Greg Marcus's Blog, page 11

Mussar Book Review: Mishkan Hanefesh

[image error] MIshkan Hanefesh is a 21st century prayer book for the Jewish High Holidays

Mishkan Hanefesh[image error] is the Union of Reform Judaism’s official prayer book for the High Holidays. Or rather, I should say books, as there are separate volumes for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I must admit it feels a bit strange to write a book review for a prayer book. And if this were merely a prayer book, my feelings would be justified. But these two volumes represent a compendium of Jewish thought that make them worth reading any time of the year.

Mishkan Hanefesh offers multiple ways to experience the holidays. There are the prayers, as well as several different types of explanations. They prayers and translations are on white pages, usually on the right page. The matching left page has a grey background, and contains poetry, or thematically matched Jewish text. You’ll find the wisdom of Jewish sages from the last thousand years, from Maimonides to Abraham Joshua Heschel to Rabbi Abraham Twerski.

Scattered throughout the book are blue pages, which offer commentary from both modern and classic rabbinic sources.For example, the blue page before the Torah reading on Yom Kippur morning has commentary from orthodox Rabbi David Hartman (1931-2013), who started the Hartman Institute, and Rabbi Josh Zweiback (b 1969) who is currently the senior Rabbi at Stephen Wise in LA. Wisdom from Rabbi Amy Eilberg, the first woman ordained by the Conservative movement is also captured within these books.

Mishkan Hanefesh is not only a throughly modern book, it is also a Mussar book. I love that it translates the Yetzer Ha’ra as “hostile impulse.” In The Spiritual Practice of Good Actions, I translate Yetzer Ha’ra as the evil inclination. Hostile impulse is so much better, because evil brings to mind truly diabolical characters like Isis or Voldemort. Hostile impulse better captures the idea that it is our survival instincts, like anger and sexuality, which map to our reptilian brain. The afternoon service on Yom Kippur is explicitly a Mussar service. It explains the importance of Tikkun Middot as follows :”repairing and strengthening the personal qualities and traits that enable us to fulfill our urge to be good.” As part of the Amidah prayer, there are sections on Lovingkindness, Strength, Holiness, Forgiveness, Love of Zion, Gratitude, and Peace in the Home. The blue pages for these soul traits are worth reading at any time of the year. In addition, there are reflection questions posed throughout the services to offer us an opportunity to look within, and truly personalize the experience.

Mishkan Hanefesh also has an amazing layout. The drama of the Sh’ma prayer or blowing of the shofar are captured by two page spreads with giant letters. There are pages of full page art that evoke awe and reflection throughout. And each section is easy to navigate, with a web-page like side navigation menu, that helps you follow the progression of the prayers and reflections.

Before I go, I must admit, I am biased – one of the editors of Mishkan Hanefesh is Rabbi Janet Marder, the senior Rabbi at my synagogue, Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos. She is brilliant, and has been a major influence on my Jewish growth. I can see her heart and wisdom throughout the book. If your synagogue is adopting Mishkan Hanefesh, it is well worth the investment to get your own set. And if it doesn’t, but you are looking for a compendium of Jewish wisdom on personal transformation, then Mishkan Hanefesh is a must have.

Looking for something else? Check out our page of Mussar books.

The post Mussar Book Review: Mishkan Hanefesh appeared first on American Mussar.

Let The High Holidays Disrupt Your Life For Good

Let the Shofar Disrupt your life for good. Read on to see how

Last week at Rosh Hashanah services, I met someone who was freaking out about missing work. “I have so much to do. I can’t believe I am here.” I gave her some lame advice, and later kicked myself for not just being sympathetic, and supportive. I freak out about work in my own way. I just think about it all the time. But ever since I was a kid, I’ve internalized that no matter what, I don’t work on the High Holidays. It has become part of the routine for me to disrupt my life, to just stop and look within. The trick is to find a way to let the High Holidays disrupt your life for Good.

The High Holidays are designed to disrupt your life. I live in Silicon Valley. Disruption is the goal. If you aren’t familiar with the lingo, Uber disrupted the taxi industry, and Apple disrupted the music industry. Here the taxi industry was just sailing along, and suddenly they are clobbered by this online monster that lets regular people drive other people whenever they want in their own cars. The status quo doesn’t like it, but we don’t makes leaps forward without disrupting what is. Disruption is all about non-incremental change.

The High Holidays can be merely a disruption of our routine, an inconvenience that gets in the way of rushing around. Or the High Holidays can Disrupt your life. You can take advantage of this opportunity to look within, and try to find out what causes you to miss the mark. In Judaism, sin means to miss the mark. When we do wrong, if we frame it as missing the mark, we have an opportunity to get it right next time. Do we just sail along, and make the same mistakes year after year? Or, do we disrupt ourselves and move forward?

Rabbi Alan Lew talks about the path to disruption in chapter 7 of his book This is Real And You Are Completely Unprepared. He wrote, “Spiritual deadness is a habit. Something in us want to be dead- wants to escape our reality-and we’ve expressed this desire in a hundred little patterns and habits.” I so relate to this idea. As I’ve shared before, I spent many years as a zombie, nearly working myself to death. 

As a solution, Lew points to the teaching of the medieval Mussar Kabbalist Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, who advocates that we change our eating or clothing for a week, to shake things up and bring change. Of course, we don’t need to invent a time to disrupt our eating habits. We have Yom Kippur. Spending a day without food or water will change your perspective. You’ll see something different.

The question is, what will you do the day after Yom Kippur? Is that a time to just go back to the same old habits, or will you take action to make a change? As someone who is on the American Mussar website, I know you have an interest in changing.

I know change is hard, especially with all that life throws at us. The beauty of Mussar is that we focus on the small and ordinary. We make small changes in everyday living. We practice Mussar all year for this moment – now let the High Holidays disrupt your life.

If you want to look within and find those things that cause you to miss the mark every year, take the Soul Trait Profile Quiz.  Have you taken the Soul Trait Quiz? Why not take it again? 

The post Let The High Holidays Disrupt Your Life For Good appeared first on American Mussar.

15 Minutes of Gratitude Could Change Your Life

Gratitude could change your life

So how was 5777? (This was the Jewish Year that ended at Sundown on September 20th, 2017). Was it a good or bad year? How can you tell? For most people, I suspect 5777 had both the good and the bad. Sometimes there were overwhelming moments of joy or sadness that can color our perception of the whole year. Overall, I feel like 5777 was a pretty good year for me, despite many things going on in the world that are pretty sucky. I decided to stop trying to fit the year on a scale from good to bad, and instead do a Mussar Gratitude practice. Gratitude could change your life.

Will you join me in taking the 15 minute Gratitude challenge? Carve out 15 minutes for yourself, and sit with a journal or a piece of paper. Start a timer, and write down everything in your life that you are grateful for. I did this a few minutes ago, and it was absolutely transformative. Before I started, I reviewed some key teachings about Gratitude that helped me a great deal.

Mussar teaches that Gratitude is the ability to recognize the good in any situation, and to give thanks. Thus, we are enjoined to be grateful for both good and bad things that happen to us. The latter can be a challenge. For example, when we are in shock over unexpectedly losing our job, and the mortgage payment is coming due, it may be hard to feel grateful. With the fullness of time we may end up with a better job, or being home may allow us to reconnect with our friends and family. Thus, in the moment, we can be grateful that we have an opportunity to spend our time doing other things. In addition, Mussar teaches us to be grateful for inanimate things. For example, right now I am Grateful to the nice lazy boy that supports me in comfort as I write to you. Not only that, I nap regularly in this chair with a cat on my lap.

In the 11th century Mussar classic Duties of the Heart, Rabbi   ibn Paquda teaches that there are three things that keep us from being grateful.

We become too occupied with material things. For example, we want the very latest iPhone, and forget how useful the version we already have is.
We take things for granted. Here, we fail to recognize the bounty of everyday blessings, like a comfortable bed, a safe neighborhood, and being alive.
We focus on the negative. We tend to focus on mistakes people make, and the small hurts we receive from loved ones, and don’t notice the positives they do for us.

Before you start, write the three barriers to gratitude at the top of your paper. Then write down the three categories of things we should be grateful for. As a reminder they are:

Good things
Bad things (by finding the good in them)
Inanimate things

Then, start the clock and write your list of things to be grateful for. As you are working on your list, try to overcome each of the objections, and remember to write down things in each of the categories to be grateful for. Don’t stop writing until the timer reaches 15 minutes. Some people find it very hard to write for the entire time. Frankly, this is what I expected to happen to me.

In contrast, I was quite amazed to discover that at 15 minutes, I wasn’t done. I kept writing for another ten minutes! In those final minutes, I started to feel a sense of calm, peace, and fulfillment. I was amazed, because prior the the exercise I was feeling a bit restless and fretful. When I was done, I was filled with energy and confidence. I still feel the residue of the experience a day later.

So has that changed my life? Heck Yah! Even had I only felt those positive feelings for part of a day, that in itself is life changing. Yes, making your today better is life changing. And I have the opportunity to keep making my today better each and every day. Beyond that, I know that I filled almost four pages in my journal of things to be grateful for. When I have such abundance in my life, it is hard to worry about the small things. And when I suffer a setback, I know that I have a wealth of things to be grateful for in other areas, to give me strength and help me through.

So, do you agree that 15 minutes of Gratitude could change your life?

Will you join me? Comment below me and let me know how it goes.

Sincerely,

Greg

PS I am very Grateful to you for being a part of this community. I wish you all the best for 5778.

Ready to start your own Mussar journey? Take the Soul Trait Profile Quiz now. 

An earlier version of this post was published in January 2016

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The Divine Hand In Hurricanes – A Mussar Lesson

Divine Order: Climate scientists predicted bigger storms. Now we have them.

I am convinced we are seeing the hand of the Divine hand in hurricanes like Harvey and Irma. Not the cartoonish, fire and brimstone retribution that some evangelicals are pronouncing.  Rather, the Divine is being realized through natural laws that were put in place during creation. Science predicted stronger hurricanes if carbon levels continued to rise. Carbon levels are higher, and we are seeing stronger hurricanes. If you are unsure of the Divinity, I suspect that you believe in the laws of nature. As practitioners of Mussar, we are faced with the question of what soul traits are in play for us, and how we should act.  Read on to learn the answers.

The False Choice Between Spirituality and Science.

I get asked all the time how a scientist like myself can get caught up in spirituality. People who ask that question either don’t understand science, don’t understand spirituality, or don’t understand either. In my experience 90% of people, even the so called experts in science and spirituality, fall into the third category. It is one thing to be a technician of science, or a technician of spiritual teachings. It is quite another to understand the why. Both science and spirituality delve into mystery, to understand how things work, and how seemingly different things are connected. The science fiction writer Arthur Clark once said “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” The same holds for quantum entanglement. Science doesn’t need to explain everything in order for us to believe in it, and spiritual faith is big enough to allow two things to be equally true that may on the surface seem contradictory. The Mussar Classic Strive For Truth gets its name from the quest to understand the Truth of the world, which is taught to us by Torah. And the Truth here is that we are seeing the hand of the Divine in climate change.

Physical Laws Were Created by the Divine

In the book Worldmask, Rabbi Akiva Tatz wrote : “The world is exquisitely ordered: the very fact that it can be studied mathematically and scientifically results from this order. If the world parallels its spiritual root, and we wish to understand that root, we must study the order inherent in the world.” We can see this spiritual root in the story of creation in the book of Genesis. First there was darkness over the waters. Then there was light. Then there was a separation between air and water. Next dry land, followed by animal and plant life. And then Man. The Torah teaches that God created each of these in turn, and in so doing created the laws of nature. If you are not sure of the Divinity, you can look at the story metaphorically and come to the same answer: Today we have laws of nature. They are inflexible.

More carbon shows the Divine Hand. 

In science, what we do is we look at data, and then create models to explain what we are seeing. The model makes predictions about what will happen. This is exactly what we are seeing with climate change. For example, In 1987, Kerry Emanuel published a paper called The dependence of hurricane intensity on climate in the journal Nature, which is the top science journal in the world. It predicted that more CO2 in the atmosphere will lead to more destructive hurricanes.

Prediction: More CO2 leads to more destructive storms.

Look at the graph to the right. CO2 levels have gone up since 1987.

Reality: We have more CO2 in the air, and Irma set records for wind speed.

The data is supporting the model of climate change.

When Will These Idiots Learn That Global Warming is Real?

A friend of mine asked that question on their Facebook wall today with a link to an article about the hurricanes. I answered in a harsh way. I said, “They will learn when we start treating them with the respect they are due as human beings, and stop shaming and judging them.” Sociologist Brene Brown teaches that if you shame people by calling them names, they will just get defensive and dig their heels in. Mussar teaches the same thing. If you insult someone, it activates the Evil Inclination, which we know lives in the amygdala. People who are angry or upset literally cannot thing logically. So your chance of convincing someone to change their mind when you upset them is literally zero. You might bully them into changing their behavior. But changing their heart, changing their mind? No way.

In the 2000s  I was talking with a stranger on a plane about Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth.” She didn’t believe in climate change. I told her I was a scientist and why I thought it was true. She then rather sheepishly admitted that she didn’t believe it was true because she didn’t like Al Gore’s politics. The was pre-mussar, but I had the sense to ask her to look past the messenger. She shook her head. Most people can’t look past the messenger. Going back to our point above, what kind of messenger are you?

Mussar has guidance for us.

Mussar’s Path To Healing

The solution to climate change is not in the air, it is in the heart. At long as we treat each other as animals, we are destined for destruction. Hurricanes Harvey and Irma are literally undoing the work of creation. Water, air, and land are no longer separate. Where there was human, animal, and plant life, we see death. Where we assisted in the act of creation, the Divine hand brings discussion.

To heal the planet, we first need to heal our relationship with the people who disagree with us. A first step is to moderate our speech, which is governed by the soul trait of Silence. As it says in the Bible,  The words of the wise are heard [when spoken] softly (Ecclesiastes 9:17). See this post for ideas on how to promote healing on the internet. Don’t shame or insult people because they support politicians who claim to not believe in climate change. Talk to them about the data. Ask them what they feel. Be curious. Listen to their perspective. Ask questions. Maintain your Equanimity.

While we are waiting for everyone’s heart to open, each of us can work to reduce our personal carbon footprint. Ask yourself this: If you believe in climate change, what have you done to fight it? Mussar suggests that we start with leading by example. In our home, we have solar power, and lease an electric car.

If you’d like to take action, click here for 25 suggestions on how to reduce your carbon footprint.

The post The Divine Hand In Hurricanes – A Mussar Lesson appeared first on American Mussar.

Mussar Practice For Work Life Balance

Girl Taking A Nap On Her Notebook Computer As Exhausted

It is no secret that I am a recovering workaholic. At my low point, I worked 90 hours a week, which was destroying my health, relationships, and my career. I brought balance to my life, but it took me a long time. Mussar helped me understand the root cause of my overwork. Here, I’ll share with you a mussar practice for work life balance. 

 


Lets be clear: Work itself is not the issue. Pirkei Avot teaches us to “Love work” [1:10]. After all, the covenant gave us six days to work, and one day to rest (Avos D’Rebbi Nosson 11:1). The Talmud, too, teaches that labor is honorable, even in the house of study [Babylonian Talmud Nedarim 49b]. According to Rabbi Chaim David Halevy, “Work is sacred—it is building and creating a partnership with God in the work of creation” [Aseh L’cha Rav 2:6].


 


As practitioners of Mussar, we find the spiritual in everyday activities. Yes, our job is to assist God in the work of creation. (Or if you are unsure of the Divinity, think of it as helping the Universe.) Yet at the same time, our mission is to repair the world, to repair ourselves, and to elevate our spirit to a higher place. Excessive work—the true issue—is inherently unbalanced because it takes away from these other sacred obligations.


 


Think of your own life – when you are working too much, there isn’t enough time for sleep, friends, family, or fun. An excessive workload brings the soul trait of Moderation out of balance. To establish a Mussar practice for work life balance, we must first recognize the arguments we use to justify our excess.


Three Common Arguments That Rationalize Overwork



Fear: Some people blame their employer for “forcing them to work all the time.” For example, they are afraid that they will be fired if they do not promptly respond to email.


Love: Others work all the time out of a sense of mission and devotion. For example, many rabbis flirt with burnout because they love the congregation and service to God.


Happiness. People in this category say, “Yes, I work all the time, but it makes me happy. What’s wrong with that?”




Each of these rationalizations points to a soul trait out of balance. For example, feelings of happiness and love of the mission can mask the pursuit of Honor. The workplace is filled with opportunities to acquire Honor, from a pat on the head to a plaque for being employee of the month. I once saw someone recognized at a company meeting for canceling a family vacation to visit a customer. He glowed with pride, and was happy. I doubt his wife and kids were.


 


Attachment to work is emotional. Mussar teaches that a strong emotion cannot be changed simply by resolving to change. Similarly, an unbalanced life is not going to change by resolving to work fewer hours. Rather, we must passionately choose to walk on the middle path. Remember, we are presented with choice points (tests) every day. The key is to devise a strategy to pass the tests when they come up. See this post for more on choice points.


 


I have found that saying no to work was not helpful because my attachment to work was too strong. In addition, too many messages from my employer pushed me to work more. But, when I decided to prioritize my health and my family with passion, my work hours started to drop rapidly.


 


The key to work-life balance, like all Mussar practice, is to start where you are and take one small step towards balance. We need to cut back little by little, by saying Yes to things that are more important than work.  For example, I chose to stop working at 9 pm in order to have time to wind down and sleep well. Then I stopped working at 8 to have more time with my wife, and then at 7 to have more time with my kids. Within a year, I had cut my hours by a third without changing jobs, and no one in the office even noticed! Yet my family life became a joy, and my health improved rapidly. And my career improved as well, in part because I was no longer a strung-out, exhausted wreck!
Three Soul Traits To Help You Establish a Mussar Practice For Work Life Balance 

Enthusiasm. Excess work may indicate excess Enthusiasm for the wrong things. Rather than trying to work less, refocus Enthusiasm. Make health, family, and/or community a higher priority. Work is still important, but is it as important as your health? Of course not.
Trust. Attachment to work is emotional, and change can be laced with fear. Invest in trusting that God has your back, and that whatever happens, you will be ok. If you are unsure about the Divinity, remember that most things turn out ok. Make a few small, exploratory steps to build confidence and overcome the fear.
Order. Strictly rank your work projects, and focus on the top three. Get your manager to agree to the order, and agree that the other things are a lower priority. Next, do not accept any meetings or last minute requests that are not part of the top three. Offer kind alternatives – 5 minutes on the phone instead of a 30 minute meeting, or offer to meet the following week.



What soul trait would you practice to bring better balance to your life?


Want to learn more about yourself? Click Here to take the Soul Trait Profile Quiz to see which Soul Traits might be contributing to your overwork.

 


An earlier version of this post called Through a Mussar Lens: Striving for Balance was published in Yashar on MARCH 2015. Click here to see it.

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Spiritual Responsibility: I Am Responsible For The Health Care Vote

By Gage (2012 Electoral College map) [CC BY-SA 4.0]When there is a public catastrophe, who has spiritual responsibility? It is hard to think of the votes to repeal Obamacare as anything but a catastrophe in the making. In Judaism, we place the highest value on human life. And make no mistake, if these bills become law, tens of millions of people will lose their health insurance. And without health insurance, many of these people will die prematurely. As it says in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 4:5) “Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.”

It is so easy to blame others. I would like nothing better than to get on Facebook and Twitter to rage against the people who voted for this bill. I’d love to lash out at the people who voted for the politicians who supported this bill. I could write volumes, accusing various politicians and their supporters of being terrible people, and point to various verses in Torah to support my position. But that is not a spiritual answer to this crisis.

In his book “This Is Real And You Are Completely Unprepared,” Rabbi Alan Lew writes that when it comes to a catastrophe, “the only question worth asking about any recurring catastrophe, is this: what is my responsibility for it? How am I complicit in it? How can I prevent it from happening again?”

Therefore, while I did not vote for anyone responsible for the Obamacare rollback, I need to take personal responsibility. Thus, spiritual responsibility is very different than the types of leadership and personal responsibility that we usually talk about. I take responsibility for this situation in the following two ways.

Spiritual Responsibility for the Electoral College

I have never spoken out against the Electoral College. If we had a different system of government, in which the person who gets the most votes becomes President, we would not be in this situation. As a people, we made a vow of Never Again after the Holocaust. But after the 2000 election, when Al Gore won the popular vote, he was denied the Presidency because the supreme court stopped a recount. As a result, George Bush became President, invaded Iraq, and hundreds of thousands of people died. I never demanded an end to the Electoral College after Bush. As a result, we once again have a President who is not supported by the majority of Americans, and who is putting lives at risk.

Spiritual Responsibility for the gerrymandering

I have never taken a stand against gerrymandering, the process of setting up congressional districts to favor one political party over another. The problem is acute, and largely underreported. For example, according to the New York Times, in 2012, 1.5 million more people voted for Democrats in Congress, but the outcome was a 234 to 201 Republican majority. More recently, AP reported that in 2016, gerrymandering resulted in a comfortable Republican majority instead of a narrow one in the House. This fall the Supreme Court will look at whether Wisconsin’s redistricting plan is constitutional. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg has called this case the most important one the Supreme court will hear next term. And, Rabbi Michael Knopf argues that gerrymandering is against Jewish law. He explains that we are all descended from one person, and therefore all have equal value (Sanhedrin 4:5).

Spiritual Responsibility & Mussar Practice

Judaism and Mussar practice in particular, teaches that it is not enough to do no harm; rather we must proactively do good. When it comes to decisions like going to war, or removing healthcare from tens of millions of people, we need a system that awards power to the person with the most votes.

I don’t know if Obamacare will be repealed or not. It doesn’t matter, because as long as the Electoral College and gerrymandering are supported by rule of law, we remain at risk for a continued assault on the values we hold most dear. While the Republican Party is benefitting today from gerrymandering and the Electoral College, that could change in the future. If California and New York were to gerrymander the way Wisconsin and Pennsylvania did, our system would be worse, the the power would shift. We don’t want to live in that world. The Soul Trait of Truth teaches us to distance ourselves from a false matter, and the more we have gerrymandering, the farther we are from the truth.

As a Mussar community, we need to stand against this injustice, and demand an end to gerrymandering and the electoral college. I am firmly convinced that if our President and legislatures are more reflective of public opinion, we will have a government that works for the people instead of putting their lives at risk.

Ok, this is how I am taking spiritual responsibility for this situation. But Mussar, like all spiritual practices, is individual. How will you take spiritual responsibility?  Please comment below.

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Slabadka Mussar Practice: Three Key Principles According to Rabbi Avi Fertig

Rabbi Nosson Zvi Finkel, the Alter of Slabodka

Recently, I watched a delightful webinar by Rabbi Avi Fertig about the Slabodka Mussar Practice. Rabbi Fertig is the Associate Dean of the  Mussar Institute, and this webinar was a members only event, so I cannot share a link to it here. Background: Rabbi Yisroel Salanter, the founder of the 19th Century Mussar Movement, had three key disciples, each of whom started their own school of Mussar. Slabodka was started by Rabbi Nosson Zvi Finkel,  who was known as the Alter of Slabodka.

I absolutely loved learning about the teachings of this flavor of Mussar because they so closely align with the principles of American Mussar.   Here are the three key principles of Slabodka Mussar practice.

Slabodka Mussar Practice Principle #1: Pleasure

Rabbi Nosson Zvi Finkel, the Alter of Slabodka wanted people to study Mussar because it was good, and pleasurable. As a proof text he sited Psalms 34:9. Taste and see that the Lord is good. How blessed are those who take shelter in Him. He wanted pleasure seekers as students in his Yeshivot, and to direct their pleasure towards the spiritual realm. He taught that are so used to physical pleasures, we do not appreciate them. This is a core teaching of the soul trait of Gratitude.

Slabodka Mussar Practice Principle #2: Individuality

The Alter of Slabodka taught that each student is different, and needs to be dealt with in his/her unique way. His proof text was from Talmud Pesachim 118a,”God punishes each person based on his means.”  Slabodka schools demanded individuality of each student. One can’t imitate others, and we each need to go our own way. This was not a one size fits all approach to parenting and education, which was radial in its day. He wanted his students to think and rethink, as a way of building the individual world of each student. Thus, he demanded that students think for themselves and think deeply.

Slabodka Mussar Practice Principle #3: The Greatness of Human Beings

Finally, Rabbi Finkel stressed that each person is created in the likeness of God. This is a huge contrast to Rabbi Salanter’s approach of focusing on deficiencies. Finkel stressed that each of us has great potential. We are great and amazing right now. Because of that, we have enormous capacity to bring good into the world. Here in the webinar, Rabbi Fertig shared that he is the product of a Slabodka Yeshiva. As a student, he felt special and unique. He was taught that when you look at another human being, realize you are seeing God’s presence in the world.

The Alter of Slabodka hired a tailor to be at the yeshiva, so students would feel like the image of God. Seeing one’s own greatness is a catapult towards greatness. Dressing well is a reminder to perfect yourself because that is your true form.

I particularly love this last teaching. We all have a Divine Spark occluded by our baggage. Mussar helps us move the bags, and let the light shine through.

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Three Tips To Practice Mussar Equanimity

Many people starting their Mussar journey jump to the chapter on Equanimity. I remember doing exactly that, and then being confused. In this post, I’ll explain why this soul trait is hard, and offer you some ways to practice Mussar Equanimity. As you may recall, Equanimity translates directly from Hebrew as “calmness of the soul.” Equanimity in balance means that, we have the ability to keep our head, to not get too high when things are going well, and not too low in a setback.

 

Right now, my own Equanimity is being challenged. You have been sending me lots of feedback on what to write about, and I have to battle not to get too excited  – part of me wants to just keep working to learn everything I can, and turn that info around in blog posts and new offerings. That voice is my Evil Inclination, trying to get me off the workaholic bandwagon. I know that path, and the outcome for me isn’t good.

 

My Equanimity was challenged in the opposite direction, this past weekend. I was talking to a friend from my corporate days, who mentioned that he ran into someone who I used to work with. I was surprised at how overcome I was with negative feelings. Yes, I have reason to dislike this person, because they directly caused me “harm” and made some decisions that in my opinion set back the company in a big way. I “watched” in amazement as my Equanimity was thrown off. I became upset – my blood pressure went up, and I started bad mouthing the person. The latter is a real Mussar no no, and I knew it. Yet the words just tumbled out of my mouth.

 

WOW. This is exactly why Mussar is a practice. We need to keep working at it, to over time gradually heal and bring these soul traits towards balance. I’ll frame the remainder of the story around three paths to help you practice Mussar Equanimity.
1. Practice Mussar Equanimity Directly
I think of Equanimity as being what Eckhart Tolle calls “the watcher,” which is our higher consciousness that exists independently of, and behind the thinking mind. When we are the watcher, we are mindfully present, and better able to access our free will. In the story above, I was being the watcher as my ego bad mouthed this person. Because I was mindfully present, I said less than I might have otherwise, and limited myself to a factual recitation of the things the person had done. I kept judging thoughts out of my mouth. For example, I did not use words like “evil” or “poisonous.”

 

It is very hard to directly build Equanimity. It required a practice like mediation to learn how to both observe and quiet thoughts as they come into the head. Tolle’s book The Power of Now is the best I have read on the direct approach to Equanimity.
2. Practice Mussar Equanimity Indirectly
There is a reason that I put the chapter on Equanimity late in my Mussar book. It is hard to just do, especially because our Equanimity is often thrown off by other underlying soul traits that are out of balance. I can look within, and see many other soul traits that contributed to my Equanimity imbalance. For example, my Honor was activated because I was judging this person today, based on something they did 10 years ago; Humility because I think I know better than this person who was much more senior than I was; Silence because I could not keep quiet; and of course Forgiveness. I am a grudge holder. Rabbi Micha Berger has an interesting suggestion on how not to hold a grudge in this article. Part of the answer is to remember a teaching from Alan Morinis – often when things go wrong, they only seem wrong to us, which is a gift because we are being shown a part of our spiritual curriculum, and thus an opportunity for growth.

By committing to our Mussar practice, we begin to heal the various soul traits that disturb our Equanimity.
3. Take a Walk in Nature.
Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook once wrote the following: “The song of the birds as they perch in the trees… the sweet smells of lilies and the fruit of God’s garden…return one’s mind to it’s natural state.” (With Heart in Mind by Alan Morinis chapter 12). Kook’s advice to seek nature to restore tranquility is supported by modern science – numerous studies have shown that being in nature lowers blood pressure, and improves depression.


Sorry, there are no magic bullets. But that good news is that a Mussar practice can be conducted in about 5 minutes a day. They are five minutes that can and will transform your life.


Want to figure out which soul traits are disturbing your equanimity? Take the Soul Trait Profile Quiz.

The post Three Tips To Practice Mussar Equanimity appeared first on American Mussar.

Mussar Practice Can Heal the Political Divide Within the Jewish Community

Is the Kotel part of Israel, or part of occupied territory?

Whoever you voted for in the last Presidential election, I think we can all agree that we are living in dangerous times for the US, Israel, and the American Jewish community. We are seeing an uptake in anti-sematic acts like the burning of the Beth Hamedrash Hagadol synagogue in New York that is suspected to be caused by arson, and the desecration of Jewish cemeteries. In my area in San Francisco Bay Area, some synagogues are hiring on site security people for the first time to allay the fears of parents about dropping their kids off. To deal with this time of danger, we need to recognize that Mussar practice can heal the political divide within the Jewish community.

Jane Eisner’s editorial in the Forward “Enough After Israel Intelligence Betrayal?” makes the argument that President Trump’s recent actions have exacerbated the danger to Jews and Israel. Eisner highlights many of the actions Trump has or his administration have taken, such as failure to keep his promises to relocate the US embassy to Jerusalem, and to cancel the Iran Deal. In addition, Trump berated an Orthodox Jewish reporter, stood by when someone in his administration said that the Kotel is not part of Israel, and now has endangered Israeli intelligence assets by improperly communicating info to Russia. She gives each example to build a case why Jewish (mostly Orthodox) Trump supporters should reconsider their support for the President.

While I agree with many of Eisner’s points, the article has an accusatory tone, with a subtext of “how can you still be so stupid to stand by Trump.” I’m sorry, but rubbing Trump voters’ noses in the poo will not change anyone’s mind, and certainly won’t help heal the divide plaguing this country.

Right now we are in the period of the Omer, when we remember the 24,000 disciples of Rabbi Akiva who died because they did not have Kavod (Honor/Respect) for one another. The deep divisions within American, and within the Jewish community concern me, and make me wonder if we are setting ourselves up for another great tragedy. There is no way Trump would have been elected were it not for a reservoir of pain, frustration, and alienation for him to exploit.

The Jewish Spiritual Practice of Mussar offers each of us an alternative. We can practice the soul trait of Honor by listening, questioning, and inviting the Other into relationship. Rather than ask, “have you had enough yet?” we can ask, “Is this what you were expecting?” You voted based on one set of information. As new information comes to the fore, is this a President you can still support? Where do we have common ground? We may disagree on the Egalitarian space at the Wall, but we all agree that it is an inseparable and integral part of Israel.

Mussar is a Jewish spiritual practice that can help each and every one of us become a mensch. The first step is to stop salivating on the non-menchy behavior or mistakes of others. Pirkei Avot (1:6) teaches that we should give all individuals the benefit of the doubt. Let’s be clear – I am not advocating giving Trump the benefit of the doubt, not given the pattern of behavior we have seen these last months in office. But the people who voted for them, how about we show them the benefit of the doubt?

Now more important than ever. We must resist the urge to say “I told you so”, or to characterize supporters on the other side as evil, racist, weak, stupid, or corrupt. To be frank, the last election no longer matters, nor does the next one. What matters is healing our community to stand together against a common threat. We saw a great example of this recently when Jewish students from across the political spectrum came together at Northwestern to protest a convicted Palestinian terrorist who was speaking.

The split between the Orthodox and the rest of the Jewish community is not a secret. If we can model menchy behavior, respectful speech, healing, and coming together towards a common position on the political crisis, imagine the example we could set for the rest of the world. For as it says in Proverbs 18:19 “It is harder to win an offended brother than a strong city.” And when we do, we shall be a “light to the nations— so that all the world may be saved.” Isaiah 49:6.

This is not a job you can outsource to someone else. Mussar practice offers a path in which we take responsibility for our own actions. As a first step, elevate your conduct on the internet, by replacing shaming and accusatory language with questioning, listening, and inviting another’s opinion into your worldview. As it says in Proverbs “To answer someone before hearing him out is both stupid and embarrassing.”

The good news is that we don’t need to model consensus or universal agreement. We just need to model how to disagree and remain in community. And when we do, the areas of common interest will rise to the fore.

Who will you reach out to today?

Looking for a Mussar book that focuses on social action? Check out Changing the World from the Inside Out: A Jewish Approach to Personal and Social Change by Rabbi David Jaffe on our Mussar Books page.

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Assume You Have a Divine Spark, an American Mussar Practice

Spark by Wesley Eller via Flickr CC

Recently I got the following question by email:

I’ve seen you write on several occasions that we all have a Divine Spark. I don’t believe it. I need external validation. My Divine Spark is flickering. It is very faint. What advice can you give me? 

– Dark Inside

Dear Dark Inside,

Thank you for having the courage to admit that is how you feel. You are not alone. I also need external validation. As I shared in my book – despite my Ph.D. from MIT, and string of career successes, I felt worthless. To this day, I still fight those feelings, but thanks to Mussar they are not nearly as strong as they used to be.

My advice? Stop trying to believe that you have a Divine Spark. Rather, assume you have a Divine Spark.  When we assume something to be true, we act as if it is, and don’t waste mental energy wondering and debating. Then, when a voice of doubt starts to talk in your head, you can answer with confidence based on this assumption. (See this excerpt which explains the Four Assumptions of American Mussar)

Moreover, the full assumption that I teach in The Spiritual Practice of Good Actions is that we all have a Divine Spark that is occluded by our baggage. When we practice Mussar, it helps us move the bags and let the light shine through. Or as Leonard Cohen wrote, the cracks let the light in.

I love the image of a flickering Divine Spark that you share. It is wonderful, because the flickering is caused by the baggage, not any defect in your spark. Again, you don’t need to believe it, just assume it is true, and use that as a basis for your Mussar practice.

Ask yourself, what if it were true that you have a Divine Spark? How would that change your self image, even for a moment? Rabbi Akiva taught that we were given two gifts, a Divine Spark and the knowledge that we have a Divine Spark. (Pirkei Avot 3:14). Knowing that you have a Divine Spark gives you the knowledge and comfort that you already have everything you need.

Remember that Mussar practice is a practice. By practice, I mean something that we do every day. We practice a musical instrument so that when the concert arrives, we play better. We practice Mussar to exercise our spiritual muscles in small situations. Then, when the challenge arrives, we find ourselves acting in a different way.

I encourage you to commit to your Mussar practice.  Simply reading this post will not get you anywhere. In fact, your Evil Inclination may take this opportunity to make you feel better. Simply being reassured will set you back unless you allow that feeling to empower you to take action.

Each time you take action, you make a small change in your soul. Slowly, slowly over time the small changes will add up. The good news is that the more out of balance you feel, the more opportunity you have to make progress quickly.

So pick a soul trait, any soul trait, and commit to it for two weeks. Do the mantra, observe mindfully through the day, pick one small area for change, and journal at night. (I know, we all hate the journaling part.) Just write a few words on your napkin after dinner.

The next time you think your Divine Spark is faint, don’t sweat it. It just appears to be faint, the the corona around the sun during a lunar eclipse. Just assume the sun is burning brightly, and moving the moon even a bit will restore light to the world.

Sincerely,

Greg, practitioner, facilitator, and innovator of American Mussar

Not sure which soul trait to start with? Take the Soul Trait Profile Quiz for inspiration.

Want to learn more? Check out the list of Mussar books.

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