רבי ישראל סלנטר

Nineteenth-century Lithuania was a superpower of Torah study, but Rabbi Yisrael Lipkin of Salant felt that something was missing: the work on character, on the heart, on what is between a person and his fellow. One could be great in Torah and not yet have refined oneself. This he came to repair.

He founded the Mussar movement: the systematic study of ethical works, such as 'Mesillat Yesharim' and 'Chovot HaLevavot,' not in cold analysis but with emotion, with melody, with repetition and with self-accounting, in order to change not only what a person knows but who he is.

The stories of his own character became a Torah in themselves: how he fled from honor, and how he set the dignity of others above the beautification of a mitzvah. It is told that on the eve of Yom Kippur he checked that the workers were not overworked, and that he dried his hands with only a little water so as not to burden the water-carrier. What is between a person and his fellow was as weighty in his eyes as what is between a person and God.

In his 'Iggeret HaMussar,' and in the book 'Ohr Yisrael' edited by his students, he set out his method, and from him came disciples who founded the great mussar yeshivas, Slabodka, Novardok and Kelm.

His insights were ahead of their time: he taught that the evil inclination works in depths not revealed to a person, that habit and environment shape the soul. Ideas that psychology would rediscover generations later, and he drew them all from the words of the Sages.

In his old age he crossed to Western Europe to strengthen Torah among assimilating Jews, for he cared about every Jew wherever he was.

Rabbi Yisrael Salanter teaches that the knowledge of Torah does not suffice without the work of the soul, and that the refinement of character is truly a life's work. His revolution reshaped the world of Torah, and to this day 'learning mussar' and working on one's character is part of his legacy.