Musar refers to books of ethics written during the Middle Ages.
The idea was to learn these books for character improvement. And some people took this to an extreme. Simcha Zissel had a school that learned Musar most of the day.
But I claim the main advantage of Musar is world view issues.
Without Musar the Torah can mean whatever anyone wants it to mean; especially if they learn Kabalah.
With Musar one gets a coherent idea of the world view of the Torah.
One way of learning Musar is when you are learning Musar you find sometimes some statement that relates to an area of character improvement that you know you need to work on.
It resonates with you. Then memorize it and say it every day right when you wake up in the morning and before you fall asleep.
Another advantage of Musar is it creates a meme that a community can organize itself around.
This is in fact what Musar yeshivas are and it accounts for the success of places like Brisk, Mir and Ponovitch. These are not just schools of learning Talmud. They are communities. And their central meme is Torah and Musar, not any fanatic insane central leader. This makes them what you could call "Torah communities." They are not perfect but from what I can tell they are the best thing out there.
The idea was to learn these books for character improvement. And some people took this to an extreme. Simcha Zissel had a school that learned Musar most of the day.
But I claim the main advantage of Musar is world view issues.
Without Musar the Torah can mean whatever anyone wants it to mean; especially if they learn Kabalah.
With Musar one gets a coherent idea of the world view of the Torah.
One way of learning Musar is when you are learning Musar you find sometimes some statement that relates to an area of character improvement that you know you need to work on.
It resonates with you. Then memorize it and say it every day right when you wake up in the morning and before you fall asleep.
Another advantage of Musar is it creates a meme that a community can organize itself around.
This is in fact what Musar yeshivas are and it accounts for the success of places like Brisk, Mir and Ponovitch. These are not just schools of learning Talmud. They are communities. And their central meme is Torah and Musar, not any fanatic insane central leader. This makes them what you could call "Torah communities." They are not perfect but from what I can tell they are the best thing out there.
