[Avodah] AishDas and Mussar

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, March 26, 2007 1:28 pm, Rt Shoshana L. Boublil wrote:
: (I'm sorry I missed the 'forks' post...).

"Forks" refers to an article by RYGB (I believe in the Jewish Observer) that
has been discussed here so many times so as to get its own nickname. See
<http://www.aishdas.org/rygb/forks.htm>.

The basic fork, as a one-liner:
Litta defines man's tafqid as sheleimus ha'adam
Chassidus, as deveiqus baH'.

The essay gives it much more depth.

The idea happens to also recur on my blog at
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/category/forks>. I happened to arrive at the same
conclusion based on a half-remembered comment by Rabbi Riskin made during my
HS days, and gave it a much shallower parashah-sheet level treatment based on
"his-haleikh lefanai" vs "veheyei samim" -- which is goal, and which is means?

Most people believe bodeveiqus or temimus, whichever comes to mind first at
that particular moment. They can therefore flip-flop, and uncritically agree
with a speaker or paper that advocates either. This happens without having
thought it through or turned it into a priority system WRT cases where they
conflict halakhah lema'aseh.

...
: Active Sephardic communities?  All over Israel.

: They have their own Yeshivot and their own derech which is NOT the Litvische
: derech.

Derekh halimud or machashavah? I assume you mean both. But I would love to see
a developed presentation of the essance of avodas Hashem, what is man's
tafqid, from any of the Sepharadi points of view.

As for RYBS's question about other derakhim alive and well today, I think the
Ramchal's synthesis is still going. I defined it (here and subsequently on the
blog) as the notion that olam hazeh is for sheleimus, but sheleimus is defined
in terms of deveiqus. It gives a definition of sheleimus that isn't
necessarily dominated by RYS's increased emphasis on bein adam lachaveiro
(BALC). (Although of course no one claims BALC is unimportant.) Note how
Mesilas Yesharim follows RPBY's path of tiqun hamiddos, but the middos are
increasingly BALM, and are a path to qedushah and ru'ach haqodesh. In
contrast, many of the middos listed in Cheshbon haNefesh don't naturally fit
that particular sulam. Novordok was similarly a sheleimus to be a nidvaq. But
I think it is also (in a less extreme form) the ground state (undeveloped
position held by default) of many O Jews today.



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,
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Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter