Can We Change Our Character? Perspectives from the Bavli to the Musar Movement
Sarah Zager / August 25, 2020
In this series, we'll investigate whether and how we might be able to change our characters. Using sources ranging from the Talmud to Maimonides's Mishneh Torah, to the Musar movement, we'll explore how our characters are formed, and what tools we might have when we decided that we need to change our dispositions and tendencies for the better.
We'll pay particular attention to the role that interpersonal interactions between students and teachers and between friends can play in this process.
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Sarah Zager
Sarah Zager is a doctoral candidate in Religious Studies and Philosophy at Yale University, where her research focuses on the influence of Judaism and Christianity on moral philosophy. Originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico, Sarah earned an MA in Religion from the University of Chicago Divinity School and a BA from Williams College. She was awarded the Leo Baeck Fellowship for the study of German Jewry, and was a David Hartman Center Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. She has also learned at Yeshivat Hadar. She has written for The Lehrhaus, JewSchool, The Journal of Jewish Ethics, and Nashim.