In 1808 the Polish-Jewish Enlightenment scholar Menaḥem Mendel Lefin (1749–1826) published the ethical code of practice Sefer Ḥeshbon ha-Nefesh (Book on the Accountability of the Soul) in Lemberg in Austrian Galicia. Lefin’s work was dedicated to changing human behavior, based on Benjamin Franklin’s “Rules of Conduct.” The author’s aim was to disseminate Enlightenment ideas of the individual spiritual life among traditionally educated Jewish young men and at the same time counteract the Hasidic methods of moral renewal.

Mendel Lefin was born in 1749 in the town of Satanó…