[Avodah] critique of mussar

[Michael Makovi]

> A friend from Jerusalem stopped by last week, and we chatted for a few
> hours.  One of his remarks struck me as worth repeating here.  He told
> me that when he reads mussar sefarim he gets the impression of small
> mindedness; the concerns are very petty.  Whereas when he reads Rabbi
> Kook "ze mamash marhiv et hada'at."
>
> Any comments (I'll reserve my own)?
>
> David Riceman

I know exactly what he's saying. Unfortunately, in what follows, I'm
going to sound terribly disrespectful to various rabbis, but I don't
know how else to say what I'm going to say:

I've found that Rav Salanter type mussar doesn't do anything for me.
It seems too stark and harsh, and makes everything too black and
white. I feel like it's trying to break me down (which it may very
well be, in fact) and scare me, and this doesn't do it for me. It also
seems far too simplistic and childish and small-mindedto me. There's a
certain (non-famous) book that I read, that  was similar, and it
similarly presented everything one-dimensionally and too starkly and
harshly. I know exactly what your friend is talking about. Mussar like
this is what I imagine fire-and-brimstone Christian preachers to be
like, l'havdil.

On the other hand, I find things like Messilat Yesharim and Orchot
Tzadikim to be great. They tell you what to do and what not to and
what the pitfalls are, without getting into fire-and-brimstone remarks
about the yetzer hara and such. And they're not simplistic, not by any
means. Mesilat Yesharim is of course very sophisticated, and Orchot
Tzadikim is not sophisticated, but neither is it simplistic; it is
merely straight-to-the-point.

And regarding Rav Kook, this is something totally separate. Rav Kook
isn't mussar; he's hashkafa. Rav Kook indeed presents an amazingly
sophisticated weltanschauung, once you get past the insanely difficult
mystical terminology and packaging. Translate him into simple language
and repackage it rationally, and it's mamash something.

Rav Hirsch is similar IMO, except baruch hashem one doesn't have to do
any translation or repackaging. And he's not only hashkafa, but mussar
too in a hashkafic packaging. Mamash.

Mikha'el Makovi