Abstract

This dissertation studies the evidence of a rabbinic concern for character, focusing on three goals. First, it serves as a corrective to studies of Jewish ethics that focus exclusively on act evaluation. Second, it demonstrates the importance of ethics to the general field of Jewish studies and especially to the study of rabbinic texts. Third, after a critical examination of the field of contemporary virtue ethics and its Aristotelian antecedents, this dissertation suggests that rabbinic ethics provides a new and valuable voice that needs to be heard within the field of virtue ethics