[ethics, according to the creed of the medieval Chasidei Aschkenaz]. Anonymous

ORCHOTH TZADIKIM

Mordechai ben Gershom Katz

Prague

1580-81

FIRST EDITION under this title. Title within architectural pillars. Printers device on final leaf (Yaari, no. 40). Latin inscriptions on title, marginalia in a precise contemporay Ashkenazic hand citing sources and cross-references from the Zohar.

Vinograd, Prague 41

Cherished ethical work seeking to instruct man how to train the forces of the soul in such a way that one's actions tend toward the good and inculcate the fear of God. The work is divided into twenty-eight She’arim (portals or sections) elaborating on various specific moral qualities e.g. anger, envy, truth and falsehood, modesty, repentance, etc. For an insight into the origin of the Orchoth Tzadikim and its link with the Zitn-Buch (Sepher Hamidoth) - the oldest morality book to appear in Yiddish, see I. Zinberg, A History of Jewish Literature (1975) Vol. VII, p. 148-53