learning Musar

The idea of Reb Israel Salanter about learning Musar is in my mind a great idea even though the whole thing got off track to feed into a kind of fanaticism. Still the original idea seems important to me.

The original idea was an emphasis on several points as I think is clear from the writings of his disciples.  Clearly the importance of "Midot Tovot" [good traits: honesty, kindness, not to speak lashon hara (slander)] was foremost in his mind as you can see from his own statements about his motivation to begin the Musar Movement. Fear of God also I think you have to say was  apart of it as you can see in the writings of Isaac Blazzer.
 The trust in God aspect of it really I think was from Rav Joseph Horwitz of Navardok because you do not see that much in the other disciples.


The problem is the basic idea of Musar is not to be a fanatic, but rather to keep the Law of Moses in the most simple basic way possible. Not to add and not to subtract.

[The Middle Ages got a bad name that is not justified. In fact in certain areas of thought, the Middle Ages far surpasses later ages. You can see this when you learn Rishonim [medieval sages] on the Gemara. However for me personally I found Rishonim hard to get into without the help of people like Rav Shach in his Avi Ezri, or  a good learning partner.]

The world according to Torah is dualistic.

The world according to Torah is dualistic. There are two different things. The Creator and the created. They are not the same thing.


"But nature isn't God himself.  He's not identified [with it]. He's wholly other. He isn't kin to humans in any way either. So there is no blurring, no soft boundary between humans and the divine."


However you can see the same ideas in the אמונות ודעות of Saadia Gaon and Maimonides in his Guide for the Perplexed.

The son of Maimonides also goes into this in his book  of Musar. מספיק לעובד השם   Enough for a servant of God.

Why in fact Rav Saada Gaon and the Rambam are ignored in matters of the view-point of Torah seems odd to me. You would imagine that they have some understanding of what Torah is all about, wouldn't you? I, for one,  certainly assume it as a simple thing

u53 music files

U-53 F Major [Edited]

repentance are my essentially not following in my parents foot steps

The basic areas I am aware of for myself that need repentance are my essentially not following in my parents foot steps. It has been a trend in Western society to make fathers look like fools and this trend started with trying to make parents look evil. So there was a good deal of peer pressure to discount the good example of my parents. Still to me today it looks like that was a serious mistake. They were doing everything just about as well as any human being could be expected to do. [As a reference, I suggest looking at Jeremiah 35, and also the חידושי הגרנ''ט which is from one of the great Lithuanian sages Rav Naftali Troup concerning the issue of honor of one's parents. ]

On the other hand it is hard for me to imagine that I could have learned Gemara in any real sense  except by going to the authentic Litvak yeshivas of NY.

And that path would in fact have made it hard to do university along with Torah since the subway ride to Brooklyn College was very long from Shar Yashuv in Far Rockaway.

In any case, that is one area. Another important area is the State of Israel which I have to say is very important. I was sadlly set into the mentality of people that had made a mistake in this regard. Today to be against the State of Israel looks to me to be on the moral scale of treason.
[To some degree I confess ignorance because at the Mir Yeshiva in NY nothing was ever discussed about any politics what so ever. People were simply too involved in learning Torah to care. And the very positive opinions about Israel of Reb Moshe Feinstein and Reb Aaron Kotler were completely unknown.]

I want to mention the building boats is still not as well understood as people imagine. See Catastrophe Theory books. If the variables would be few that is one thing, but with lots of variables flying around you get higher dimensional critical points--i.e catastrophes. [Catastrophes are a particular kind of critical point.]

private conversation with God.

One of the major ideas of the Ran from Breslov I think is worth some discussion: what he calls התבודדות or literally "being alone". The idea is explained by him as private conversation with God.

The point I wanted to make about this is that it goes pretty much along the regular lines of thought of the Ran: that is to make hard things easy. That is a theme running throughout his writings.
So when look at the Old Testament I see a lot of emphasis on the Law of Moses and the need to repent on not doing the Law of Moses. Now repentance is well defined as change of action. But in the Old Testament we see that along with it goes fasting and prayer. [Mainly I am thinking of Ahab and Ninve.]
But to get to the kind of prayer that you see in the Old Testament is hard. Even when one realizes the  need for repentance, it is hard to get on one's knees for a few hours and beg forgiveness from God and help to change one's deeds.

So the Ran from Breslov proposes a more simple way of going about this. Simply going to  a place where one is alone and no one else is around and talking with God from the deepest part of one's heart. That is simple conversation. That is far from  prayers of repentance that the Old Testament is talking about--but close enough to have a similar essence.

Things are good