 |
||||||||
|
 |
|
||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
 |
|
By Shirah Bell, Director of Everyday Holiness Program Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the impact of Mussar on parenting. The world is full of books and theories about raising children. Navigating in this world can be pretty confusing, especially when a new theory emerges that contradicts the theory we’ve been operating under. My children are grown now, but when a new theory comes out, I think, “if only I could do it over again.” Mussar’s approach to child rearing begins not with the child but with the parent. Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe z’l, a modern Mussar master who passed away recently, put it this way: "Without good middos it is impossible to educate. If a person doesn't work on himself—on his middos—he cannot be an educator." (See: Planting and Building: Raising a Jewish Child Feldheim 1999) Of course we can extrapolate this to educating or influencing anyone, not just our children. Those of us who study Mussar are continually preparing ourselves to parent, educate, and guide as we work on our soul curriculum. Rabbi Wolbe suggests the analogy of planting and building as a way of orienting ourselves to educating our children. Planting initiates a natural, organic process of growth. Seeds, plants, and trees that we place in the ground will grow on their own, as long as they have the nutrients they need. On the other hand, building is a manual process. We lay a foundation and construct a building brick by brick. The analogy is applicable to understanding the way human beings at any age grow and develop. Wolbe says: “The very same processes that HaShem uses to perfect the world [planting and constructing] we can also use to perfect the human being.” He points out that Rabbi Luzzatto made the same distinction in the beginning of Mesillat Yesharim (Path of the Just). “We must be involved in both construction (building ourselves through the acquisition of ma’alos – good qualities) and growth (sowing internal seeds that will sprout during our lifetime).” You and I tend to grow in particular directions and pathways, to be interested in some things and not in others, to respond well to some types of encouragement and not to others. We thrive when we find ways of building that work with, rather than against our habitual inclinations. For example, I have always been more comfortable with order in my life. Order (seder) is not a middah with which I struggle. However, as I’m continuously looking around me to see what I can straighten out, I often have difficulty being present to the situation in which I find myself. Many mornings I didn’t meditate because first I had to straighten up “just one more thing.” I berated myself for this tendency, and then after a while I realized I could set up my morning so that I could bypass the impulse to straighten up. I have begun to walk directly from the bathroom to my meditation cushion, looking neither to right nor left, nor going downstairs first to get a cup of tea, but making it upstairs where I meditate, so I don’t encounter things that need ordering. What are your growth tendencies? May you get to know them and invent ways to work with (rather than against) them, as you build your middot. I’d love to hear from you with reflections and questions: shirah@mussarinstitute.org. |
|
|
||||
