Israel Salanter's Musar Movement was to get people to learn Musar which means a basic set of medieval books on ethics. That is about just four books. Then in the penumbra a larger set of about 30 books. written during the Renaissance. Then a even wider penumbra of books that got added to that original set by his disciples. Isaac Blasser. Joseph Yosel Horwitz [the Alter of Navardok], Simcha Zissel from Kelm and the Alter of Slobadka.
I was thinking of finding an argument to prove the point of Reb Israel Salanter that learning Musar [Mediaeval Ethics] is important. It occurred to me that we can not know our "self." We can know our "self" exists but not what is going on deep inside. Our motivations--what causes us to act or think things is hidden from us. Not only that when we think we know our motivations we come up with contradictions.. One motivation is wrapped up inside of another. One day we think our motivation is one thing and then next day we find ourselves acting in ways that completely and directly contradict what we thought was motivating us the day before. We know the self exists but we do not know what is going on down there. We however know its surface. It is like an ocean. The depths are hidden but the surface we can see plainly. We know if we feel hot or cold, happy or sad, etc. Reb Israel thought the way to penetrate and effect the self is by learning Medieval Ethics.
Not by prayer or talking with God as in a conversation. Conversing with God is not that different than talking to yourself. You are only reaching the surface level. You know what you are thinking and feeling an that is what you are commuting to God. There is nothing there that penetrates into the hidden levels of the self to change one from evil to good.
We can know one thing about our "self" we know our commitments. We know of we are committed to the Ten Commandments or not. We know if we are committed to keeping the Moral Law. And this commitment is strengthened by learning Musar.
I am borrowing ideas of Kant here.
On a side note Kant thought the ontological proof was not valid. And this goes along with his idea that pure reason can't penetrate into unconditioned realities. But he did write that as far existence goes of the the dinge an sich--we can know it exists. But we cant know it character. Thus a proof of the existence of God is possible. But he did not think the ontological one was very good. And this to some degree shows why I wrote the above proof at the top of my blog the first cause idea. [Which I really borrowed from Aristotle. Not his first mover idea but rather this very basic idea itself which I saw one a long time ago at the beginning of his set of books called Physics.]
I was thinking of finding an argument to prove the point of Reb Israel Salanter that learning Musar [Mediaeval Ethics] is important. It occurred to me that we can not know our "self." We can know our "self" exists but not what is going on deep inside. Our motivations--what causes us to act or think things is hidden from us. Not only that when we think we know our motivations we come up with contradictions.. One motivation is wrapped up inside of another. One day we think our motivation is one thing and then next day we find ourselves acting in ways that completely and directly contradict what we thought was motivating us the day before. We know the self exists but we do not know what is going on down there. We however know its surface. It is like an ocean. The depths are hidden but the surface we can see plainly. We know if we feel hot or cold, happy or sad, etc. Reb Israel thought the way to penetrate and effect the self is by learning Medieval Ethics.
Not by prayer or talking with God as in a conversation. Conversing with God is not that different than talking to yourself. You are only reaching the surface level. You know what you are thinking and feeling an that is what you are commuting to God. There is nothing there that penetrates into the hidden levels of the self to change one from evil to good.
We can know one thing about our "self" we know our commitments. We know of we are committed to the Ten Commandments or not. We know if we are committed to keeping the Moral Law. And this commitment is strengthened by learning Musar.
I am borrowing ideas of Kant here.
On a side note Kant thought the ontological proof was not valid. And this goes along with his idea that pure reason can't penetrate into unconditioned realities. But he did write that as far existence goes of the the dinge an sich--we can know it exists. But we cant know it character. Thus a proof of the existence of God is possible. But he did not think the ontological one was very good. And this to some degree shows why I wrote the above proof at the top of my blog the first cause idea. [Which I really borrowed from Aristotle. Not his first mover idea but rather this very basic idea itself which I saw one a long time ago at the beginning of his set of books called Physics.]
