MORAL education was a central component of the Haskalah programme. Naphtali Herz Wessely, in a public letter of 1782, had recommended the composition of ‘new books about beliefs and opinions … in order to teach [the young] wisdom and ethics’. Ethics formed an important element of suggestions for new school curricula, and the founding letter of Hame'asef, the Haskalah periodical, promised ‘to gather from all branches of science and ethics [musar] articles and essays which will benefit and delight the soul which longs to sit in the shade of wisdom’. In addition, the Haskalah produced numerous treatises and primers for children that dealt specifically with the question of ethics.

The concern with moral improvement found throughout Haskalah literature highlights the movement's absorption of external criticisms of Jewish morality and its desire to encourage Jews to embrace the values of Bildung and Enlightenment. Moral education, however, served a further important function: it was a bridge, or an area of common ground, between the social goals of the German Enlightenment, the Aufklärung, and Jewish tradition. Besides holding a central place in Enlightenment thinking, moral literature was a ubiquitous commodity in Jewish society of the late eighteenth century, both high and low. For that reason the methods of moral education used by the maskilim can act as an example of how the Haskalah balanced modern and traditional forces.

Jewish ethical writing (musar) has a long history dating from the tenth century, with the writing of Sa'adya Gaon's Sefer ha'emunot vehade'ot, and continuing to the modern period. In contrast to Jewish legal writings, ethical literature displays a greater degree of flexibility in terms of both subject-matter and style. The moral genre seeks to provide a theoretical underpinning for halakhah by establishing a theological grounding for the religious life. The creative licence given to ethical works over halakhic writings meant that they were often used as a vehicle for moderate innovation, in one period encouraging a rational outlook and in another a mystical one. A further function of musar was its role in dispensing social criticism. In the period prior to the Haskalah, musar literature is replete with attacks on religious and moral laxity.