Tomer Devorah. With additional section “Gaon Yisrael” by R. Israel Salanter.

CORDOVERO, MOSES.

(A. Rosbach)

Koenigsberg

1858

Vinograd, Koenigsberg 216.

Despite Kabbalistic underpinnings, this became a widely consulted ethical work, the study of which was recommended by R. Israel Salanter the founder of the Mussar movement, whose famous letter on the importance of Mussar study is published here for the first time. This letter was republished many times under the title “Igereth HaMussar.” The publisher states here he is in fact himself a disciple of R. Israel Salanter and that this represents the first publication of any of his writings. Moshe Cordovero here laid the foundations for Kabbalistic ethical literature which proliferated in the 16th-18th centuries. Kabbalistic moralists were greatly influenced by Cordovero’s “Palm Tree of Deborah.” Each chapter of this short treatise provides instruction how to spiritually identify with each of the Ten Sefiroth.