Sefer HaMidot - The Book of Character -- Rabbi Nachman Of Breslov

<p><strong><em>Sefer HaMidot</em></strong></p><p><br></p><p><strong>The Book of Character</strong></p><p><br></p><p>&#65279;&#65279;In this book, all the traits and conduct are arranged in aleph-bet/alphabetical order. It is divided into two parts that are known to us by the names "Aleph-Bet Old" and "Aleph-Bet New." The first part is a wondrous collection, collected by our pure and holy master in his childhood, all that his huge intellect perceived by understanding one matter from another; and he gathered from all the holy books, everything that he found in them pertaining to morals, conduct, and upright behavior -- which he recorded to have by him for memory's sake. Whatever he found explained in the words of Our Sages of blessed memory, whatever virtue of a good trait, or decrying bad trait -- everything in entirety he would gather little by little and copy them by him in the order of the Aleph Bet by each and every trait, so that he should have it for remembrance, to see with his eyes the virtue of each and every trait and its opposite, "in order to go in the ways of the good and guard the ways of the tzaddikim". Moreover, his powerful intellect perceived many precious and wondrous matters which are not explained outright in the words of Our Sages OB"M; just by the sheer magnitude of his perception he understood one matter from another (heaven davar mistake davar), and perceived precious novelties regarding the traits, from within the [scriptural] verses and from within