The main motivation I had for learning Musar (=books of Erthics by the rishonim mediaeval authors) while at the Mir in NY was that I saw that people that emphasized fear of God in their own lives seemed to do a lot better in learning Gemara than those that did not. I.e. there were people that did not learn Musar were smart, but their logic often seemed "krum" or crummy. While people that emphasized Fear of God when it came to Talmud their logic always seemed a lot more straight.
[Then on the other hand I recall there was one fellow at the Mir that seemed to be getting too much into Musar and that certainly did not add to his learning nor fear of God.]
Some years and tears later I asked a fellow to get me the book of Isaac Blazer [the disciple of Rav Israel Salanter] The Light of Israel and I noticed right on the first page he makes a claim that Musar heals spiritual disease. That is he says there that just like the body has physical diseases so the soul also can get sick. And just like for physical disease one goes to a doctor so for a spiritual disease one must go to the doctors of souls which are the rishonim--the authors of the books of Ethics of the Middle Ages.
Another advantage of Musar is it is more philosophical true to Torah. It comes in a time period when people were thinking more rigorously about philosophical issues. [So you do not have circular logic which plagues most philosophers from the Enlightenment and onward. That is most Enlightenment philosophers assume what they set out to prove.
[Then on the other hand I recall there was one fellow at the Mir that seemed to be getting too much into Musar and that certainly did not add to his learning nor fear of God.]
Some years and tears later I asked a fellow to get me the book of Isaac Blazer [the disciple of Rav Israel Salanter] The Light of Israel and I noticed right on the first page he makes a claim that Musar heals spiritual disease. That is he says there that just like the body has physical diseases so the soul also can get sick. And just like for physical disease one goes to a doctor so for a spiritual disease one must go to the doctors of souls which are the rishonim--the authors of the books of Ethics of the Middle Ages.
Another advantage of Musar is it is more philosophical true to Torah. It comes in a time period when people were thinking more rigorously about philosophical issues. [So you do not have circular logic which plagues most philosophers from the Enlightenment and onward. That is most Enlightenment philosophers assume what they set out to prove.
