[BaronPhilip]

Here's some possibly helpful historical background for a discussion going on on another thread. You might also appreciate this even if you weren't interested in how Benjamin Franklin got into a mussar sefer.

(As always, questions and/or comments are welcome.)

The author of the classic mussar sefer Cheshbon HaNefesh was Mendel Lefin of Satonov, a Eastern European Jew who went West for university and became part of the first generation of the early Berlin Haskalah, all students or colleagues in a circle centering on Moses Mendelssohn. Nearly all these men were fully observant and a few were accomplished talmidei chachomim in their own right. Mendelssohn assigned Mendel Lefin to translate certain medical and other scientific books to Hebrew so that Jews could be more educated.

Mendel Lefin also collaborated with a leading misnagdic rabbinic leader on at least one occasion to produce a powerful and vicious polemic against the spreading new movement of chassidus. The early Haskalah and the talmidei ha-gra both regarded chassidus as a plague of alcohol, superstition, and ignorance presided over by an elite class of hucksters, men who had mastered the art of tricking people into thinking they had theurgical, magical, and/or prophetical powers. The early Haskalah and some talmidei ha-Gra also shared an eagerness to expand the study of basic secular learning among the Jewish people.

At one point, Mendel Lefin read a French translation of Benjamin Franklin's autobiography. We know this because we have a letter he sent to another member of the "Berlin circle" in which he mentions that he was in the middle of reading it. (The autobiography had recently come out and was a big hit in Europe.)

When Mendel Lefin wrote the Sefer Cheshbon HaNefesh, he was basically pulling a "Miriam Adahan". Just as she takes secular ideas and adapts them into Torah versions of them, so too he took ideas about character and morality from secular sources and presented this moral wisdom in a "kosher" genre, that of the classic mussar sefer. The hakdomoh to the sefer is a theory of the soul and human perfection that is lifted straight out of the cutting-edge 18th-century Western Enlightenment thought that Lefin would have encountered in university. The rest of the sefer includes a description of a excellent, intricate mussar technique for self-improvement. This technique had been the brainchild of Benjamin Franklin, a naughty-but-well-meaning Dale Carnegie of his day. How was this mussar and wisdom from the goyishe world presented to the Jewish people by Lefin? The format and genre are that of the classic mussar seforim. (This literary genre was invented by the rishonim (e.g. Chovos HaLevovos) and continues to this very day.) So Sefer Cheshbon HaNefesh is filled cover to cover with discussions of pesukim and maamorei Chazal on yiras shomoyim, ahavas ha-Borei, zerizus le-mitzvos, and tikkun ha-middos.

There were other mussar seforim like Cheshbon HaNefesh written by other observant members of the early Haskalah. (e.g. Sefer HaMiddos, by Naftali Hertz Vizel (Naphtali Herz Wesslely)) Do you seen them in seforim stores often? Of course not. So then why did Cheshbon HaNefesh survive when the others didn't?

Fifty years passed after the initial printing before the Sefer Cheshbon HaNefesh was reprinted. The man who arranged to have it brought back into print again was Rav Yisroel Salanter, and he had it reprinted in Vilna. The book probably would have passed into obscurity had not R. Salanter been so convinced that it was just the kind of study-book he wanted for his new Mussar Movement. Professor Immanuel Etkes of the Hebrew University has pointed out many points of similarity between the theories presented in the hakdomoh to Cheshbon HaNefesh and R. Yisroel Salanter's own writings on the development of the human soul.

The study of Sefer Cheshbon HaNefesh never became widespread in the frum world. But steadfast affection for it was always maintained by talmidim in the elite mussar yeshivos. For example, in the interwar period, the Vaad HaTalmidim of the Slabodka yeshiva arranged for a printing of the sefer. It is interesting to note that perhaps the majority of leading roshei yeshiva in the post-war period were produced by the Slabodka yeshiva. That yeshiva also happened to be the last real tradition-bearer of a older, more moderate Litvishe yeshivishe culture that was open to learning the truth even if the source happened to be gentile. True greatness.

[shim]

Thanks for posting that.

I find this interesting:

Quote

It is interesting to note that perhaps the majority of leading roshei yeshiva in the post-war period were produced by the Slabodka yeshiva. That yeshiva also happened to be the last real tradition-bearer of an older, more moderate Litvishe yeshivishe culture that was open to learning the truth even if the source happened to be gentile. True greatness.

That was partly my point in the Franklin thread.

However, I do find it interesting that the majority of the leading Roshei Yeshiva in the post-war period who were products of Slabodka are responsible in large part for the present yeshivishe culture and that culture is not open to that kind of learning.

[BaronPhilip]

shim, on Oct 26 2004, 09:55 AM, said:

However, I do find it interesting that the majority of the leading Roshei Yeshiva in the post-war period who were products of Slabodka are responsible in large part for the present yeshivishe culture and that culture is not open to that kind of learning.

I believe that that is because of two factors: (1) the influence of Hungarian and chassidic Jews on the yeshiva world and, at least regarding the situation here in America, (2) the influence of staunchly conservative Rav Aharon Kotler on the yeshiva world. The second point may have been one of the reasons the book Making of a Godol was written.

(Did you know that in the 1950s Chaim Berlin and Torah Vodaas were going to merge and become a large "yeshiva university", a frummer version of YU? Rav Hutner and Rav Mendlowitz were all for it. But Rav Aharon Kotler nixed the idea.)

[Melech]

melech said:

Shim - just call or email R. Bernstein.

or wait for BaronPhilip to weigh in

[micha]

Speaking of Orthodox maskilim who "made it" -- how about the Maharitz Chajes?

As for the comparison to Miriam Adahan... It fails at one very significant point. He took Franklin's tool, but his list of middos diverges significantly from Franklin's virtues. He was clearly adapting a methodology to standard he pulled from Judaism. Modern Orthodox self-help books tend to minimize the gap between the values of the American self-help culture and those of Judaism. Self-help aims at allowing people to maximize their autonomy, to be all they want to be. Mussar aims at showing people what they're supposed to be. If one takes a self-help tool and uses it to become what the Torah tells us we should be, one is following chakhmah bagoyim ta'amin ([the claim that] there is wisdom among the nations you should believe). The effect of lifting more than the toolset is to create a distinctly modern value system, one whose authenticity to the mesorah is imperfect.

Bemechilas kavod Torasam, I do not understand how Miriam Adahan or Rabbi Twersky, or numerous other contemporary writers do not fit this charge. I persume Rabbi Twersky knows better than I, but that still leaves me ignorant. Particularly in his case, where he is explicitly recasting and intentionally the Torah's ideal of how to be in the light of that defined by the 12 Steps.

[Halevi]

Speaking of the Mahritz Chajes, did anyone read his biography as written by Rebbetzin Beruria David in her doctoral thesis? It's available online. According to the "in" people in Yeshiva Chaim Berlin her father (Rav Hutner) went over every word of it and was proud of it. IMHO it doesn't appear too earthshaking.

[artscroll]

Halevi, on Nov 16 2006, 03:46 PM, said:

Speaking of the Mahritz Chajes, did anyone read his biography as written by Rebbetzin Beruria David in her doctoral thesis? It's available online. According to the "in" people in Yeshiva Chaim Berlin her father (Rav Hutner) went over every word of it and was proud of it. IMHO it doesn't appear too earthshaking.

It pretty much takes a negative view of him. I think Rebetzin David found the idea of "between traditionalist and maskil" to mean something like "maskil mit ah burd un peyos."

[Halevi]

To me it seems the thesis seems quite shallow and simplistic. I expected more from her and her father. Also, for those who know Rav Hutner's background, I think there is a clear reason why The Maharitz Chajes was picked for study and analysis.

[artscroll]

Halevi, on Nov 16 2006, 04:05 PM, said:

I expected more from her and her father.

He didn't write it.

[Halevi]

I'm sure she showed him everything beforehand, and was guided by him along the way.

[artscroll]

What can I tell you. No one ever accused R Hutner of being a Jewish historian.