The Musar Movement has an advantage that by means of going through the basic texts of classical Musar, one comes to an understanding of the world view of Torah. The disadvantage is that even with this one can go off on a tangent.
Musar itself in fact became incorporated into the parallel Litvak Yeshiva idea which had been started by Rav Haim of Voloshin the disciple of the Gra. I imagine that the reason was this exact reason. So the idea of sitting and learning Musar hours and hours every day seems to no longer exist anywhere. But the fact is that without the basic texts of the Rishonim [mediaeval Musar], it seems impossible to come to any kind of world view that in fact is close to the Torah world view.
[Quick note of introduction. Musar itself means works of ethics of the Middle Ages. If one learns the Torah itself and also the Gemara it is hard to come to a rigorous cohesive world view of Torah. It was the forte of the sages of Middle Ages to get to a logical cohesive picture of what Torah is about that is understandable.]
Musar itself in fact became incorporated into the parallel Litvak Yeshiva idea which had been started by Rav Haim of Voloshin the disciple of the Gra. I imagine that the reason was this exact reason. So the idea of sitting and learning Musar hours and hours every day seems to no longer exist anywhere. But the fact is that without the basic texts of the Rishonim [mediaeval Musar], it seems impossible to come to any kind of world view that in fact is close to the Torah world view.
[Quick note of introduction. Musar itself means works of ethics of the Middle Ages. If one learns the Torah itself and also the Gemara it is hard to come to a rigorous cohesive world view of Torah. It was the forte of the sages of Middle Ages to get to a logical cohesive picture of what Torah is about that is understandable.]
