Nephesh HaChaim [ethics].

Written by the principle disciple of the Vilna Gaon, R. Chaim Volozhin was the acknowledged leader of the Mitnagdic Movement following his establishment of his Yeshiva in 1802. His writings were highly influential within elite scholarly Lithuanian Yeshiva circles. Based on complex interpretations of the Zohar and other Kabbalistic texts, the Nephesh HaChaim is the most fundamental tract to outline the weltanschauung of Lithuanian Jewry: An in-depth study of Man and his purpose in this world and his relationship with God, prayer and Torah. In part, it was composed in response to the Tanya by R. Schneur Zalman of Liadi. See A. Nadler, The Faith of the Mithnagdim- Rabbinic Responses to Hasidic Rapture (1997), pp. 4-7. For a scholarly exposition of the author’s thought pertaining to the selfless study of Torah, see N. Lamm, Torah Lishmah (1989). Recently, an extensive four-volume edition with commentary by R. Shlomo Aviner was published by Yeshivat Ateret Yerushalayim (2011).