Éthique

Before the treatises came the maxims. The treatise Avot — the "Maxims of the Fathers" — inserted into the Mishna toward the end of the second century, transmits a chain of moral transmission running from Moses to the teachers of the tannaitic era. These aphorisms, devoid of binding legal force, formulate an ideal of conduct: modesty of speech, fear of judgment, the value of work and study. They establish a genre in which ethics is expressed through brief, memorable sentences, intended to shape character rather than to settle a dispute.

The word musar, borrowed from biblical vocabulary where it means "correction, discipline, instruction," progressively designates the whole of this literature of moral improvement. Moussar (Jewish ethics) is already present in traditional Jewish sources from the Hebrew Bible, developing from the end of Antiquity with the Oral Torah — through the Midrash and the Mishna, then in the Talmuds — and gains greater importance in the Middle Ages. This ancient foundation explains the continuity of the genre: medieval authors would always claim descent from the sages of the Mishna, whose intention they prolonged. The transmission of this literature, long oral then set down in writing, has been the subject of scholarly analyses that have reconstructed its channels [Dan, The Transmission of Medieval Hebrew Ethical Literature, 1996].

The first great system of Jewish ethics is born in Muslim Spain. Rabbi Bahya ben Joseph ibn Paquda, a rabbinical judge probably active in Saragossa in the second half of the 11th century, composed a work that would prove landmark. The Law of the Duties of the Heart, better known by the title Duties of the Heart — in Arabic Kitab al-Hidaya ila Fara'id al-Qulub, "Guide to the Duties of the Heart," in Hebrew Hovot ha-Levavot — is one of the first and principal works of ethics in Judaism.

Bahya's audacity lies in distinguishing between the "duties of the members" — the visible acts regulated by law — and the "duties of the heart": love, fear, trust in God, humility, examination of conscience. According to scholarly tradition, his great work, the first synthetic code of Jewish ethics, appeared in Arabic, and was translated into Hebrew by Juda ibn Tibbon around 1161-1180 under the title Hovot ha-Levavot, "The Duties of the Heart." Written in the Arabic that was the language of culture for the Jews of al-Andalus, nourished by Sufi thought and Neoplatonic philosophy, the work inaugurates an ethics of interiority. Its diffusion, carried by the Tibbonide Hebrew translation, makes it one of the most widely read texts in the entire medieval Jewish world. The transmission of ethical teachings becomes, for the first time, a coherent system, something that the earlier tradition had not attempted [Sáenz-Badillos, The Literature of the Sephardic Jews and the Transmission of Ethics, 1995].

In the twelfth century, Maimonides (1138-1204), born in Cordova and died in Cairo, refounded Jewish ethics by joining it to Aristotelianism received through the Arab channel. In his introduction to the treatise Avot, known as the "Eight Chapters," and in the Hilkhot Deot of his great code, he defines virtue as a just middle ground between two excesses: generosity between stinginess and prodigality, courage between cowardice and recklessness. Moral perfection prepares intellectual perfection, which is the ultimate end of man.

Maimonides' influence on subsequent ethical literature was considerable and lasting, particularly in the Sephardic world where his philosophical authority established itself as a structuring reference [Davidson, Maimonides' Influence on Sephardic Ethical Literature, 2005]. He bequeathed a model: that of a rational ethics, articulated with the medicine of the soul, where the improvement of character is conceived as a therapeutic practice. This model coexisted for a long time, not without tensions, with the more devotional and internalized ethics of Bahya, the two currents together irrigating the moral culture of the communities of Spain and the Maghreb.

As the situation of Jews in Spain deteriorated in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, ethical literature changed its function: it became an instrument of consolation and collective moral reconstruction. Synagogal preaching, the sermon, took on an ethical content designed to strengthen communities tested by the persecutions of 1391 and by conversion pressure. This link between the pulpit and musar was brought to light by works devoted to medieval Spanish preaching [Saperstein, Preaching and Ethical Literature in Late Medieval Spain, 1990].

It is in this context that Israël al-Nakawa composed the Menorat ha-Maor, the "Chandelier of Light," a vast ethical anthology organized by themes, which draws on the Talmud and Midrash to offer a complete guide to life. The study of this work made it possible to situate precisely al-Nakawa's place in the tradition of Spanish musar, at the junction between learned compilation and popular manual [Saperstein, The Ethical Literature of Medieval Spain: Al-Nakawa and the Musar Tradition, 1985]. These collections, copied and recopied, ensured after the expulsion of 1492 the survival of a moral patrimony that the exiles carried with them throughout the Mediterranean basin.

A decisive turning point occurs in nineteenth-century Lithuania. The Mussar movement is a movement for ethical education aimed at promoting the teachings and practices adopted by Israel of Salant (1810-1883); his notions for revitalizing Jewish society gave rise, in the hands of his disciples, to structured programs. It was in 1810 that Rav Israel Lipkin of Salant, instigator of the Mussar movement, was born in Lithuania, initially intended for students of yeshivot, but whose idea spread very quickly.

Salanter reintroduced the regular and methodical study of musar texts — Bahya, Luzzatto's Mesillat Yesharim — at the heart of the curriculum of Talmudic academies. He made the mastery of impulses and self-examination a daily, almost psychological discipline, which anticipates certain modern intuitions about the unconscious. His disciples founded yeshivot where the "quarter hour of musar" became an institution. This movement durably transformed the spirituality of Eastern European Judaism, making ethics no longer a mere object of reading, but an existential exercise.

It is worth pausing over the term itself. Musar, root of biblical "correction," has in turn designated prophetic admonition, the Andalusian devotional treatise, the Spanish homiletic anthology, then the Lithuanian discipline of the soul. This semantic shift alone tells the history of a notion: what was pedagogical punishment becomes a culture of interiority, then a method of ascesis. Transmitted tradition and philological analysis converge here to show that the word has continually recharged itself with meaning without ever breaking with its core: the formation of the upright man.

The question, debated down to our own day, is whether musar belongs to law or to a distinct order. As normative ethics, it can involve questions of Jewish law as well as non-juridical questions, and can involve the convergence of Judaism and philosophical traditions. This porosity between halakha, morality, and philosophy constitutes precisely the space where, in the twentieth century, a new form of thought was about to surge forth.

In the twentieth century, Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995), born in Kaunas in Lithuania and trained in German phenomenology, brings about a major philosophical reversal. Against a Western tradition that had placed ontology at its foundation, he asserts that ethics is first philosophy: it is the encounter with the face of the Other, in its nakedness and vulnerability, that assigns me to responsibility before all knowledge and all choice. In his dialogues with Philippe Nemo, he develops this thesis for a broad audience [Levinas, Ethics and Infinity, 1982].

Levinas, stemming from the world of Lithuanian musar, extends in his own way Salanter's intuition that the Other obliges me. Research has moreover questioned the links between the two men: one may wonder whether there exist direct or indirect relations between the Mussar movement founded by R. Israël Salanter in 1840 and "ethics as first philosophy" of Emmanuel Levinas. Furthermore, his confrontation with Kantian morality has been studied carefully, showing how he displaces the universality of law toward the uniqueness of the relation to the Other [Chalier, Toward a Morality Beyond Knowledge. Kant and Levinas, 1998]. With Levinas, Jewish ethics joins great philosophy without ceasing to draw from its biblical source.

Bahya ben Joseph ibn Paquda (active around 1080, precise dates unknown) — Rabbinic judge of Saragossa, he composed in Arabic the Kitab al-Hidaya ila Fara'id al-Qulub, translated into Hebrew under the title Hovot ha-Levavot, "The Duties of the Heart". The first synthetic code of Jewish ethics, the work distinguishes outer duties from inner duties and founds a spirituality of self-examination. Nourished by Neoplatonism and Sufi motifs, it became one of the most widely read books of medieval Judaism and one of the pillars of all subsequent musar.

Moïse Maïmonide (1138–1204), Moshe ben Maïmon, the Rambam — Born in Cordova, died in Cairo, philosopher, physician and codifier. In the "Eight Chapters" and the Hilkhot Deot, he defines virtue as the mean path between two extremes and makes ethics a medicine of the soul preparing intellectual perfection. His influence on Sephardic ethical literature was decisive and lasting, offering a model of rational ethics that coexisted with more devotional currents.

Israël al-Nakawa († 1391) — Spanish author of the late Middle Ages, he composed the Menorat ha-Maor, "Candelabrum of Light", a vast ethical anthology organized by themes and drawing from the Talmud and Midrash. He died during the persecutions of 1391, leaving a guide to life that structured the moral culture of Spanish communities on the eve of the expulsion and spread among Sephardic exiles.

Israël Lipkin of Salant (1810–1883), Rabbi Israël Salanter — Born in Lithuania, he founded around 1840 the movement of Musar. He reintroduced the methodical study of ethical treatises at the heart of yeshivot and made self-mastery and inner examination a daily discipline. His disciples founded academies where musar became an institution, durably transforming the spirituality of Eastern European Judaism.

Emmanuel Levinas (1906–1995) — Born in Kaunas, French philosopher of Lithuanian origin, introducer of phenomenology to France. He affirmed ethics as first philosophy, founded on the responsibility awakened in me by the face of the other. His dialogues Ethics and Infinity (1982) made his thought accessible; issuing from the world of Lithuanian musar, he made the biblical source and the great tradition of Western philosophy dialogue.

Juda ibn Tibbon (ca. 1120 – ca. 1190) — Translator established in Lunel in Provence, called "father of translators". He transposed from Arabic into Hebrew, around 1161-1180, the Duties of the Heart by Bahya, making accessible to non-Arabic-speaking communities this pillar of Jewish ethics. His work ensured the European circulation of a moral heritage born in Muslim Spain.

From the tannaitic maxim to the phenomenological dialogue, Jewish ethics traces a remarkably continuous trajectory beneath its metamorphoses. The same term, musar, will have encompassed biblical correction, the Andalusian treatise on inner duties, the homiletic anthology of persecuted Spain, Lithuanian self-discipline, before resonating in Levinas's thesis of responsibility for the Other. At each stage, the same conviction: that man shapes himself, that character is worked upon, and that relation to the other engages a duty prior to all calculation.

This history teaches that ethics has never been, in Judaism, a supplement to the soul, but the beating heart of tradition — capable of thinking itself in turn as code, as preaching, as ascesis or as first philosophy. It is in this plasticity, and in fidelity to its source, that its enduring vitality resides.