Shevet Musar and Psychology

Jewish Discipline for the Early Modern Soul Studies in Musar Series, Volume 3

Ilaria Briata (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

260 Seiten

2025
Brill (Verlag)
978-90-04-74106-5 (ISBN)

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The book introduces a novel reading of Jewish spiritual instruction (Musar) through the lens of psychological disciplines, providing the first complete scholarly survey of one of the classics of early modern Hebrew literature, Shevet musar (Istanbul: 1712).

A best-selling manual in the Jewish tradition of spiritual instruction, Shevet musar (Istanbul, 1712) by Elijah ha-Kohen Itamari, confronts the contemporary reader with surprisingly modern psychological subtleness, as it tackles the matters of the soul by means of emotional manipulation, somatic grounding, and mindfulness of the mutual relations connecting humans to God and creation. In the first dedicated monographic study, Shevet musar is situated within the long-durée history of psychology, providing a non-Western, premodern contribution to the ‘discourse on and for the soul.’ Through a close reading of key excerpts, the book explores how the text engages the reader by constructing a sense of selfhood (psychopoiesis), while steering behaviours and states of mind through emotional conditioning (psychagogy). A theoretical framework encompassing historical scholarship, psychology, and psychoanalysis, along with cultural and philosophical studies, reveals and illuminates the cosmos of an eighteenth-century Ottoman rabbi preoccupied with the wellness of Jewish souls.

Ilaria Briata, Ph.D. (1986), is a post-doctoral Research Associate at the Institute of Jewish Studies of the University of Hamburg. Her research specializes in Jewish ethics, Sephardic literature, and the history of emotions, with a particular interest for Jewish horror.

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Musar and Psychology

1 Psychopoiesis

1 Soul-Making and the Psychosomatic Shaping of Self

2 Addressing Adam

3 Contrasting Identities

4 The Workings of the Soul

5 Further Workings of the Soul

6 Corporeal Hardware and Organic Agency

7 Channels of Holiness: Heart and Phallus

8 Engine of the Meat Machine: Yetser

9 Psychology of Sin

2 Psychagogy

1 Soul-Guidance and the Emotion Machine

2 The Spectrum of Feeling

3 Distress

4 Disgust

5 Shame

6 Anger

7 Emotions in the Religious Ecosystem

8 Special Feelings for Special People

9 Collective Consciousness as National Uniqueness

3 Psychodynamics of Horror

1 Transformative Powers of Fear

2 Anatomy of Horror: Theorizing Fear

3 Practicing Fear: A Gallery of Horrors

4 Dying

5 Rotting

6 Hell

7 From Trauma to Hauntology

Conclusion: Disciplines of the Soul

Coda: (Biblio‑)Therapy for the Soul

References

Index

Erscheinungsdatum	02.09.2025
Reihe/Serie	Studies in Musar ; 84/3
Verlagsort	Leiden
Sprache	englisch
Maße	155 x 235 mm
Gewicht	557 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Judentum
ISBN-10	90-04-74106-2 / 9004741062
ISBN-13	978-90-04-74106-5 / 9789004741065
Zustand	Neuware