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By Modya Silver Welcome to the October edition of Yashar. We hope that your Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were meaningful and that moving into Sukkot you will be filled with the joy of the Holy Days. I would like to share with you a teaching from Rabbi Shimon Green who is head of Birkas HaTorah, a yeshiva in Jerusalem. He points out that our daily life is like being in kindergarten. In kindergarten the room had a small plastic kitchen in one corner, a plastic carpentry set in another, a fake garden in another and dolls and action figures in the fourth corner. It’s all playful, but more than that, kindergarten was a training ground for us to learn how to use a real kitchen, a real workbench, cultivate a real garden and develop loving relationships with real people. Likewise, our life here on planet Earth is like a kindergarten, a forum within which we experiment with kindness, love, anger, patience, trust and all the myriad of character traits that make up who we are. The ultimate goal is that we grow up and have a meaningful relationship with G-d, but the important lesson is that we cultivate that Divine relationship through relationships with others and with our self. Succot, which begins this Friday night, is also called z’man simchataynu, the time of our joy. Simcha as we learn from the great Mussar Rabbi, Reb Shlomo Wolbe z”l, is the outcome of having a real connection with someone or something else. Joy then, is the result of doing well in our kindergarten. Of playing nicely with the other children of G-d and sharing what we have. If you have a chance to enter a succah this next week, perhaps remember that the real purpose of being in the succah is to develop connection with others and through that, to be with the Divine. It’s not only Sukkot that gives us this opportunity for connection and joy. Any moment is an opportunity. At The Mussar Institute, we try to reflect on this idea as we put programs and events together for you. At the end of this month we will have over 200 people converging on Phoenix for a full day of Mussar learning. We have almost 20 local Mussar groups operating across North America and several new groups starting each month. Two distance-learning programs are about to launch in November: The Path of the Soul and Mussar in Action. Everyday Holiness, our introductory distance-learning course can be started at any time. And the Board is working hard to support all our other activities and create new ones that meet your needs. Please then take a moment after you’ve leafed through this edition of Yashar and look at the courses and programs available through http://www.mussarinstitute.org. If you don’t find something suitable, please let us know by emailing modya@mussarinstitute.org. May your October be filled with more meaningful connections than even you could have imagined. Many blessings and Chag Sameach! |
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