An Ethics of Unseen Consequences: Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav's Sefer Ha-Middot

This essay is a close examination of one of Nahman of Bratslav's early and largely unexamined texts, Sefer ha-Middot. The question it addresses is whether one can call this a study of “ethics” or, in Jewish nomenclature, musar, a work that seeks to cultivate human behaviors and describe ethical formation. In addition, it asks whether Sefer ha-Middot can be called a text of “virtue ethics” given its focus on virtues and their enactment. The essay argues that Nahman's peculiar metaphysical notion that all mitzvot are inextricably intertwined prevents any analysis of behavioral causality severing his “ethics” from any Aristotelian or Kantian tradition and brings him closer to Alasdair MacIntyre's notion of ethics as tied to traditional norms. And even with MacIntyre, the comparison is quite limited. Discussing “faith,” the “zaddik,” and “money,” the essay explores Nahman's view of how these and other virtues are cultivated and achieved.