Rav Israel Salanter brings the idea of bringing merit to many as being a way to bring merit to oneself in his "Letter of Musar". ["One who brings a merit to many, no sin comes to him."]
His idea of how to do this was to make a kind of library of Musar [Books on Ethics]. The difference between a regular library and this library of Musar would be that learning Musar of any Torah requires one to say the words. So it would be more like a regular place of learning Torah except that it would be devoted to Musar (books of Ethics).
The thing is this idea never took off at all. Musar was totally absorbed into the Litvak Yeshiva [Lithuanian type of Yeshiva]. And to me this seems right. Musar can get people off track unless connected with the straight Litvak yeshiva approach.
[The reason however it seems that Rav Israel Salanter wanted to keep things seperate was that the Litvak yeshiva approach can also get one off track. ]
The thing is this idea never took off at all. Musar was totally absorbed into the Litvak Yeshiva [Lithuanian type of Yeshiva]. And to me this seems right. Musar can get people off track unless connected with the straight Litvak yeshiva approach.
[The reason however it seems that Rav Israel Salanter wanted to keep things seperate was that the Litvak yeshiva approach can also get one off track. ]
