[Avodah] AishDas and Mussar

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, March 11, 2007 10:38 am, David Riceman wrote:
: I think you're missing something here.  Both mussar and "chassidic ecstatic
: experience" use the koah hadimyon as a tool.  The difference is whether
: they're aiming to effect the dimyon or the sechel.  There are Jewish
: traditions which emphasis bypassing the dimyon altogether and exclusively
: using the sechel.  For example, the Rambam in MN, his son in Sefer HaMaspik
: L'Ovdei HaShem,  Abraham Abulafia (if I understand his claims correctly)
: and, more recently, Franz Rosenzweig.

You are right, I did underplay the number of derakhim that can't be deepened
through mussar. Brisk (outside of RYBS and RAS) is a more mainstream example
among contemporary O Jews of a derekh that values seichel to the near
exclusion of dimyon.

R' Itzele Blazer was physically evicted from Vilozhin by talmidim who chanted
"A blatt gemara iz de bester mussar seifer." The two worldviews can't be
added.

I question whether the Rambam's mehalekh in this area is meaningful to a
population that doesn't buy into the tenets of Aristotelian psychology.

There is clearly a synergy between thought and emotion. Based on our
discussion of the definition of "yeitzer hara", I think we both agree that
dimyon is the intellectual faculty more closely tied to emotion. Such that the
relative roles of seikhel and dimyon is directly related to the relative roles
of thought and emotion. Or of machashavah amuqah and emunah peshutah.

Aristotle makes thought primary, and defines emotion in terms of thought. He
defines anger as "an impulse, accompanied by pain, to a conspicuous revenge
for a conspicuous slight directed without justification towards what concerns
oneself or towards what concerns one's friends." And fear, a pain or
disturbance due to a mental picture of some destructive or painful evil in the
future."

I cannot but hear echos of this in the Rambam or Orchos Tzadiqim's use of the
word "dei'os" for emotions. The notion that they are products of, or actually
are, things of da'as.

I once coined the epigram:
    The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying conclusions the heart
    already reached.

This is more indicative of the trend of psychological theory of the last two
centuries. People think what they're emotionally ready to think. Unlike
Aristotle, we look at emotion as primary, and defines which thoughts we are
willing to entertain.

On can't do an end run around dimyon if one can't rely on perfecting thought
and letting emotion follow as a consequence. And thus, my blindness shows I
therefore am very much a product of my time.


On the same subject line, different topic, RYGB wrote at Fri, 09 Mar 2007
15:25:40 EST:
: I have trained my 10th grade talmidim at MTA to think about everything
: along the Chassidish/Litvish divide, further subdividing Lita into Brisk
: vs. Mussar. They know my biases, in some cases share them, in some cases
: reject them (and, to be honest, some are apathetic). I wish someone had
: let me know about this kind of stuff when I was in 10th grade, and I
: hope that this "early start" will facilitate their growth in ways that
: our dor did not acquire when we were in HS.

Is this fair to your Yekkish and Sepharadi talmidim? I mean, getting them to
think in these terms is great, but there are more than three families of
derakhim.

This got me to wondering where on the Fork to put TIDE and neo-O. It would
seem to me they are VERY akin to Mussar. Both teach sheleimus, the difference
is in the terms used to define the adam shaleim. RSRH['s translators] often
writes in terms of "ennoblement" and striving to lift oneself to nobility. A
fusion of everything man can accomplish -- both Torah and DE. In Mussar,
sheleimus is defined in terms of middos. The difference in definition then
leads to very different pragmatics. However, it is not coincidental that both
the neo-O Jew and the Slabodoka talmid would make a point of dressing in
style, clean and pressed. An air of dignity. Nobility. Sheleimus.

(Would anyone take the other side of a bet that RYGB is going to run with that
last paragraph? <g>)

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
micha at aishdas.org        your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
http://www.aishdas.org   and it flies away.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter