Chaburah Program

The Chaburah program meets the need of senior students who seek to build a strong and consistent engagement with Mussar learning and practice, particularly in the company of others with whom they have already shared a va’ad.

Co-directed by Alan Morinis and Rabbi Avi Fertig, the Chaburah program runs for one year and focuses on one middah per month. The traits covered in the program are:

As is clear from this list, the focus in the Chaburah program is on individual middot. This is the core of Mussar practice—to cultivate sharpened awareness so that you become sensitive to the play of inner traits in your life. That awareness puts you in a position to exercise choice and to practice in order to influence the way those qualities exist in your life. And you change. And your relationships change. And through you, the world changes.

The list of middot reveals that the initial focus in the study is traits with a “negative” valence, but, of course, that leads to an investigation and cultivation of their counterpart “positive” traits as well. This focus is appropriate for senior students of Mussar, who have had enough experience to be able to face the “negative” within, as a bridge to the “positive.”

Chaburah members receive weekly emails for 12 months, on the following monthly schedule:

1. Weeks #1 & 3 -- an original essay on a middah [soul-trait], built on a text from Torah, rabbinic literature or Mussar sources PLUS an assignment to work on together in your va’ad [small group] meeting
2. Weeks #2 & 4 - an assignment for you and your chevruta to work on in the weeks between va’ad meetings
3. Every week -- assignments and guidance for personal Mussar practice

The program also involves CHEVRUTA AND VA’AD and an advanced level of personal PRACTICE.

FEE

$250 per person for the year-long program.

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