Walter Hilliger

Moses Almosnino

The major work of Rabbi Moses Almosnino (1515-1580), “Conduct of Life,” remains to this day an essential reference in classical Judeo-Spanish literature, now finally available in English in its first translation. 
First published in Ladino in 1564 as, Sefer Hanhagat ha-hayim and in 1729 as “Regimiento de la vida”, this three-volume edition is part of the prestigious collection Veritas è terra orietur. 
The work aims to disseminate the timeless teachings of ethics, in the words of the author: “In all that has been said, my intention is only to make you understand how the one who follows the path of virtue and customs of practising good and pure knowledge since childhood, lives a happy and fulfilled life (Volume 1, chapter 2)” 
This second volume addresses the confusion of indeterminism with free will (Volume 2, chapter 1) and how virtues arise from free will to surpass the force of destiny chapter 2), their conditions (chapter 3); the three types of strength or courage, which is the first virtue (chapter 4), its five properties and eleven conditions (chapter 5); as well as the ten ethical virtues, temperance (chapter 6), the sixteen properties of liberality chapters 7-8), magnificence (chapter 9), magnanimity and its fifty properties (chapter 10-12), modesty (chapter 13), meekness (chapters 14-16), affability (chapter 17), honesty or truth (chapters 18-19), and courtesy (chapter 20); following the order and numbering of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.
“Conduct of Life” draws heavily from the Nicomachean Ethics but transcends this source by situating itself at the universal intersection of several traditions: Greco-Arabic philosophy, Judeo-Christian scholasticism, classical Sephardic Judaism, and medieval Jewish thought. Thus, this work contributes to peace and intercultural understanding among peoples.

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