4/21/2008 12:41:00 PM NEWS: Mussar: The Spiritual Treasure of Judaism
Steve Chervin
Rabbi Daniel Freitag
Studying Mussar
Jewish Atlantans have several options to get a taste of Mussar:
• Rabbi Efraim Davidson, the director of DoJewish, is offering what he calls "Avodah," based on Kabbalah, Mussar and mitzvah - encouraging small groups to meet on issues of personal growth and spiritual development. Avodah is living with a mission, he said, learning to live with a purpose larger than yourself as you become self-actualized. Groups are being formed. Contact Rabbi Davidson at (678) 948-4012 or red@DoJewish.org.
• Steve Chervin is teaching classes at the Marcus JCC's Zaban Park in Dunwoody on eight Thursday mornings, which began April 3, from 10 to 11:30. For details, go to www.atlantajcc.org, or call (678) 812-4153. Chervin also teaches Mussar to groups, couples and individuals at other locations and times. Contact him at stevenchervin@gmail.com.
• Rabbi Daniel Freitag's class begins May 5 and runs for six Mondays at the Kollel Dome, 5237 Tilly Mill Road, Dunwoody. For more information or to register, call (404) 321-4085, or e-mail RabbiDan@atlantakollel.org. The cost is $18.
We Jews have been chasing around the world looking for the answer, the path to enlightenment, and all the while the Jewish solution has been right here under our noses. It's Mussar, the path to personal growth and spiritual development through perfecting our spiritual traits, and it has been part of our Jewish heritage for more than 1,000 years. So why do we say calmness and patience are Zen-like, not Mussar-like?
Rabbi Daniel Freitag of the Atlanta Scholars Kollel said Mussar is an integral part of study in most yeshivas. The Talmud is chock-full of sayings that indicate lessons in Mussar. "I go to the bookstore," he said, "and there are all sorts of Zen books, like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It's time Jews realized we have this tradition, not a silly fad like Kabbalah was a few years back, but something that transforms your everyday life. With Mussar, you learn to control yourself and reach your potential. It will be wonderful if this gains a foothold and becomes a practical part of life."
Alan Morinis, author of Everyday Holiness - The Jewish Spiritual Path of Mussar, recently offered a lecture and workshop at Congregation B'nai Torah sponsored by the Marcus Jewish Community Center and hosted by Steve Chervin, the director of Ahavath Achim Synagogue's Goodman Institute.
Morinis explained how he discovered Mussar after making a foolish business decision that nearly wrecked his professional life. Searching for answers, he put himself on a course of learning, not knowing what he was looking for but seeking to heal his own heart.
When he stumbled on a chapter about Mussar in a text he was reading, it was as if a bell went off, and it changed his life. Since then, he has been on a mission to share Mussar principles with Jews of all denominations, as well as non-Jews, to help them achieve their life's purpose, holiness.
Mussar, Morinis said, is more than a process of self-help. "It means working on yourself, but not for the sake of yourself. By refining and elevating your inner life and nourishing the soul, you clarify your inner light and thus become a lamp shedding light into the world. This is why Mussar is not self-help. Its purpose is not that you will gratify all your desires, but you will become the master of your desires, so that you can fulfill the potential of your higher nature. Dedication to be of service and to hold the needs of the other in your heart even as you work on yourself is a central tenet of Mussar."
Mussar helps people seek balance in their "soul traits." Traits that tend to the extremes make up each person's spiritual curriculum, an agenda for change for each person. If you're impatient, for example, exercises can increase your patience. If you're too passive, you exercise zerizut, or enthusiasm.
Chervin, in his 10th year of teaching for the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School and sixth year teaching Derech Torah (Introduction to Judaism) to interfaith couples, said a harmonic convergence has brought Mussar to the forefront. People are looking for groundedness, not only in the Jewish world, but also all over. He thinks Jews, especially those who feel estranged from Judaism, are discovering to their surprise that they can find in Judaism what they were looking for. "Mussar is consistent in a lot of ways with other spiritual traditions. There's a tremendous overlap. But we don't have to work outside our tradition to find that centeredness, that path to refining our character and soul. Judaism has its own abundant resources for reaching spiritual elevation."
The urge toward the spiritual is widespread, Chervin said. Among the reasons, he said, are the experience of globalization, a concern for our shared environment, the developing awareness that we all need to relate to one another as members of one humanity, and frustration with the moral failings of our time.
Oprah Winfrey's online book club is reading A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose by Eckhart Tolle, which addresses many of the same issues. Rick Warren's best seller The Purpose Driven Life addresses those issues from a Christian perspective. Morinis says many of the same things within the context of Judaism. We have each been given a purpose by God, and that is to refine our character.
Morinis is one of the sparks that set off the Mussar interest, but not the only one.
Chervin and Freitag said no particular strand of Judaism owns Mussar. It is accessible to anyone at any level of Judaic learning. And it doesn't seek to preach, convert or force observance of particular customs. What it asks is an open mind, a willingness to examine yourself and a desire to strive to become a better person.
It is "organized, clear, systematic and more accessible than Kabbalah," Chervin said. "It reflects a growing concern with character, ethics and meaning, beyond the material. It's a way of finding balance and avoiding extremes, a royal road to Judaism for those who feel estranged or who feel synagogue is not a spiritual experience. Mussar is not the latest spiritual fad, nor is Alan Morinis the latest guru. Mussar distills the core essence of Judaism's 3,500-year-old tradition of spiritual-ethical teachings."
Edna Levy of the JCC's Brill Institute and the Melton Adult Mini-School said: "The last two decades have seen a renaissance of adult Jewish learning, especially in the non-Orthodox world. People were hungry to know the whys of Judaism. The Melton course answers those questions. It's very intellectual. People had been eager to learn more about their Judaism through their intellect. They want to know why, not just how.
"But now I'm getting a sense that people are also yearning to connect to their Judaism in a more heartfelt way. Feeling more knowledgeable and more empowered, they're looking for a way to connect it to their everyday living in a spiritual way. It's a natural evolution coming out of our being a more educated community."
Levy added that in this world of uncertainty, from terrorism to global warming, people may be looking for something to hold onto that is not just knowledge, but spiritual guidance. "We're all looking for meaning, and Mussar is a Jewish way of finding that meaning."
