Israel Salanter: Founder of Mussar (Jewish Biography as History) 

Your son, is fantastic. Usually I can't see the projected screen (to light), but he has it just right we could the projector screen and you perfectly; he's a keeper. And of course I absolutely love your lectures. I have learned so much.

Great Lecture Professor Abramson . Many wonderful stories I learned about Rabbi Israel Salanter But I thought they were just stories about different Rabbis then one day I discovered .So many of my favorite stories were about one man !

Thank you Alexander for the outstanding videography ;)

I like to think I am a direct descendant of Reb Yisroel Salanater - but it's rather distant - though traceable - now! Nice to hear you again. Last time was on Portugal cruise.

Thank you so much for the shiur. I have learned a lot.

2nd to view, I check every day for a new lecture, thank you so much for sharing your work with all of us.

Thank you for the fine lecture. I sent this to my life long friend Alan Salant, who by the way keeps a journal of everything he thinks and feels.

He heard that he had a son who was a mathematics genius and became a Professor at the University of Saint Petersburg. The son became totally "frei." This disturbed Rabbi Salanter greatly.

This is an excellent presentation, which I only now came across. A few small comments: the etymology of Mussar is misidentified as deriving from Limsor, to hand over. In fact it is from Leyaser (v). Yissyurim (n. pl.) Yasor Yisrani Yah...sizes the need for self denial, a dualistic view setting physical and spiritual as adversarial needs. The most extreme advocates were the Hasidei Ashkenaz, in the Franco-German lands of the High Middle Ages, and extended to the school of Mussar of Novarodek (Novardeker Yeshivot), which emphasizes "Shiflut ha-Adam". The other trend of Mussar championed by the Mussar masters of the Slobodka and later the Mirrer and Telzer Yeshivot was "Gadlut ha-Adam." And, the Cantonist system was abolished by Alexander 1st who was Czar from the death of Nicholas 1st in 1855 until his assassination in 1881, in 1864, a year after the liberation of the Russian serfs.

Dear Rabbi, Thank you for your channel. I find the lectures brilliant and I have nearly heard of them all. Do you plan on doing any lectures in the future about Yosef Karo and the Shulchan Aruch and the difference between the two minhags and how that might shape us today? I ask this as there is a common folklore that I hear that Sephardi rabbis are more lenient than those of the Ashkenaz and their posekim have some significant differences. Thank you anyway for the great work.

Your screens are almost impossible to see. Can you make them a darker contrast rather than the pastels? thank you. Enjoy your perspective.

Hi I am sorry to point you to a mistake, I hope you will not get offended. You have said regarding the tzar Nikolay 1 that he came to a leadership after the murder of his farther (whos name was Pavel, by the way). This is very not true. It was his brother Aleksandr 1 who took the leadership after his farther's murder. During the period of Aleksandr Russia had a famous war with Napoleon. Nikolay, who came to a leadership in 1825 after his brother passing, had a little rebellion at the very day of his coronation and, as consequences was indeed very strict towards everyone, especially Jewish population. He was a strict christian and he aimed to create a homogeneous nation. He thought that this is going to prevent a rebellion.

According to Chabad, Lilienthal was eventually caught embezzling money he had received from the Russian government, and thus fled to the United States.

Very nice

The 'LE' of my online name is Lipkin-Edwards, by the way.

I would relate מוסר to the root יסר - yisser - to rebuke, chastise, punish as Abraham Even-Shoshan does in the entry יסר on page 1674 of שורשים ונגזריהם and the entry יסר on page 496 of המילון החדש 1985 ISBN 965-17-084-x BTW, could you have a lecture on the revival of Modern Hebrew?

Freud's interpretation of dreams was finished in 1897, released in 1900. I had to double check, I thought it was 1901. but then again can we ever truly trust the google machine?

15:01 AMEN.

I wanted to get your take on Reb Yisrael Salanters relationship with the Chasidic movement. The impression I get is that although there are stories of him meeting Chasidic Rebbes, he never really studied there teachings. In other words he was kind of ignorant of their opinions and what they stood for. I was also kind of surprised that he never wanted to study Kabbalah which is definitely a part of Torah.

Yes, Jews like Chinese food. This is a prime example of "cultural appropriation." Just kidding, Professor!