Rav Shach agreed about the importance of learning Musar [Ethics of Torah] as you can see in the introduction of the Avi Ezri. However Musar can be a distraction. It can lead to one thing that leads to another that eventually gets one away from learning,- sometimes incompletely and other times completely.
In fact, the problem with distractions has been something that has bothered me for a long time. The Dark Side never comes along and says, "Come and do a sin." It rather finds ways to distract one's attention from things that really matter to things that in fact are trivial.[As the Gra says in the beginning of the Book of Proverbs.]
Thus I found for myself that it it makes a big difference to find what are the things that really require attention. Learning Musar can be a big help in that direction because it more or less helps to define what really matters in in Torah. But it can be a distraction in itself --and often it is.
[That is the reason in fact that Brisk--the prime Litvak yeshiva is not a Musar yeshiva. Reb Haim did not agree with the Musar movement.]
On a personal note, I am not in any yeshiva at all, but I found the few years I spent at the Mir in NY to be refreshing and inspiring even many years after I left. And a great deal of that I attribute to the fact that it is a Musar Yeshiva.
In fact, the problem with distractions has been something that has bothered me for a long time. The Dark Side never comes along and says, "Come and do a sin." It rather finds ways to distract one's attention from things that really matter to things that in fact are trivial.[As the Gra says in the beginning of the Book of Proverbs.]
Thus I found for myself that it it makes a big difference to find what are the things that really require attention. Learning Musar can be a big help in that direction because it more or less helps to define what really matters in in Torah. But it can be a distraction in itself --and often it is.
[That is the reason in fact that Brisk--the prime Litvak yeshiva is not a Musar yeshiva. Reb Haim did not agree with the Musar movement.]
On a personal note, I am not in any yeshiva at all, but I found the few years I spent at the Mir in NY to be refreshing and inspiring even many years after I left. And a great deal of that I attribute to the fact that it is a Musar Yeshiva.
