 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
In This IssueWelcome Welcome to the November Yashar, already our 10th edition – time passes swiftly as we continue to bring you insightful articles from leaders, students and new information about what The Mussar Institute has to offer you. There is a lot happening which you will read about in this newsletter. I especially want to draw your attention to the article by Alan Morinis, in the Through a Mussar Lens column, which focuses on the interplay between Jewish law (halachah) and Mussar as spiritual practice. Speaking of Alan, it has just been announced that his book, Everyday Holiness, has gone into it’s second printing. Mazel tov Alan and may your book continue to touch so many souls around the globe that it will continue to go into many more printings. To order your copy of the book, please click here. We would like to remind you to visit our website ../. Our virtual store is brimming with CD's of many talks that will bring you the teachings of great Mussar teachers such as Rabbi Yechiel Yitzchok Perr and our own Alan Morinis. As a new feature of Yashar, we will begin to feature one of those CD's each month so you may begin to know about other Mussar study tools that are available for you. We would love to hear from you how you are enjoying this publication, or if you have any suggestions of other things we could offer you. Please feel free to contact me at info@mussarinstitute.org. Wishing you a healthy and joyful month, Sandy Fayerman By Alan Morinis This column may not win me many friends. It just might succeed in rubbing both the Jewishly observant and non-observant the wrong way. But I will speak truthfully and I ask you to apply the test of truth to filter your own thoughts as you consider what I have to say. I wrote in Everyday Holiness that we have each been assigned a personal spiritual curriculum. That’s true for every single human being. You have already been assigned your curriculum, and you have already been running into it, though you might not have realized that it is, indeed, a curriculum. It has been right there all along, showing up as your impatience, laziness, greed, anger, passivity, anxiety, or whatever traits happen to provide the testing challenges in your life. By Eytan Kobre The following is Part II of an article on free will by Eytan Kobre, a member of The Mussar Institute board of directors. Eytan specializes in elder law and is a serious student and teacher of Mussar. In Part One, we spoke of the centrality of free will in Judaism’s conception of the purpose of creation. Interestingly, although Western, post-Enlightenment thought is often at stark odds with classical Judaic beliefs, these divergent worldviews both see free will as an essential component of the human personality. By Rabbi Berel Simpser As a yeshiva-educated person, the word “Mussar” has been in my vocabulary for three decades. Summer camp, post-9th grade saw my first foray into Mussar learning late at night as part of a summer learning program. By Fran Zimmerman Raising teenage children. That was the primary reason why I signed up for the Course in Mussar I (currently Everyday Holiness: the course), several years ago. I had been contemplating and praying about how I would navigate those teenage years with my children when I saw an ad about the Mussar class on a Jewish Spiritual Direction listserve I was a part of. I had never heard of Mussar, but was intrigued by the description and decided to read Alan’s first book. With a great leap of faith, and the blessings of my husband and my spiritual direction group, I signed up for the class, taking on yet another time commitment in my already busy schedule. My primary goal was to learn how to stay steady, take care of myself, stay solid in my marriage, and meet the needs of my children during those turbulent, reactive, self-centered, needy, demanding, unpredictable times in their lives. I had a sense that now, more than ever, this parenting job was way bigger and more complicated than I could figure out on my own. This month we turn to our loyal readers and Mussar community seeking someone to correspond with a few prisoners on topics of Mussar. Alan Morinis receives letters periodically from lonely seeking souls in prison, who are reaching out for contact with someone who can help them set their inner compass. Helping a prisoner is a mitzvah that offers reward all around. The requirements are that you have taken at least two levels of Mussar learning and feel compassionately toward the needs of people who have run afoul of the law for whatever reason. Counseling skills would be an additional blessing. The volume will be about 1-2 letters per month, and the experience offers to be rewarding for all who participate. If interested, please contact info@mussarinstitute.org with subject line as “volunteer of the month.” Thank you very much. The Mussar Institute depends on the generosity of supporters, and gratefully acknowledges the following donations this month:
Donations gratefully accepted here. * We apologize for the misspelling of "Netivot Shalom" in last month's edition. REGISTRATION CLOSES AT MIDNIGHT TONIGHTThe Path of the Soul (for graduates of Mussar I or Everyday Holiness) and Mussar in Action (for students who have completed the first two levels of study). Courses are scheduled to begin November 4th. SAVE THE DATEThe 2008 KALLAH Weekend to be held May 2nd -
4th Book your time off from work and plan to spend an inspirational weekend with other students and teachers in the growing Mussar community. Why not take this opportunity to extend your stay and enjoy this spectacular city at the most beautiful time of year! ALAN’S BOOK TOUR SCHEDULE FOR OCTOBERAlan is packing his bags again and will be on the road for the last leg of his book tour. Please check the calendar to ensure you don’t miss his speaking engagements in your community in November.
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
