, such as Rabbis
Israel Salanter, Simcha Zissel Ziv, Yosef Yozel Horwitz, and
Eliyahu Dessler.
The movement established musar learning as a regular part of the curriculum in the
Lithuanian Jews Yeshiva world, acting as a bulwark against contemporary forces of secularism.
Musar literature by Reform rabbis
Musar literature has been composed by Reform rabbis including Ruth Abusch-Magder, noted for her writing on humility, and
Karyn Kedar, noted for her writing on forgiveness.
Musar literature by Conservative rabbis
Musar literature has been composed by Conservative rabbis, including
Amy Eilberg (noted for her writing on curiosity and courage) and
Danya Ruttenberg (noted for her writing on curiosity).
Rabbi Ira F. Stone, founder of the Center for Contemporary Mussar, is the author of _A Responsible Life; Thje Spiritual Path of Mussar_, as well as a commentary on the classic Mussar texts Mesillat Yesharim and Tomer Devorah.
Musar literature by Reconstructionist rabbis
Musar literature has been composed by Reconstructionist rabbis, including
Susan Schnur (noted for her writing on forgiveness),
Sandra Lawson (noted for her writing on curiosity),
Rebecca Alpert (noted for her writing on humility), and
Mordecai Kaplan (noted for his writing on humility).
Schnur's writings show how gender matters in discussion of forgiveness as a virtue.
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