Religious Studies Professor Geoffrey Claussen's new translation appears in a volume published by Brandeis University Press.
Geoffrey Claussen, Lori and Eric Sklut Scholar in Jewish Studies and Associate Professor of Religious Studies, has published a translation of a Hebrew-language text written by the founder of the Musar Movement, Rabbi Israel Salanter (1810-1883). The Musar movement was an Eastern European Jewish movement that sought to focus Jewish communities on individual moral formation.
The text, first published in the journal Tevunah in 1861 and 1862, describes the difficult process of changing moral character and considers how individual temperament and emotion contribute to the development of Jewish law.
Claussen’s translation appears in “Jewish Legal Theories: Writings on State, Religion, and Morality,” edited by Leora Batnitzky and Yonatan Brafman, and published by Brandeis University Press.