and 
.INTRODUCTION
1. Rosh Hashanah 21.
2. Hilchot Teshuvah (Laws of Repentance) 5:2.
3. In the Talmud (Kiddushin 32b), the sage Rava cites Psalms 1:2, which says, “And in his Torah he meditates day and night,” in support of the idea that one is meant to “acquire” the wisdom of Torah, to make it “his Torah”—i.e., part and parcel of one’s being.
4. Born in Poland in 1872, died in Israel in 1970.
5. Bridging the Gap (Jerusalem and New York: Feldheim, 2007), p. 148.
6. Rabbi Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman Kremer (1720–97).
7. Known as the Alter of Kelm (1824–98).
CHAPTER 1. Study
1. Chagigah 5b.
2. Deuteronomy 11:19.
3. Shir HaShirim Rabbah 8.
4. Nefesh ha’Chaim, gate 4, chapter 10.
5. Rabbi Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz (1878–1953); Kovetz Igrot 1:1.
6. From his book Chochma U’Mussar (New York: Yeru-cham Levovitz, 1957), vol. 2, chapter 113.
7. On Proverbs 19:9 and in his commentary to Berachot 8a.
8. “May My teaching drop like rain, may My utterance flow like dew” (Deuteronomy 32:2).
CHAPTER 2. Attentive Listening
1. Published as Ohr Yisrael (The Light of Israel), in 1890, originally in Hebrew and now also available in an English translation by Rabbi Zvi Miller (Southfield, Mich.: Targum Press, 2004).
2. Deuteronomy 6:4.
3. Jeremiah 6:10.
4. See the Vilna Gaon’s commentary to Proverbs 11:2 for more on the connection between humility and learning.
5. As quoted in Fertig, Bridging the Gap, p. 37.
CHAPTER 3. Orderly Speech
1. In about 110 C.E.
2. Genesis 2:7.
3. Ruach memalala.
4. Nefesh HaChaim 1:15.
5. Orot HaKodesh, vol. 3, p. 285.
6. Genesis 1:3.
7. “With ten utterances the world was created” (Pirkei Avot 5:1).
8. Commentary to Pirkei Avot 1:17.
9. Arachin 15b.
10. Rabbi Yisrael Meir HaKohen Kagan wrote two major works on the laws of speech: Chafetz Chaim (Desirer of Life) and Shmirat HaLashon (Guarding the Tongue), both 1873.
11. Chofetz Chaim: A Lesson a Day (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Mesorah Publications, 1995), p. 53.
CHAPTER 4. Understanding of the Heart
1. In some versions, this method is given as kavanat ha’lev, the intentions of the heart. Some versions of Pirkei Avot have this method as sichlut halev, which literally is “intelligence of the heart.”
2. Kohelet Rabbah 1:36.
3. 1 Kings 3:5.
4. “Solomon’s wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the people of the East, and greater than all the wisdom of Egypt” (1 Kings 4:30).
5. Da’at Torah (Jerusalem: Daas Torah Publications, 1976, 1995), vol. 2, p. 102.
6. There is a history of such divine agents assisting Jewish teachers, including Rabbi Yosef Karo and Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto. Such an emissary is known as a maggid. This story is from Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin’s introduction to the Vilna Gaon’s Safra d’Tzniuta.
7. Iggeret HaGra, included with his work Even Shleimah, edited by Rabbi Shmuel of Slotzk (Vilna, Lithuania: Tzvi Hirsch, 1924).
CHAPTER 5. Fear
1. Exodus 24:12–18.
2. Shabbat 87b–88a.
3. “Iggeret Ha’Mussar” (The Mussar Letter), in Ohr Yisrael, trans. Zvi Miller (Southfield, Mich.: Targum Press, 2004), pp. 391–409.
4. Ibid., p. 397.
5. A yirei shamayim.
6. Path of the Just, trans. Shraga Silverstein (Jerusalem and New York: Feldheim, 1966), chapter 24, p. 313.
7. Exodus 20:17.
8. Berachot 33b.
9. Ein Eyah (Jerusalem: Machon Hartzyah, 1995), vol. 3, p. 157.
10. Ibid.
CHAPTER 6. Awe
1. Berachot 28b.
2. Orot Ha’Kodesh (Lights of Holiness; Jerusalem: Mossad Ha’Rav Kook, 1963), 1:83.
3. Jonah 1:16.
4. “The yirah of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding” (Proverbs 9:10).
5. Da’at Chochma U’Mussar, vol. 2, chapters 51–53 (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Da’as Chochmah U’Mussar Publications, 1972).
CHAPTER 7. Humility
1. Referring here to anavah, the most common, though not the only, term for “humility” in Hebrew.
2. Numbers 12:13.
3. Exodus 2:11.
4. Exodus 2:13.
5. Exodus 2:17.
6. Known as Rebbi, or “our holy teacher,” b. 135 C.E. The Mishnah is an authoritative collection of interpretive material embodying the oral tradition of Jewish law and forming the first part of the Talmud, compiled about 200 C.E.
7. Sotah 49a.
8. Known as the Netziv.
9. Sanhedrin 42a, citing Proverbs 14:4.
10. Path of the Just, chapter 22.
11. In the Talmud, Avodah Zarah 20b, referring to Isaiah 61:1.
12. Chochma U’Mussar, vol. 2, ma’amar 115, p. 95.
CHAPTER 8. Joy
1. 1 Samuel 18:1.
2. The sages referred to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as yesharim, as in Avodah Zarah 25a.
3. Psalms 119:14.
4. Yishrei lev.
5. Pirkei Avot 2:4.
6. Leviticus 19:1.
7. and .
CHAPTER 9. Serving the Sages
1. 2 Kings 3:11.
2. Berachot 7b.
3. Bamidbar Rabbah 21:14.
4. Sotah 22a, Berachot 47b; “ignoramus” is am ha’aretz.
5. Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv (1824–98) was a primary disciple of Rav Yisrael Salanter and the founder and director of the Kelm Yeshiva. He was known as the “Alter of Kelm,” alter meaning “elder,” an appellation of honor.
6. Based on volume 2 of Tenuat HaMussar (The Mussar Movement), by Rabbi Dov Katz (Tel Aviv: Bitan haSefer Publishing, 1952, 1963).
CHAPTER 10. Closeness to Friends
1. Ta’anit 23a; ha’ma’agal means “the circle maker.”
2. It sounds better in Aramaic: “O chevrusa o mesusa.”
3. Lectures he gave in the years between the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War were collected and published as “Psychiatria ve’Dat” (“Psychiatry and Religion”) in the journal Bishvilei ha’Refu’ah, vol. 5, Sivan 5742, pp. 57–90.
4. Ta’anit 7a.
5. Kiddushin 30b.
6. Ibid.
7. Chochma U’Mussar (New York: Ateret Roshanu, 2000), vol. 2, p. 284; ma’amar 290.
8. Strive for Truth!, edited by Rabbi Aryeh Carmell (New York: Feldheim, 1978), vol. 1, p. 130.
9. Sukkah 52b.
10. Founder of the Sassov Chassidic dynasty.
CHAPTER 11. Debating with Students
1. Genesis 18:16–33.
2. Sanhedrin 111b.
3. Shabbat 31a.
4. Kiddushin 30b.
5. Ohr Yisrael, letter 6.
6. Pirkei Avot 5:17.
7. Ta’anit 7a.
8. Derech Chayim (a commentary on Pirkei Avot; Jerusalem: Makhon Yerushalayim, 2005).
9. Ta’anit 7a.
10. Baba Metzia 84a.
11. Rabbi Shmuel Eliezer Edels (1555–1631).
12. Sanhedrin 42b.
CHAPTER 12. Settledness
1. Eruvin 65a.
2. Rabbeinu Nissim of Catalonia in the tenth essay in his work Derashot HaRan (Jerusalem: Beit Ha’Mussar, 1986).
3. Alei Shur, vol. 1, pp. 194–96.
4. Michtav mi’Eliyahu, vol. 4 (Tel Aviv: Sifriati Religious Book Agency, 2001), p. 240.
5. Ein Ayah, part 2 (Jerusalem: Makhon Rabbi Tzvi Yehudah Kook, 1987), 111.
CHAPTER 13. Studying the Written and Oral Torah
1. Kiddushin 30a.
2. Deuteronomy 6:8.
3. In regard to tefillin, the Talmud fills in many details. See Menachot 34–37.
4. Megillah 16b.
5. Mishnah Pe’ah 1:1.
CHAPTER 14. Purity
1. For example, in Leviticus 14:8, where a person defiled by disease is given instructions to wash and be cleansed.
2. Post-Talmudic writers of rabbinic glosses on Biblical and Talmudic texts.
3. Path of the Just, trans. Shraga Silverstein (Jerusalem and New York: Feldheim, 1966), p. 205.
4. “Rabbi Elazar ha’Kappar said: ‘Envy, lust and the pursuit of honor take a person out of this world’” (Pirkei Avot 4:21), again bringing out the theme of separation.
5. Path of the Just, chapter 16.
6. Shabbat 119b.
7. Reish Lakish.
CHAPTER 15. Limiting Sleep
1. Hilchot Deot 3, 3.
2. Pirkei Avot 3:4–5.
3. Introduction to the Biur HaGra, the commentary the Vilna Gaon wrote on the Shulchan Aruch.
4. This practice is referred to as tikkun chatzot—literally, the fixing (in a spiritual sense) at midnight. While this custom is not widely practiced today, even among the most pious Jews, it is mentioned in the first chapter of the Shulchan Aruch, the code of Jewish law, not as a directive but as something that was practiced.
5. Joshua 1:8 (emphasis is mine).
6. Eruvin 65a.
7. Nedarim 15a; also, Rav Yehudah: “Night was made for sleeping” (Eruvin 65).
8. Path of the Just, chapter 6.
9. Hilchot Teshuvah 3:4.
CHAPTER 16. Limiting Conversation
1. Deuteronomy 6:7.
2. Reported in Rabbi Chaim Ephraim Zaitchik, Sparks of Mussar (New York: Feldheim, 1985), p. 31.
3. Literally, “fence”; Pirkei Avot 3:17.
4. Derech Chayim, commentary on Pirkei Avot 1:17.
5. Orot Ha’Kodesh 3:273.
6. Pirkei Avot 1:17.
7. 1914–2005; spoken to his Mussar group (va’ad) on 16 Iyar 5761 (May 9, 2001).
8. Hilchot Deot 2:4.
CHAPTER 17. Limiting Work or Business
1. Sparks of Mussar, p. 223.
2. Avot D’Rabbi Natan 11:1.
3. Kohelet Rabbah 9:9.
4. See the Ramban’s commentary to Leviticus 19:1.
5. Hilchot Talmud Torah 3:7.
6. Berachot 35b.
CHAPTER 18. Limiting Levity
1. Pesachim 117a; Shabbat 30b.
2. Ta’anit 22a.
3. Sotah 42a.
4. Path of the Just, chapter 5.
5. The akedah; Genesis 22:1–19.
6. He is given the name in Genesis 22:3, and in verse 6, Sarah says, “God has made laughter for me; every one that hears will laugh on account of me.”
CHAPTER 19. Limiting Pleasure
1. Kiddushin 4:12.
2. Rabbi Judah Loew, the Maharal of Prague (1525–1609), a seminal Jewish thinker in the post-medieval period.
3. Sanhedrin 111a.
4. Da’at Torah, vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Da’as Torah Publications, 1985), pp. 279–82.
5. The Chassidic school of Slonim is one of the only ones that makes Mussar an integral part of its method.
6. Genesis 28:12: “And behold a ladder standing on the earth, its head reaching up to heaven, and behold angels of God ascending and descending it.”
7. Berezovsky, Shalom Noach (the Slonimer Rebbe), introduction to “Holiness,” in Netivot Shalom (Jerusalem: Yeshivat Beit Avraham, 1994).
8. Ibid., “Holiness,” section 7, chapter 2.
9. Path of the Just, chapter 1.
10. Jeremiah 2:13.
11. Da’as Shlomo Geulah (Jerusalem: Bais Ha’Mussar Publishing, 2010), p. 207.
CHAPTER 20. Limiting Mundane Activities
1. Vayikra Rabbah, chapter 9.
2. Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel (1849–1927).
3. Gadlus ha’adam.
4. Avot D’Rabbi Natan 28.
5. Ner HaShem nishmat adam—“the human soul is the candle of God” (Proverbs 20:27).
6. Ovdei HaShem.
7. Deuteronomy 34:5.
CHAPTER 21. Slow to Anger
1. Exodus 34:6.
2. Moshe Miller, trans., Palm Tree of Deborah, (New York: Targum, 1993), chapter 1, section 1.
3. Y’halachta b’d’rachav (Deuteronomy 28:9).
4. Chabakuk 3:2.
5. Ecclesiastes 7:9.
6. Pesachim 66b.
7. See Proverbs 14:29 for a verse that echoes this idea.
8. Shabbat 105b.
9. The story appears in Berachot 18b and Rabbi Salanter’s commentary in Ohr Yisrael, letter 26.
CHAPTER 22. Goodheartedness
1. Rabbi Yosef Rosen (1858–1936).
2. For example, Pirkei Moshe of HaRav Moshe Almosheninu (c.1515–c.1580), a distinguished rabbi who was born at Thessaloniki and died in Constantinople.
3. A German rabbi whose thought has been very influential in guiding the response of Orthodox Judaism to the modern world.
4. In his commentary to Pirkei Avot titled Chapters of the Fathers (Jerusalem and New York: Samson Rafael Hirsch Publication Society, 1967), p. 106.
5. In Tiferet Yisrael’s commentary to Pirkei Avot 2:9.
6. Sanhedrin 106b.
7. Eliezer Papo, “Heart,” in Pele Yoetz (New York: Sepher-Hermon Press, 1991).
8. Avot D’Rabbi Natan 13.
9. Yoreh Deah 249:3.
10. “Tocho k’varo” (Berachot 28a).
11. Exodus 4:14.
12. As explained by Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler, Michtav M’Eliyahu, vol. 4.
13. A Lithuanian contemporary and colleague of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter with whom he collaborated in fighting the harsh decrees of the Russian government.
14. Even Shleimah, chapter 1, siman (section) 11.
15. Pirkei Avot 2:13.
CHAPTER 23. Faith in the Sages
1. Known as Chazal (i.e., Chachamenu zichronam liv’racha—literally, “Our Sages, may their memory be blessed”).
2. Deuteronomy 17:11.
3. Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki was a medieval French rabbi and author of comprehensive commentaries on the Talmud and written Torah.
4. Michtav mi’Eliyahu, vol. 4, p. 269.
5. Rabbi Akiva Eiger was a nineteenth-century Hungarian rabbi famous for his complex commentaries on the Talmud and works of Jewish law.
6. Rabbi Avraham Yeshaiya Karelitz (1878–1953).
7. The decline of the generations is a traditional rabbinic concept that says that every generatrion since the revelation at Mount Sinai has been weaker and less authoritative than the generations that preceded it.
CHAPTER 24. Accepting Suffering
1. Pesachim 115b.
2. Leviticus 10:1–3.
3. Arachin 16a.
CHAPTER 25. Knowing One’s Place
1. As in Pirkei Avot 11:14, for example.
2. Tiferet Yisrael (Or EtZion: Merkaz Shapira, 2010).
3. See Berachot 31a and Tosafot there.
4. Berachot 31a.
CHAPTER 26. Happiness with Your Portion
1. Berachot 59b.
2. Respectfully, in the third person.
3. Yoma 38b; see the complete statement of Ben Azzai at the bottom of 38a–b.
CHAPTER 27. Making a Fence around Your Activities
1. See Exodus 23:13 and Leviticus 18:30.
2. Sha’arei Teshuvah 3:7.
3. Da’at Torah, vol. 3, p. 172.
4. Kiddushin 81a.
5. Jewish law permits a man to take a captive woman to himself but only after giving her a month to mourn the loss of her native family (Deuteronomy 21:10–15).
CHAPTER 28. Not Claiming Credit for Oneself
1. Da’at Torah U’Mussar, Shemot, p. 209.
2. Sanhedrin 88b.
3. Path of the Just, chapter 22.
4. Deuteronomy 8:17.
5. Sanhedrin 99b.
CHAPTER 29. Being Beloved
1. Reishit Chochmah (The Beginning of Wisdom: The Gate of Love), trans. Simcha Benyosef (Jersey City, N.J.: Ktav Publishing, 2002), p. 20.
2. 1 Samuel 18:1, 3.
3. Sotah 2a.
4. Proverbs 27:19.
5. Berachot 17a.
6. Strive for Truth, vol. 1, p. 19ff.
7. K’ish echad, b’lev echad. From Rashi’s commentary to Exodus 19:2.
8. Pirkei Avot 3:10.
CHAPTER 30. Loving God
1. Hilchot Teshuvah 10:6.
2. Hilkhot Yesodei Ha’Torah, 2:1–2.
3. Psalms 19:2.
CHAPTER 31. Loving God’s Creatures
1. Musar Avichah, Ahavah II (Jerusalem: Mossad Ha’Rav Kook, 1985).
2. Yehudah Loew (The Maharal), Netivot Olam, Ahavat haRe’i 1, trans. and adapted by Eliakim Willner (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Mesorah Publications, 1994).
3. Horeb, trans. I. Grunfeld (London: Soncino Press, 1962), chapter 17.
4. Yerushalmi Nedarim 9:4.
5. Musar Avichah, Ahavah II.
6. Pirkei Avot 1:12.
7. Avot D’Rabbi Natan 12.
8. No metaphor here. The text actually says that they kissed.
9. In the Talmud (Yevamot 65b) Rabbi Ila’i said that one is permitted to alter the truth for the sake of peace. Rabbi Nosson said doing so is actually a mitzvah. These teachings do not represent an abandonment of the principle of truthfulness but recognize that there are circumstances in which truth is subservient to a higher goal.
10. “Tocho k’varo” (Berachot 28a).
CHAPTER 32. Loving Rebukes
1. Sha’arei Teshuvah 2:12.
2. Leviticus 19:17.
3. Aruchin 16b.
4. Then a young student but destined to be the founder and rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat Chevron.
5. Adam B’Yikar, p. 25.
6. The nickname of Rabbi Yitzchok Blazer (1837–1907).
7. Ohr Yisrael, end of letter 20.
8. See Exodus 18:14–27.
9. Tamid 28a.
CHAPTER 33. Love of Uprightness
1. Sichos Mussar (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Mesorah Publications/ArtScroll, 1989), p. 169.
2. Sotah 42a.
3. See Rabbeinu Yonah (Sha’arei Teshuvah 3:172–231) for details on each of these classes of people.
4. 1860–1939; rosh yeshiva in Grodno, Lithuania.
5. Sha’arei Yosher, as translated by Rabbi Micha Berger.
CHAPTER 34. Distancing from Honor
1. Known for his work Sha’arei Tevunah (Gates of Discernment; Piotrokow, Poland: H. Polman, 1925).
2. Esther 5:9–11.
3. Esther 5:13.
4. Yevamot 62b.
5. Pirkei Avot 4:1.
6. Michael Rosen, The Quest for Authenticity: The Thought of Reb Simhah Bunim (Jerusalem: Urim Publications, 2008), p. 124.
7. Sotah 49b.
8. In the words of the sages, “zocheh l’shtei shulchanot”—he merited to “be at two tables.”
9. Sha’arei Kedushah (Gates of Holiness).
10. Kiddushin 32b.
CHAPTER 35. Not Being Overly Satisfied in One’s Learning
1. Ta’anit 20a–b.
2. Path of the Just, chapter 22.
3. Shaar Hak’niah, chapter 9.
4. Ohr Yisrael, letter 30.
CHAPTER 36. Not Taking Joy in Handing Down Rulings
1. Bava Batra 89b.
2. Sanhedrin 7a.
3. My expertise in this area had to do with the fact that I wrote a doctoral dissertation in anthropology on Hindu pilgrimage, which meant understanding Hindu temple rites. In the end, the hair from India was not ruled to be a product of idol worship, which coincided with my own view. People have their heads shaved before offering worship as a preparation for devotion, not as part of the ritual itself. Hinduism considers hair and any other bodily part or fluid to be highly polluting, and so one would never offer such a thing in the holy precinct of a temple. In fact, after the hair is removed, the devotee is required to bathe before entering the temple, to restore a state of purity.
4. Shabbat 10a.
5. Ein Ayah, vol. 4, pp. 52–54.
6. Exodus 23:8.
CHAPTER 37. Bearing the Burden with the Other
1. Genesis 40:7.
2. Exodus 3:13–16.
3. Berachot 9a, quoted in Rashi, ibid.
4. Alei Shur (Jerusalem: Bais HaMussar, 1998), vol. 1, p. 252, and vol. 2, p. 210.
5. Simcha Raz, A Tzaddik in Our Time (Jerusalem and New York: Feldheim, 1977).
6. Dovid Rossoff, “Aryeh Levin: Father of the Jewish Prisoners,” Jewish Magazine, http://www.jewishmag.com/18mag/levin/levin.htm.
7. Collected as Chochma U’Mussar. This story according to Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe.
CHAPTER 38. Judging Others Favorably
1. Shabbat 127b.
2. Leviticus 19:15; Shavuot 30a.
3. Perhaps this is the idea being taught in Pirkei Avot 1:6: “Make for yourself a teacher, acquire for yourself a friend, and judge all men favorably.” Make yourself a student, be a friend, and always look at the positive in others.
4. Ethics from Sinai (Jerusalem and New York: Feldheim, 2002).
CHAPTER 39. Leading Others to Truth
1. Sanhedrin 64a.
2. Yevamot 63a.
3. Jeremiah 9:5.
4. Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 262:21.
5. English doesn’t have a word for this feeling, but German does: schadenfreude, pleasure in someone else’s misfortune.
6. The English word blanch has the same connotation.
7. Ohr Yisrael, letter 30.
8. Alei Shur, vol. 2, p. 533.
CHAPTER 40. Leading Others to Peace
1. See Avot D’Rabbi Natan 12:3–4 for the techniques Aharon used to bring peace between people.
2. Michtav mi’Eliyahu, vol. 2, p. 107.
3. Rabbi Sacks, “Ki Tavo (5770)—Covenant & Conversation,” August 28, 2010, www.rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation-5770-ki-tavo-covenant-conversation/.
CHAPTER 41. Being Settled in One’s Studies
1. The Hebrew word ka’as means either “anger” or “sorrow,” depending on the context, revealing a link between these two emotions that isn’t obvious but is there to be explored.
2. Rabbi Dov Katz, The Mussar Movement, vol. 1, part 1, pp. 204–5.
3. See Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe, Alei Shur, vol. 1, pp. 89–91, for more details of what is meant to happen in the two segments of a Mussar session.
CHAPTER 42. Asking Pertinent Questions
1. Pesachim 116a.
2. Bava Kamma 117a.
3. Mivchar ha’Peninim, translated by Abraham Cohen as Choice of Pearls (New York: Bloch Publishing, 1925), p. 25.
4. Ibid., p. 33.
5. Donald Sheff, letter to the editor, New York Times, January 19, 1988.
6. Quoted in Danah Zohar and Ian Marshall, SQ: Connecting with Our Spiritual Intelligence (London: Bloomsbury, 2000), p. 15.
7. Shabbat 30b–31a.
8. As Hillel addressed his most annoying questioner in the Talmudic story above; see Shabbat 30b–31a.
CHAPTER 43. Listening and Contributing
1. This meeting and my learning with Rabbi are described in my earlier book Climbing Jacob’s Ladder (Boston: Trumpter Books, 2007).
2. Deuteronomy 12:32.
3. Avodah Zarah 35b.
4. Gur Aryeh, Bereishit 29:11; based on verse 4:15 in Shir Ha’Shirim (Song of Songs).
5. Galicia, in the introduction to his Shev Shmaitza (New York and Trenton, N.J.: Feldheim, 1945).
6. Siddur Ha’Gra, sefer Keter Rosh, Hilchot Talmud Torah 56.
7. Yoma 28b.
CHAPTER 44. Learning in Order to Teach
1. Deuteronomy 6:7.
2. Chapter 22.
3. Rosh Hashanah 23a.
4. Shraga Silverstein, trans., To Turn the Many to Righteousness (Jerusalem and New York: Feldheim, 1987), chapter 10.
5. Eruvin 54b.
6. Ta’anit 7a.
7. Trans. Rabbi Yaakov Feldman (Northvale, N.J. and London: Jason Aronson, 1996), p. xlii.
CHAPTER 45. Learning in Order to Do
1. Madregat Ha’Adam, chapter 14; adapted from a translation by Rabbi Elyakim Krumbein, Musar for Moderns (Jerusalem: Yeshivat Ner Shemu’el, 2002), p. 90.
2. Lev Eliyahu (Jerusalem: ha’Va’ad le’Hotsa’at Kitve Maran, 1983), p. 1.
3. Exodus 23:5.
4. Bava Metzia 32b.
5. Leviticus 19:18.
6. Ohr Yisrael, letter 10.
7. Leviticus 19:18.
CHAPTER 46. Making One’s Teacher Wise
1. Ruach Ha’Chaim to Avot (Jerusalem: Tushiyah, 1993), 1:4.
2. Proverbs 27:17.
3. The quotation is Proverbs 3:18.
4. Ta’anit 7a.
5. See Megillah 15b, Ta’anit 7a, Nazir 59b, Chulin 43b, and other places.
6. Bava Metzia 59b.
7. Deuteronomy 30:12.
CHAPTER 47. Clarifying What One Has Heard
1. Bamidar Rabbah 17:5.
2. 1874–1941; scholar, leader, and teacher in prewar Lithuania.
3. Alei Shur, vol. 2. pp. 192–94.
4. Arachin 15b.
CHAPTER 48. Saying Something in the Name of Its Speaker
1. Megillah 15a; Chulin 104b; Niddah 19b.
2. Pirkei Avot 4:15.
3. Sha’arei Teshuvah.
4. Deuteronomy 8:17.
5. Deuteronomy 8:18.
6. Based on thoughts of Rabbi Mattisyahu Solomon, mashgiach of Yeshivat Bet Medrash Gavoha in Lakewood, New Jersey.
7. Megillah 6b.
8. Literally, “and I did not find it,” as will be explained shortly.
9. Path of the Just, p. 327.
10. A midrash interprets failing to quote sources as equivalent to stealing from one who is vulnerable: “Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai said in the name of Rabbi Yitzchak bar Tavla who said in the name of Rabbi Chama Aricha who said in the name of Rabbi Acha who quoted the Tanna Rebbe Chiya: ‘Whoever does not say something in the name of its speaker transgresses a commandment, as it says [Proverbs 22:22], “Do not rob the destitute because he is destitute”’” (Yalkut Shimoni, Mishlei 960). This midrash also gives a sterling demonstration of what quoting from sources looks like.
11. Tosefta Bava Kama 7:3.
12. Yalkut Shimoni, Mishlei 247.
CONCLUSION: With Heart in Mind
1. Sichos Mussar, pp. 12–13.
2. In his commentary, he is specifically addressing God’s direction to Adam and Eve not to eat from the Tree of Good and Evil, but his idea applies here, as well.