Shevet Musar and Psychology

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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-duree 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.