THE PRESENT volume is devoted to the thought and life-
work of Rabbi Israel Salanter, ¹ who, in the 1840s, began to disseminate
the message of his Mussar movement. While the term Mussar has had
a variety of meanings in Hebrew literature and historical periods, ² in
Salanter's writings the term is used to denote both the effort and the
means employed to attain religio-ethical self-perfection and self-re-
straint. Through this movement, Salanter hoped to foster a spiritual
and ethical renewal within Lithuanian Jewry. His message had three
components: the demand that ethical self-perfection be a priority of the
Jew, the identification of the ethical weak point in the realm of human
relations, and the creation of a new and promising system of religio-
ethical improvement.

It would be difficult to find another such instance in the history of
Eastern European Jewry during the modern period in which the labor
and initiative of a single individual could be credited with the birth and
initial growth of a new movement. Salanter originated the theoretical
basis for the Mussar movement, organized its first cells while spreading
its message to the public, and headed the movement until his death in
the early 1880s, at which time his disciples took over his efforts. It is
therefore not surprising that the history of the Mussar movement over-
laps, to a large extent, the biography of Rabbi Israel Salanter.

The present work is therefore limited to the relationship between
the Mussar movement and its founder and first leader. I do not discuss
here the development of the Mussar movement following the death of
Salanter, nor those manifestations of it that took place during his life-
time that were not directly related to him. On the other hand, I have
attempted in this work to encompass the main facets of Rabbi Israel's

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