 |
||||||||
|
 |
|
||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
 |
|
Soul to Soul Editor’s Note: Yashar welcomes contributions that inspire or teach fellow Mussar students. Our goal is to make space each month for guest articles. Please send your suggestions to info@mussarinstitute.org. If you were a Jew, asked to share your time and space with anti-Semitic skinheads, for what would you be grateful? If you were in prison, for a crime you committed and for which you accept that justice has been done, and you asked for parole and got turned down every six months for more than two decades, could you find it within yourself to be patient? When I thought of how difficult it was to practice Mussar with all of my luxuries, I also began to think of what it might be like if improving my soul was the only freedom I had. I began to write to Richard (not his real name) about a year-and-a-half ago. The first year or so I floundered, sending a variety of materials from the Internet and print sources. Being a teacher, I realized that I was looking for an entry point, a place where Richard and I were "on the same page," so to speak. He was in a very different place than I was physically, but what about educationally and spiritually? I was beginning to recognize that Richard and I needed more structure. He, on the academic level and me, on the spiritual level. I was not a Torah scholar. So how to be a teacher and a student at the same time? And how to enable Richard the same opportunity? That's when Alan Morinis in a moment of serendipity (or miraculous intervention) recommended that I use the middot (or soul traits) from his book, The Jewish Spiritual Path of Mussar: Everyday Holiness. After a year of struggle, it seemed that both Richard and I were ready to step into our new roles as both Mussar student and teacher. I took a look at the middot and, with Alan's permission, broke each chapter into four sections. I numbered the paragraphs so they would be easier to refer to if needed, and added three questions to think about at the end of every section. My first letter to Richard asked this question: Name three non-material things for which you are grateful. My response:
Richard's response:
A triumph! Richard was becoming more aware of the positive aspects of his surroundings in spite of the obvious limitations. Certainly a step in the right direction. The second middah, patience, also yielded an amazing result. The question to consider was: Everyone is different. What can you do to practice patience and strengthen your patience "muscle" so that it's ready when you need it? My response: I've been thinking about nature. This spring I watched how the leaves opened. First they were very tiny, almost invisible. Then little by little they began to open. Now that's patience. If I can learn from nature/Hashem then I will be able to recognize that there are already changes happening inside of me that I don't quite see or feel yet, but they will manifest. The leaves open at exactly the right time. Trees aren't in a hurry. They are naturally patient and accept what and where they are in the cycle of life. This has helped me to see patience on a grand scale. I'm working on waiting instead of trying to force things to happen before their time. Richard's response (to my answer above): Last week I was being driven outside the prison to a doctor's appointment and I saw a tree close up for the first time in a long time. There's a commercial for a store in which a woman is standing outside the closed door saying, "Open, open, open." I laughed out loud while thinking about how you were waiting for buds to open, and I think the guards driving me must have thought I was crazy.” Richard's response showed me that he allowed himself to find a way to enjoy his trip, however limited, in the outside world. He was not impatient to get where he was going, or to get back. He did not focus, as he easily could have, on the enclosed car, the men taking him, or even concern for the outcome of his examination. Instead, he was truly in the moment, enjoying the tree, enjoying a joke with himself. I believe this type of internal freedom and moments of pure joy were not available to Richard before we began to study Mussar. And if I didn't have to give an example of my own lack of patience, I might not have been made aware of a way to soothe myself that is always so close at hand. So the study partners both became students and teachers, and they became equal to one another. As a slow, steady stream of water that is barely visible wears away solid rock, so I believe if one human being offers gentle care to another, guided by our ancient sages, we can cut through years of pain and confusion and touch each other's souls.
|
|
|
||||
