A Responsible Life: The Spiritual Path of Mussar

by Ira F. Stone

Mussar, a late 19th century Jewish renewal movement, focused on a spirituality of ethics. This book explores how Mussar principles are relevant to contemporary life, discusses the challenges of making moral choices, and explains how to use Mussar principles to develop a meaningful spiritual practice that is based on the needs of others, rather than the self.

Genres: Judaism, Jewish

236 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Michael Lewyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is highly abstract, and often over my head (which may reflect my own weaknesses, I suppose). Nevertheless, I am glad I read it.

Stone sets out responsibility for others as the ideal, and shows how Judaism helps us to balance our responsibilities: community (whether defined narrowly as a religious community or broadly as an entire society) helps us to bear responsibility for others, and halakhah helps us "to remain vigilantly awake to the needs of another."

Stone creatively explains such Jewish concepts as Yirat Hashem (often translated "Fear of God") and Ahavat Hashem (often translated "Love of God"). According to Stone, the former concept partially means "fear of the ramifications of our failure to meet our responsibilities"; the latter describes the reality that "in making the choice for good we experience a cessation of fear, actually a pleasure that we come to desire more of."

[Tucker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stone explains Mussar as a practice that connects mitzvot (commandments, a driver of Jewish religious life) with middot (virtues, central to ethical life). Without an awareness of ethical life, religious life devolves into mere ritualism and legalism. He writes that "we may consider Mussar theory to be a special type of anthropology, a description of why humans behave the ways they do." (p. 43) "In Mussar theory, human consciousness is defined as the tension between the yetzer ha-tov [impulse to good] and the yetzer ha-ra [impulse to evil]." (p. 45)

"The Mussar movement developed primarily in Lithuania in the second half of the nineteenth century. Founded by Rabbi Israel Lipkin of Salant [a.k.a. Yisrael Salanter], it sought to explore the composition of the human soul and provide a series of techniques to help minimize the 'disconnect' so often experienced between our actions and our ideals. ... Mussar grows out of the soil of Jewish experience. It was, and continues to be, shaped by the central pillars of Jewish consciousness: Torah and mitzvot. Mussar takes for granted immersion in Torah and is, at its core, inseparable form this traditional Jewish context. ... It might deepen one person's experience of Jewish ritual, challenging them to uncover the values at the core of that ritual. It might draw another person closer to an understanding of the purpose of Jewish ritual, challenging the notion that the limits of one's responsibility are defined by each of us for ourselves." (pp. xvi-xvii)

"Mussar practice can be divided into six major areas of action: the shiur, or learning session; heshbon ha-nefesh, or accounting of the soul; the va'ad, or group processing; hitpa'alut, or intense verbal intervention; hashgahah, or private counseling; derekh eretz, or worldly wisdom, and mazkeh ha-rabbim, teaching Mussar to others." (p. 73)

The Mussar movement adopted texts that were written before the movement began.
- Chovot HaLevavot [Duties of the Heart] by Bahya ibn Pekuda, 11th century
- Mesillat Yesharim [Paths of the Upright] by Rabbi Moshe Hayyim Luzzatto, 18th century
Other central texts include Heshbon Ha-nefesh by Rabbi Mendel of Satanov.

Rabbi Salanter was a controversial figure who got booted out of cities including Vilna and Kosovo because of his intellectual challenge to the established Jewish centers of learning. "Salanter legitimized the teaching of secular studies in the yeshiva...For Salanter, ostensibly, this was encouraged in order for Mussar followers to be familiar enough with Enlightenment thought to combat it. In practice, of course, it served to introduce many in the yeshivot to those ideas in a relatively safe and secure environment." (p. xxix) "...Rav Salanter insisted that Mussar texts be studied with 'lips aflame' – that is, aloud. The text should be read aloud and with sufficient passion to make the reader or listener feel as though their intellectual defenses were being assaulted." (p. 75)

Salanter had three important students who each founded a school of Mussar:
- Rabbi Nathan Zvi Finkel (Slobadka school)
- Rabbi Joseph Yozel Hurwitz (Navaradock school)
- Rabbi Simha Zissel Braude, author of Hokhmah U-Mussar (Kelm school)

Insofar as Mussar is about discovering one's own humanity, "the distinction between Jew and non-Jew becomes moot. But as Jews, we believe that there is a mysterious and particularistic love recorded in the Torah, beginning with the Patriarchs and Matriarchs and finding expression in subsequent generations through priests and prophets. This particular love has been the guiding force in shaping our culture, our legacy of Rabbinic Judaism, which is itself a movement obsessively committed to sensitivity to these responsibilities." (p. 100) Torah study is part of Mussar. Torah, Stone says, is not merely a book, but a mystical awakening: "Torah is, first and foremost, that which we acquire in the construction of our consciousness by bearing the burden of our neighbor. We become who we are, we forge our souls, by responding to this infinite call that stands outside of ourselves but, at the same time, constitutes the innermost core of our being. Torah is the call that makes us human, and that defines what we mean when we speak about revelation. Wakefulness is what allows us to transform the call itself into our obsessive concern with responding to it. Talmud torah is the obsessive concern with hearing the call, and that concern is what makes us human." (pp. 143-144)

[Naomi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dive on into the connections between spirituality and ethics, and be prepared to have to sit and ponder and discuss with others the many illuminating points made in _A Responsible Life: The Spiritual Path of Mussar_. Good for small group study, but recommended with knowledgeable reader and facilitator.

[Ben Leon · Rating 3 out of 5]

i've been reading this off and on, its kinda interesting and kinda annoying, its very heavy on pretty abstract theory stuff, and heavy on the torah reading which i'm not really into, but on certain days at certain times i've picked this up again and found it mildly interesting

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stone defines “imaginative projection” as to view the world through the needs of another, & “hyperbolic ethics” similar to the bodhisattva vows as the unceasing responsibility to bear the burden of another.