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By Modya Silver For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, summer is a time to slow down a little, perhaps take a vacation and re-energize. I’m no different and after working quite solidly for the last 20 years, I got to go away for five weeks with my family. Wow! One outcome from the trip was the realization of how much my mind slowed down without constant intellectual activity and how that translated into somewhat sloppier decisions about my actions. I maintained my Mussar pilot light as well as my Torah learning pilot light, but I wasn’t trying very hard to advance myself. And therein lies the problem. Losing my guard against slothfulness, I opened myself up to lethargy becoming my middle name. I’ve now been back home for almost two weeks and today is the first day that I’ve been able to generate enough energy to re-establish my learning and my diligence in guarding against what are my own pitfalls. How have you been doing these last few weeks? How easy is it to cut corners or steer off the path altogether? The extra scoop of ice cream. Just five more minutes in bed. I’ll get to that list tomorrow, right now the sun is shining. I’ll write in my Mussar journal tomorrow. And even when we think we have good patterns engrained in our daily lives, how we can still be surprised. We learn in the Talmud (Berachot 29a) about Yochanan the High Priest who after serving in his post for 80 years fell off the path and became a Sadducee. It can hit any of us at any time. We always have to be careful of letting the weeds grow in our brain. So, please consider where you are. The month of Elul and Rosh Hashana are not that far away and the process of soul searching and goal-setting for the coming year is almost upon us. At The Mussar Institute, we are in that process now. In May we met in Seattle and created a new vision statement. Over the last couple of months we’ve been putting flesh on that statement and rounding out a three-year plan. A plan designed to support you in your spiritual growth. We expect final Board approval in October, and then we will be embarking on adding new components to The Mussar Institute to help you achieve your goals. We’re excited about what we believe is possible and hope that you will be too. Until then, please consider what you will need to do to prepare for the lead-up to Rosh Hashana and feel free to let us know how The Mussar Institute is working for you, what might be missing and where we might be getting it wrong. Consider the teaching from Pirkei Avot 2:5 that asks us not to wait for “free time” to get things done since we may never have that free time. Sign up now for a course. Register for The Mussar Kallah in October. Do one thing today that will help set a tone for this coming season. And … enjoy the rest of summer (or winter for those south of the equator).
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