[Avodah] critique of mussar

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, January 29, 2008 1:23 pm, David Riceman wrote:
: 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."

RYS's 125th yahrzeit begins tomorrow night (25 Shevat), so I was looking
for a topic for a blog entry on mussar. Thanks for grist for that mill...

There are two foundation stories about the birth of Tenu'as haMussar
(which should not be confused with mussar as a whole).

The first is where a young Yisrael Lipkin used to follow R' Zundel
Salanter around. Rav Zundel wanted to live privately, secretly, so
RYS had to sneak around to watch the actions of this ba'al mussar. One
time, he followed Rav Zundel into the woods, where Rav Zundel swayed
in hispa'alus. (No, this really isn't a Breslov story...) Suddenly, Rav
Zundel turned around, made eye contact, and instructed, "Yisrael! Lern
mussar zal tzuzain a yarei Shamayim!" In Nesivos Or it writes that RYS
called the moment a "thunderbolt" that changed his life.

The second was a time on Yom Kippur when RYS didn't have a machzor with
him. At one point he got lost, and needed to peer over the other person's
shoulder. He got shoved in response to his efforts. How dare you shterr
my kavanah! At that point Rav Yisrael realized that he couldn't keep
Mussar to himself, and had to share it with the world.

Hold onto those, I'll get back to them.

What is mussar?

I'm going to answer that with a set of three triads.

First triad: There are three ways to see the relationship between tiqun
hamiddos and halakhah. They are far from mutually exclusive.

1- Hilkhos Dei'os describes the chiyuvim specific to personality. They
are chiyuvim among other chiyuvim.

2- Without tiqun hamiddos, one is incapable of making the right decisions
beshe'as ma'aseh. They are the means by which one is capable of following
halakhah to an ever greater extent.

While the first notion is universal, for example "kol hako'eis keilu
oveid AZ", this one is only nearly universal. It is not consistent
with some forms of Chassidus. Chassidus is inherently experiential in
nature. Breslov argues that trying to over-analyze or work at it would
actually get in the way of the experience.

3- The entire tachlis of halakhah is to achieve sheleimus ha'adam,
to finish HQBH's creation "na'aseh adam betzalmeinu" -- the lashon
rabim can be taken to mean the person himself. Perfection of the tzelem
E-lokim which by definition must be self made. Thus, all of halakhah is
an exercise in tiqun hamiddos.

This notion is far from universal -- it's the sheleimus fork in
the hashkafic road. Chassidus took the other route, deveiqus, making
sheleimus an aspect of it. Others here argued non-personal perfection
as a goal. And Brisk would argue against the entire concept of defining
goals; halakhah must be understood on its own terms.

Second tried: A rebbe chaveir of mine, R' Dr Ephraim Becker, describes
mussar (in the third sense of the previous triad) as a three part thing:
- There is the real, knowing where one stands
- There is the ideal, knowing where the Borei wants us to be
- There is the process

There is an interesting contrast in book titles. When R' Yaakov
Hillel wrote a seifer on machashavah, he called it "Ascending Jacob's
Ladder". When Dr Alan Morinis documented his path to being a chozeir
biteshuvah studying under R' Yechiel Perr in a book titled "Climbing
Jacob's Ladder". (RYP is RY Derech Ayson, Far Rockaway NY, and scion
of Novhardok three different ways.) Ascending, with no mention of work,
vs climbing.

To go to primary sources, note that RZS told the future RYS "zal tzuzain
a yarei Shamayim" -- not to gain yir'as Shamayim, to *become* a yarei
Shamayim. As I wrote above, Chassidus tries for deveiqus. Tenu'as
haMussar asserted that one must try to become kind of person capable
of deveiqus. There could be no other reason why deveiqus isn't
achieved. Hashem would leave no break between Him and us. The break is
between us and ourselves.

It is this notion of process, of climbing -- literally "shteiging" --
that is of value within nearly all derakhim. And thus lower case "m",
not specifically Tenu'as haMussar. The different derakhim define the
ideal by stressing different aspects of it. Which will in turn suggests
different paths, thus the name "derakhim". But using tools to become
the kind of person who can follow that path, to consciously pursue that
derekh's perspective on the end-goal, makes sense according to any derekh.

Third triad: Note that the story with Rav Zundel portrays mussar as the
route to becoming a yarei Shamayim. The one about the man who wouldn't
share his machzor for a moment focuses on bein adam lachaveiro. The need
to refocus the masses who were focusing on rite, such a following along
the tefillah on YK to the exclusion of more fundamental mitzvos. And
that second theme is central to how R' Yisrael is portrayed; most of
the stories told about him are about being machmir in BALC over common
chumros in bein adam laMaqom.

Mussar is also very centrally a third theme -- tiqun hamiddos. Whether it's
Mesilas Yesharim's working up the ladder of mid dos up to Ruach haQodesh
or Cheshbon haNefesh's list of middos that have more BALC implications.
And this is true even in the "Hilkhos Dei'os" sense of Mussar, never mind
the approaches in the first triad that make tiqun hamiddos even more
central.

We can view the goals of Tenu'as haMussar as creating a "holistic Jew",
one who works on his relationship with the Borei, with other people,
and with himself. And compared to Orthodox culture as warped by needing
to defend our existence against Reform, that means a greater stress on
BALC and BALN (bein adam lenafsho, as the Gra put it) than one sees in
other derakhim. And if that's true of 19th cent Litta, it's even more
true of today's society, with its providing grist for "chumrah of the
month club" jokes.

That would explain why Rav Yisrael is so associated with stories stressing
BALC. Had the Yahadus of his day been BALC-centric, the stories retold
about him would be about tefillah, etc... E.g. Tenu'as haMussar promoted
tefillah behispa'alus; a minyan no quieter or less passionate than
anything found in Karlin.

RDR's friend told him 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."

Which brings me to RMM's reply to RSR's post. (I must confess I held onto
his reply, not approving it until I could immediately reply with this
post. It's not often someone comes on an AishDas list and effectively
questions the goals of the host "organization".)

RMM writes on Tue Jan 29 14:27:
...
: And regarding Rav Kook, this is something totally separate. Rav Kook
: isn't mussar; he's hashkafa....
: 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.

Using the real-ideal-path concept:

RAYK is giving machashavah. He therefore defines an ideal, but no
way to become the kind of person who can live up to it. For that matter,
RSRH doesn't either. RSRH is closer to Tenu'as haMussar in ideal --
both aim at a refined Jew. Different focuses on refinement, but it's no
coincidence both Slabodka and TIDE produced well groomed, secularly
informed, doers.

But TIDE doesn't tell you how to embody more TIDE.

It is easy to be inspired by ideals. The trick is staring at the details,
the step-by-step work, and still following through. I'm sorry RDR's
friend doesn't find it inspiring.

Mussar in the loose sense is encapsulated in the notion of finding and
following a path from the real me to the ideal me. It requires belief
that tiqun hamiddos is a prerequisite for being able to follow halakhah.

This kind of Mussar can therefore be applied within most derakhim. One
can use RSRH's definition of the ideal or the Tanya's and still seek to
transform oneself into the kind of person who better lives that ideal.

And it is in that sense that AishDas strives to promote Mussar.

To get Mussar in the sense of Tenu'as haMussar requires one more element:
adopting the notion that sheleimus ha'adam is the entire tachlis of the
Torah, perfecting our tzelem E-lokim. And thus Rav Yisrael was lead to
balancing all three amudim as equals: Torah's perfection of the self,
Avodas Hashem, and Gemillus Chassadim toward others.

RMM also writes:
: I've found that Rav Salanter type mussar doesn't do anything for me.
: It seems too stark and harsh....                       Mussar like
: this is what I imagine fire-and-brimstone Christian preachers to be
: like, l'havdil.

I don't see those remarks as defining for Tenu'as haMussar. Rather, mussar
inherently is very subject to knowing where you are. And therefore, the
same era that created the stereotype fire-n-brimstone preacher called for
a very "dark" mussar. It's as unfair to judge it from where we stand as
it is to judge the role of tokhachah in contemporary Sepharadic maggidim.

And thus, the Tenu'ah had to "repackage" itself repeatedly as people
changed. Slabodka's Gadlus haAdam is no less Tenu'as haMussar even if
it dovetails well with contemporary Human Potential talk. And RSWolbe
(who /is/ somewhat less ThM, since the tenu'ah was really a casualty of
Hitler) wrote in the 1970s about the need to focus on zeri'ah ubinyan
rather than pruning. Carrots, not sticks, are what work for today's Jew.

What killed Mussar? Mussar never survived the end of East European
Jewry's golden era. But why not, whereas Chassidus is rebuilding itself?

Two bachurim noticed that of all the Slabodka graduates who built
post-War yeshivos, only R' Dovid Leibowitz (founding RY of Yeshivas
Chofetz Chaim) strived to build a mussar yeshiva. Not R' Aharon Kotler,
R' Yaakov Kamenecki, Rav Hutner, Rav Kahaneman, etc, etc, etc... They
actually went around the US asking these rashei yeshiva why. Rav Hutner's
answer is telling. He felt that the American talmid couldn't handle the
long work that real change requires. Rav Hutner therefore chose the more
modest goal (in his opinion) of inspiring them with the Maharal's thought.

NeoChassidus is popular because it provides inspiring experiences
without that demand of the day-to-day attention to detail and following
a spiritual discipline that RDR's friend can't relate to. Rav Hutner,
in the founding years of the American O community of today, thought
all we can do is inspire people toward the ideal and hope for the best
without conscious work or a plan to get there.

Given the increasing lack of a holistic, three pillar, approach to
Yahadus, and the greater strength of the community and its educational
system today, I believe we have a sizable population ready to work for
something better. To build idealists.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "The worst thing that can happen to a
micha at aishdas.org        person is to remain asleep and untamed."
http://www.aishdas.org          - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm
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