רבי מנחם מנדל לפין מסטנוב

Rav Menachem Mendel Lefin of Satanov (5509/1749–6 Tammuz 5586/1826), known as the Satanover and by the acronym Ramal, was the author of Cheshbon HaNefesh, the work of self-accounting that later found its home in the musar movement. Born in Sataniv in Podolia, he received a traditional Torah education and turned early to the study of mathematics and the sciences after encountering the Elim of Rav Yosef Shlomo of Candia; in his Berlin years he came to know Moses Mendelssohn and the circle of the early maskilim, and he remained associated with that movement through his life. He later lived on the estate of the wealthy Yehoshua Zeitlin of Ustye as tutor to his sons and grandsons, and it was there that he wrote his Cheshbon HaNefesh.

Cheshbon HaNefesh, first printed in Lviv in 5568/1808, sets out a practical method of tikkun hamiddot: thirteen middot of the soul, worked through week by week with a daily written reckoning — a system he adapted from a self-improvement scheme of Benjamin Franklin, recast entirely in the language of Chazal. The sefer spread widely through the communities of Poland and Eastern Europe and went through further editions across the nineteenth century. Its lasting influence came through Rav Yisrael Salanter, founder of the musar movement, who drew on its ideas — the thirteen middot among them — and pressed for the second edition, printed in Vilna in 5605/1844; in the musar yeshivos the sefer was learned while its author’s name receded from mention. He was niftar in Tarnopol, Galicia, on 6 Tammuz 5586/1826.