[Avodah] AishDas and Mussar

[Daniel Israel]

On Thu, 15 Mar 2007 16:17:10 -0600 Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org> 
wrote:
>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.
>
>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.

OTOH, the Ramchal, who is the author of _the_ classic mussar sefer, 
emphasizes very strongly the seichel (I'm thinking of derech HaShem 
here, but it's true of Mesilas Yesharim as well).  So I don't think 
that  the distinction can be drawn as sharply as you say.  Even R' 
Chaim of Vilozhin wasn't saying that mussar was not a real part of 
Torah, he was, IMHO, suggesting that what needed to be learned 
could be absorbed by learning gemara.

The question in my mind would be: given the way the Ramchal speaks 
of seichel, how do we understand the difference between mussar and 
those who insist instead on the pre-eminence of seichel?  Are they 
defining seichel differently, or are they really approaching the 
same ideas from different sides?

I'm not sure I've given this enough thought for a real answer, but 
I'd appreciate you response.

--
Daniel M. Israel
dmi1 at cornell.edu