Musar movement
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It has been suggested that Musar literature be merged into this article or section. (Discuss) |
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The Musar movement (also Mussar movement) was a Jewish ethical, educational and cultural movement that developed in 19th century Eastern Europe, particularly among Orthodox Lithuanian Jews. The Hebrew term Musar (מוּסַר), is from the book of Proverbs 1:2 meaning instruction, discipline, or conduct. The term was used by the Musar movement to refer to efforts to further ethical and spiritual discipline. The Musar Movement made significant contributions to Jewish ethics.
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[edit] Early leaders of the Musar movement
The Musar movement arose among the non-Hasidic Orthodox Lithuanian Jews, and became a trend in their yeshiva ("Talmudical schools"). Its founding is attributed to Rabbi Yisrael Lipkin Salanter (1810–1883), although the roots of the movements drew on ideas previously expressed in classical Musar literature. Prior to the founding of the Musar movement, musar was a practice of the solitary seeker; thanks to Salanter, it became the basis for a popular social/spiritual movement.
[edit] Rabbi Yisrael Salanter
Yisrael Lipkin Salanter a promising young rabbi with exceptional knowledge of Jewish law living in Salantai, Lithuania, was initially inspired to dedicate his life to the cause of spreading Musar by his teacher Rabbi Yosef Zundel Salant (1786–1866), or Zundel Salant. Zundel Salant was a student of Rabbis Chaim Volozhin and Akiva Eiger whose profoundly good-hearted and humble behavior and simple lifestyle attracted Yisrael Salanter's interest, and Zundel Salant allegedly urged Salanter to focus himself on Musar.
Widely recognized as a rabbi of exceptional talent, Rabbi Yisrael Salanter became head of a yeshivah in Vilna, where he quickly became well known in the community for his scholarship. He soon resigned this post to open up his own Yeshiva at the Nevyozer Kloiz where he emphasized moral teachings based on the ethics taught in traditional Jewish rabbinic works. He referred to his approach as the Musar approach, using the Hebrew word for ethics.
Despite the prohibition against doing work on Shabbat (the Jewish Sabbath) Rabbi Salanter set an example for the Lithuanian Jewish community during the cholera epidemic of 1848. He made certain that any necessary relief work on Shabbat for Jews was done by Jews; some wanted such work to be done on Shabbat by non-Jews, but Rabbi Salanter held that both Jewish ethics and law mandated that the laws of the Torah must be put aside in order to save lives. During Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) Rabbi Salanter ordered that Jews that year must not abide by the traditional fast, but instead must eat in order to maintain their health; again for emergency health reasons. By 1850 he left Vilna for Kovno, where he founded a yeshiva based on Musar, with a student body of 150.
In 1857 he moved to Germany, and by 1860 he began publication of a periodical entitled Tevunah dedicated to Musar. By 1877 he founded the Kovno kollel, a center for adult Jewish study. By this time his own students had begun to set up their own yeshivot in Kelme, Telz, and elsewhere.
Many of Rabbi Salanter's articles from Tevunah were collected and published in lmrei Binah (1878). His Iggeret ha-Musar ("ethical letter") was first published in 1858 and then repeatedly thereafter. Many of his letters were published in Or Yisrael, "The Light of Israel," in 1890 (edited by Rabbi Yitzchak Blazer). Many of his discourses were published in Even Yisrael (1883).
[edit] The second generation of Musar movement leaders
After Salanter's death, the Musar movement was led by disciples including Rabbi Yitzchak Blazer and Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv. Blazer became the chief rabbi of St. Petersburg in 1861-2, and later led the Kovno kollel. Simcha Zissel Ziv directed yeshivas in Kelm and Grobin. A third leading disciple of Salanter's, Rabbi Naftali Amsterdam, became the chief rabbi of Helsinki.
[edit] The third generation of Musar movement leaders
In the following generation, leaders of the Musar movement included Simcha Zissel's student Nosson Tzvi Finkel of Slobodka, and Rabbi Yosef Yozel Horwitz of Novaradok. The schools founded by these two men became the largest and most influential schools of Musar. The Slobodka school founded by Finkel became especially influential, but the Novaradok school also gained a significant following.
Louis Jacobs has described the difference between these two schools as follows:
| “ | In Slabodka they taught: man is so great, how can he sin? In Navaradok they taught: man is so small, how dare he sin? [1] | ” |
[edit] Origin of the movement
This movement began among non-Hasidic Jews as a response to the social changes brought about by The Enlightenment, and the corresponding Haskalah movement among many European Jews. In this period of history anti-Semitism, assimilation of many Jews into Christianity, poverty, and the poor living conditions of many Jews in the Pale of Settlement caused severe tension and disappointment. Many of the institutions of Lithuanian Jewry were beginning to break up. Many religious Jews felt that their way of life was slipping away from them, observance of traditional Jewish law and custom was on the decline, and what they felt was worst of all, many of those who remained loyal to the tradition were losing their emotional connection to the tradition's inner meaning and ethical core.
During this time Rabbi Lipkin wrote, "The busy man does evil wherever he turns. His business doing badly, his mind and strength become confounded and subject to the fetters of care and confusion. Therefore appoint a time on the Holy Sabbath to gather together at a fixed hour... the notables of the city, whom many will follow, for the study of morals. Speak quietly and deliberately without joking or irony, estimate the good traits of man and his faults, how he should be castigated to turn away from the latter and strengthen the former. Do not decide matters at a single glance, divide the good work among you-not taking up much time, not putting on too heavy a burden. Little by little, much will be gathered... In the quiet of reflection, in reasonable deliberation, each will strengthen his fellow and cure the foolishness of his heart and eliminate his lazy habits."
[edit] The Musar controversy
In later years some opposition to the Musar Movement developed in large segments of the Orthodox community. Many opposed the new educational system that Lipkin set up, and others charged that deviations from traditional methods would lead to assimilation no less surely than the path of classic German Reform Judaism.
In 1897, Eliezer Gordon of the Telshe yeshiva hired a new Musar supervisor, Rabbi Leib Chasman, who instituted a very strict Musar regime in the yeshiva. Many of the students opposed this approach, which caused dissent among the student body. At the same time, dissent against Musar also broke out at the Slobodka Yeshiva. A group of Lithuanian rabbis then published a declaration in the Hebrew newspaper Ha-Melitz in opposition to the study of Musar. According to the YIVO Encyclopedia,
| “ | they argued that while the study of moral texts was a venerable if distinctly limited element of Torah study, the sainted Salanter himself surely had had no intention of overturning traditional priorities and certainly not of creating a new sect that was itself contributing to that collapse of traditional Jewish life which it claimed to combat. This set in motion a wave of similar declarations, counterdeclarations, and polemics for and against Musar in the Hebrew press which reverberated throughout traditional circles. Eventually a sort of equilibrium emerged, with Musar remaining a feature of many yeshivas and its most heartfelt advocates and opponents finding for themselves distinct but congenial venues.[2] | ” |
[edit] The study and practice of Musar
The Musar Institute website explains that:
| “ | Musar is a path of contemplative practices and exercises that have evolved over the past thousand years to help an individual soul to pinpoint and then to break through the barriers that surround and obstruct the flow of inner light in our lives. Musar is a treasury of techniques and understandings that offers immensely valuable guidance for the journey of our lives....
The goal of Musar practice is to release the light of holiness that lives within the soul. The roots of all of our thoughts and actions can be traced to the depths of the soul, beyond the reach of the light of consciousness, and so the methods Musar provides include meditations, guided contemplations, exercises and chants that are all intended to penetrate down to the darkness of the subconscious, to bring about change right at the root of our nature. |
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One of the central practices of the Musar movement was studying and meditating on classical Musar literature. The classics of Musar literature which were greatly valued by the Musar movement included:
- Chovot ha-Levavot, by Rabbi Bahya ibn Paquda (11th century).
- Ma'alot ha-Middot, by Rabbi Yehiel ben Yekutiel Anav of Rome.
- Kad ha-Kemah, by Rabbi Bahya ben Asher, a Spanish kabbalist.
- Mesillat Yesharim, and Derech Hashem, by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto
- Orchot Tzaddikim (The Ways of the Righteous), by an anonymous author
- Tomer Devorah (The Palm Tree of Deborah) by Rabbi Moses ben Jacob Cordovero
- Shaarei Teshuvah (The Gates of Repentance) by Rabbi Yonah Gerondi
- Hilchot Deot by Maimonides (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon)
- The Eight Chapters by Maimonides (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon)
- Cheshbon ha-Nefesh (Accounting of the Soul) by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Lefin of Satanov (based in part on Benjamin Franklin's idea of the thirteen virtues).
- "The Musar Letter" of the Vilna Gaon
[edit] Contemporary revival of the Musar movement
Many of the Jews involved in the Musar movement were killed in the Shoah. Some, however, settled in the land of Israel and established Musar yeshivas there. While many former students of the Musar movement settled in the United States and were involved in a variety of Jewish institutions, they established no formal institutions dedicated to Musar during the 20th century.
Many traditional yeshivas throughout the world, however, allot some time during the week for Musar. This time is often dedicated to the study classical Jewish ethical literature.
A recent revival of interest in the Musar movement has been underway in America in various sectors of the Jewish world.
Within the Orthodox community, the AishDas Society, founded by Rabbi Micha Berger, and the Salant Foundation, founded by Rabbi Zvi Miller, are organizations which organize Musar groups, classes and other teaching events. Elyakim Krumbain and Avi Fertig are Orthodox rabbis who have also published books which teach Musar from an Orthodox Jewish perspective.
The Musar Institute, founded by Alan Morinis, and the Mussar Leadership Program, founded by Rabbi Ira Stone, are among the institutions which have sought to spread the practice of Musar in a non-Orthodox framework. Morinis' book Everyday Holiness and Stone's book A Responsible Life have been among the popular books which have sparked contemporary interest in the Musar movement. Leaders of Conservative Judaism have debated whether Mussr should stand at the center of its approach, and Musar has been described as “an emerging and growing phenomenon” within Reform Judaism.[3].
The Mussar Institute has encouraged the practice of Musar not only among Jews of all streams but also among non-Jews. Its website explains:
| “ | The Orthodox Jewish community spawned Musar to help people overcome the inner obstacles that hinder them from living up to the laws and commandments—the mitzvot—that form the code of life. That community tends to see Musar as inseparable from its own beliefs and practices, but the human reality Musar addresses is actually universal, and the gifts it offers can be used by all people."[4] | ” |
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Louis Jacobs, "The Musar Movement," http://www.myjewishlearning.com/history/Modern_History/1700-1914/Shtetls/Mussar_Movement.shtml
- ^ Yehudah Mirsky, http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Musar_Movement
- ^ Geoffrey Claussen, "The American Jewish Revival of Musar," http://www.iasc-culture.org/publications_article_2010_Summer_claussen.php
- ^ http://www.mussarinstitute.org/wisdom-way.htm
[edit] English language bibliography
- The history of the Musar movement
- Rabbi Israel Salanter and the Musar Movement, Immanuel Etkes
- The Musar Movement, volume 1, Rabbi Dov Katz (translated by Leonard Oschry)
- The Fire Within: The Living Heritage of the Musar Movement, Hillel Goldberg
- Sparks of Musar: A treasury of the words and deeds of the Musar greats, Chaim Ephraim Zaichyk
- Rabbi Israel Salanter: Religious-Ethical Thinker, Menahem G. Glenn (1953, 2005)
- Contemporary works adapting Musar
- The Business Bible: 10 New Commandments for Bringing Spirituality & ethical values into the workplace, Wayne Dosick, Jewish Lights Publishing
- The Challenge of Wealth: A Jewish Perspective on Earning and Spending Money, Meir Tamari, Jason Aronson Inc., 1995
- Striving Toward Virtue: A Contemporary Guide for Jewish Ethical Behavior, Kerry Orlitzky and Rachel Sabath, KTAV Books, 1996.
- The Book of Jewish Values, Joseph Telushkin, Bell Tower, 2000.
- Climbing Jacob's Ladder: One Man's Rediscovery of a Jewish Spiritual Tradition, Alan Morinis, Broadway Books, 2002.
- A Responsible Life: The Spiritual Path of Musar, Ira F. Stone, Aviv Press, 2006.
- Everyday Holiness: The Jewish Spiritual Path of Musar, Alan Morinis, Trumpeter Books, 2007.
- Every Day, Holy Day: 365 Days of Teachings and Practices from the Jewish Tradition of Musar, Alan Morinis, Trumpeter Books, 2010.
- A Spiritual and Ethical Compendium to the Torah and Talmud, Rabbi Arthur Segal, Amazon Books, 2009.
[edit] External links
- About the historical Musar movement
- Mussar Movement, YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe
- Louis Jacobs on the Musar movement
- The Orthodox Union on Rabbi Yisrael Salanter
- Contemporary efforts to revive the Mussar Movement
- Salant Foundation (Rabbi Zvi Miller)
- Mussar Leadership (Rabbi Ira Stone)
- Mussar Institute (Alan Morinis)
- The AishDas Society (Mussar Resources page)
- Alan Morinis on Discovering Mussar
- Musar Shiurim by Rav Nissan Kaplan of Mir Yeshiva, Jerusalem
- Rachael's Centre for Torah, Musar & Ethics
- About the American Jewish Revival of Musar
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