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{{short description|Lithuanian Jewish rabbi (1809–1883); father of the Musar movement}}
{{Infobox religious biography
| honorific-prefix = Rabbi
| name = Yisrael Lipkin Salanter
| image = Israël de Salant.jpg
| caption = Rabbi Yisrael Salanter
| birth_date = November 3, 1809
| birth_place = Zhagory, Lithuania
| death_date = February 2, 1883
| death_place = Königsberg, Germany
| nationality = Lithuanian
| occupation = Rabbi, Rosh yeshiva
| known_for = Founder of the Musar movement
| title =
| post =
| education =
| works = ''Imrei Binah'', ''Iggeres HaMusar'', ''Ohr Yisrael'', ''Even Yisrael'', ''Etz Peri''
}}▼
'''Yisrael ben Ze'ev Wolf Lipkin''', also known as "'''Israel Salanter'''" or "'''Yisroel Salanter'''" (November 3, 1809, [[Zhagory]] – February 2, 1883, [[Königsberg]]), was the father of the [[Musar movement]] in [[Orthodox Judaism]] and a famed [[Rosh yeshiva]] and [[Talmud]]ist. The epithet ''Salanter'' was added to his name since most of his schooling took place in Salant (now the Lithuanian town of [[Salantai]]), where he came under the influence of [[Rabbi]] [[Yosef Zundel of Salant]]. He was the father of mathematician [[Yom Tov Lipman Lipkin]].<ref name=Levine>{{cite web |author=L. Levine
|title=Israel Salanter, Revolutionary Rabbi Par Excellence
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Yisroel Lipkin was born in [[Zagare]], Lithuania on November 3, 1809, the son of Zev Wolf, the [[rabbi]] of that town and later [[Av Beth Din]] of [[Kuldīga|Goldingen]] and [[Telšiai|Telz]], and his wife Leah. As a boy, he studied with Rabbi [[Zvi Hirsh Broide|Tzvi Hirsh Braude]] of [[Salantai|Salant]].<ref>{{cite book |title=The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Ethics and Morality
|url=https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0190608382 |isbn=978-0190608385 |date=2016
|author1=Elliot N. Dorff |author2=Jonathan K. Crane| publisher=Oxford University Press }} "Born in Zhagory, Lithuania, in 1810, Lipkin studied as a youth with Tzvi Hirsh Braude of Salant, and under Yosef Zundel of Salant."</ref>
After his 1823 marriage to Esther Fega Eisenstein
Around 1833 he met the decade-younger [[Alexander Moshe Lapidos]], who became his lifelong student and friend.<ref>Pupil/colleague, a combination with Talmudic/historic basis
|title=This day in History |url=https://hamodia.com/columns/day-history-10-adarmarch-8}}</ref>
|url=https://torah.org/learning/spiritual-excellence-classes-salanter1
|date=March 1, 2013}} "R'Salanter was appointed Rosh Yeshiva of Tomchai Torah in Vilna about 1842..."</ref> When a minor scandal{{explain|date=August 2023}} arose related to his appointment, he left the post to its previous inhabitant and moved to
▲Despite the prohibition against doing work on [[Shabbat]] (the Jewish Sabbath), Lipkin set an example for the Lithuanian Jewish community during the [[cholera]] epidemic of 1848. He ensured that any necessary relief work on Shabbat for Jews was done by Jews. Although some wanted such work to be done on Shabbat by [[Shabbat goy|non-Jews]], Lipkin held that both Jewish ethics and law mandated that the obligation to save lives took priority over other laws. During [[Yom Kippur]] (the Day of Atonement), Lipkin ordered that Jews that year must not abide by the traditional fast, but instead must eat in order to maintain their health, again for emergency health reasons.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Goldberg|first=Hillel|title=The Fire Within|publisher=Artscroll/Mesorah|year=1987}}</ref><ref>Immanuel Etkes, ''Rabbi Israel Salanter and the Musar Movement'' (Jewish Publication Society, 1993), 170-172</ref> Some claim that, to allay any doubts, he himself went up to the synagogue pulpit on that holy day, recited the Kiddush prayer, drank and ate - as a public example for others to do the same.
In 1848, the Czarist government created the [[Vilna Rabbinical School and Teachers' Seminary]]. Lipkin was identified as a candidate to teach at or run the school. As he feared that the school would be used to produce rabbinical "puppets" of the government, he refused the position and left Vilna.<ref>Immanuel Etkes, ''Rabbi Israel Salanter and the Musar Movement'' (Jewish Publication Society, 1993), 177</ref> Salanter moved to [[Kovno]], where he established a Musar-focused yeshiva at the [[Nevyozer Kloiz]].<ref>Immanuel Etkes, ''Rabbi Israel Salanter and the Musar Movement'' (Jewish Publication Society, 1993), 213-215, 229-238</ref>
Lipkin lived for periods in [[Klaipėda|Memel]], Königsberg and Berlin
Lipkin
When the Russian Empire established military [[conscription]] of young Jewish men, Lipkin wrote to rabbis and community leaders urging them to obey and make lists of young men for the government while working through political connections in [[St. Petersburg]] to abolish the conscription.
▲He was careful to always comply with the law, even where this was discriminatory against Jews. For example, in order to be able to legally travel outside of the [[Pale of Settlement]], he became a master dye-maker. This enabled him to receive a permit allowing free travel within Russia.<ref name=Levine/><ref>"When he visited Berlin in the early 1870s to seek a cure for his ailing health, this aging man of 63 or so decided that he would not travel home until he had learned a skill that would enable him on his return to Russia to obtain a legal passport"</ref>
==Teachings==
Lipkin
Lipkin is best known for stressing that the inter-personal laws of the [[Torah]] bear as much weight as Divine obligations. According to Lipkin, adhering to the ritual aspects of Judaism without developing one's relationships with others and oneself was an unpardonable parody. There are many anecdotal stories about him that relate to this moral equation, see for example the following references.<ref>{{Cite web| url= https://www.shemayisrael.com/publicat/hazon/tzedaka/The_Importance_of_a_Friendly_Greeting.html|title=The Importance of a Friendly Greeting|website=www.shemayisrael.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web | url= http://www.jewishamerica.com/ja/timeline/mussar.cfm |title=The Mussar Movement |access-date=2011-06-29 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110527174055/http://www.jewishamerica.com/ja/timeline/mussar.cfm |archive-date=2011-05-27 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
The concept of the [[subconscious]] appears in the writings of Lipkin
Lipkin would teach that the time for a person to work on not allowing improper subconscious impulses to affect him was during times of emotional quiet, when a person is more in control of his thoughts and feelings. He would stress that when a person is experiencing an acute emotional response to an event, he is not necessarily in control of his thoughts and faculties and will not have access to the calming perspectives necessary to allow his conscious mind to intercede.
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Lipkin felt that people would be embarrassed to study ethical teachings [''limud ha'musar''] in such a way in a normal study-hall [''bet ha'medrash''] and he therefore invented the idea of a "house of ethical teachings" [''bet ha'mussar''] that would be located next to an ordinary study hall and that would be designated for learning ethics in this way.
One of the more popular teachings of Lipkin is based on a real life encounter he had with a shoemaker one very late night. It was [[Motza'ei Shabbat]] (Saturday night after Shabbat) and Lipkin was on the way to the [[synagogue]] to recite [[Selichot]]. Suddenly he felt a tear in his shoe, so he looked around town to see if there was a shoemaker still open for business at this late hour. Finally he located a shoemaker sitting in his shop working next to his candle. Lipkin walked in and asked him, "Is it too late now to get my shoes repaired?" The shoemaker replied, "As long as the candle is burning, it is still possible to repair." Upon hearing this, Lipkin ran to the synagogue and preached to the public what he had learned from the shoemaker. In his words, as long as the candle is burning, as long as one is still alive, it is still possible to repair one's soul.<ref>{{cite web |title=אוצר החכמה | url= https://www.otzar.org/wotzar/Book.aspx?23406 |website=tablet.otzar.org |access-date=14 July 2024}} ''עבודת המדות (Avodat haMidot)'', Page 12</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=אוצר החכמה | url= https://www.otzar.org/wotzar/Book.aspx?600032 |website=tablet.otzar.org |access-date=14 July 2024}} ''עבודת המדות (Avodat haMidot)'',
==Famous disciples==
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==References==
{{Reflist}}
▲}}
==Bibliography==
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==External links==
* ''Jewish Encyclopedia'': [https://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10005-lipkin “Lipkin”] by Herman Rosenthal & Jacob Goodale Lipman (1906). Now in public domain.
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Yisroel Salanter}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20040320094100/http://www.ou.org/about/judaism/rabbis/salanter.htm Biography on www.ou.com]
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