In all my above comments, I’ve been grappling with the question of: What is the difference between mussar sefarim and psychology self-help books (other than the obvious, that one is divinely inspired and the other is not). At times, self-help books refocus me just as well or better than a mussar sefer would, enabling me to get “unstuck”.

For example, both a mussar sefer and psychology would promote the idea of being proactive, psychology very directly and mussar perhaps indirectly. What is the difference?

The answer that sits best with me for now is a combination of what R’ Becker and R’ Berger (and some others, off the blog) have said. The goal of psychology is to help you achieve mental/emotional stability, teach you how to interact more effectively with the world around you. The goal of mussar, on the other hand, is to help you become a holy, G-dlike person. A mussardik person by definition interacts effectively with the world around him, but that’s just a pleasant side benefit as he works towards his goal of “vehalachta bedrachav”.

I’ve also been working on a related question of “what is the place of psychology/self-help books in my quest to grow in avodas Hashem.” I think that psychology and mussar are related, even though their ultimate goals are so different, and as Rabbi Becker says, psychology is only a recent attempt to understand human nature. Since they are related, there are some concepts from psychology that can be used as powerful mussar tools.
At times, focusing on psychology can be a distraction from the goal, since psychology divorces the concept of emotional health from religion. Once it’s a pursuit of emotional health rather than holiness, it’s self-serving, as Rabbi Becker said, and no longer enables us to transcend our earthly nature. At other times, working on a mental health issue seems to jump-start a mussar growth-spurt. The mental health issue could have been getting you stuck, and working on it (no matter what your motive is) clears the way for real growth. If we are discerning in how we read these books, and take the tools but leave the hashkafah behind, then it will always be to our advantage to add these tools to our repertoire.

Rabbi Becker, do you agree with my conclusions? I’d love to hear your insights into my thoughts.

Best wishes,
Malka Becker

I have nothing to offer in answer to your new question. Rabbi Becker seems to be checking in around weekly.

-mi

PS to Rabbi Becker: I like the new template.

-mi

Back to the topic at hand. Thanks to both Rabbi Berger and Rabbi Becker for your respective answers. Combining your answers, I think you are saying that psychology is a study of the real, but does not provide an objective picture of the ideal. We can try to improve our real, but without that objective goal of “v’halachta b’drachav” there’s no guarantee that we’re moving in the right direction (and even if we are, with our naturally selfish negiyos, we’re bound to lose focus along the way).

Now, a new question. Rabbi Becker, you spoke about how important it is to “visit and revisit our urgencies.” Can you elaborate on this? How does one identify their urgencies (or uncover new urgencies), what do you mean by “revisiting,” etc?

Thank you for all your time in answering my questions!
-MS

-mi

Bear in mind that our nature is to be filled with the agenda of none but my own; to pursue the welfare of none but my self; to consume and subsume all of reality into the needs of the self. We also have the capacity to make genuine room for others; to rise above narrow self-interest and to transcend that which buries us in self-need. In esoteric terms, we are given the opportunity and challenge to emulate G-d, whose Divine Nature is to fill everything (‘maleh kol ha’aretz kevodo) and who ‘makes room’ for each of us at every moment (kabalistic concept of ‘Tzimtzum’). Our capacity to ‘make room’ for other and for the Divine mission is, itself, the spark of divinity in each of us. The more we exercise that capacity, the more divine or holy we become. Consistent with the nature of the human challenge is the fact that we can become preoccupied with self-perfection (or perfecting the world) without actually caring at all about anyone or anything outside of the self and my definition of a good world. I can pursue perfection without recourse to a Divine mission; I just want to be as perfect as G-d is. If we can even lose focus during our striving for perfection, just imagine what we are capable of doing when we are striving for some temporal goal or pleasure. The Torah is the blueprint for perfecting the world on G-d’s terms thus transcending my own narrow self-interest even when perfecting myself and my world. All the moreso is the Torah vital when attempting to address my temporal needs and desires. It used to be easier to serve G-d on Yom Kippur when fasting and abstaining from pleasure than on Purim when rejoicing and indulging. Lately I’ve observed that both are rather easily hijacked by our self-absorbed nature. Mussar is the process of steering all of our energies on the road towards emulating G-d.

Perhaps this should grow up into a separate posting? One of these days I’m going to figure out how to organize a blog. Any suggestions will be gratefully accepted!!

edb

I think that the distinction I tried to make in that blog entry I referenced above between urgency and importance would help. Your being a shifchas Hashem (which is my best attempt to translate “eved Hashem” to the feminine) is an important goal. It may also at times be an urgent goal — you may need to do some avodah now, or the opportunity will be lost. Mitzvah haba leyadekha al tachmitzenah — a mitzvah which comes within your reach, do not allow it to grow old. (A rabbinic word play from a pun on not letting matzah become chameitz.)

But one can’t let urgency override importance. Because the call of the world is through our more mammalian, action-response, immediate gratification side, we can often find the world’s temptations the more urgent. And thus we place that next cupcake (sorry, I’m on a diet) ahead of the truly important.

Ever since Eve and Adam took their bite of that fruit, every decision people make comes from a mixture of motives. Perhaps we can even call it the “tree of knowledge of good-and-evil” as opposed to distinct concepts of good and of evil. Perhaps not. But some of those motives will be good, and some not so good. For example, a certain amount of a person’s desire to give charity is to do the right thing, a certain amount may be to be known as being generous, or to out-do some neighbor, or some other ulterior motive. In mussar-speak we call those the “personal negius”. The ulterior motive is always there; the best we can do is keep them down in intensity.

So, I took Rabbi Becker to mean that the more we are full of ourselves, the more our actions are for these baser motives rather than following our higher calling.

As for your parenthetic “unless my ‘inner purpose’ is inherently self-destructive”, this issue wouldn’t come up in mussar. Mussar isn’t about someone defining their own inner purpose, but about pursuing the one Hashem gave to us in the Torah. In terms of the post that spawned this discussion, psychology doesn’t presume to tell you the ideal. Rather, a person defines their own. “Health” is measured by a person’s ability to function, with no regard to defining what a person is supposed to be functioning as.

Mussar includes the means to match the map, my own mental image of who I’m supposed to be, with what Hashem tells us of the terrain. And the “terrain”, our true function, isn’t to self-destruct.

Personally, I think someone can miss the differences between their map and the terrain, or manage to purposefully not see them. And such a person could gain a decent degree of emotional health, in that they could function well at their chosen function. But that’s different than being holy.

-mi

I’m also still not 100% sure what you meant by, “When our heads are completely filled with ourselves then our service, no matter how desperate and urgent, degenerates into self-service.” Let’s say I want to work on my temper. Let’s also say that my goal in working on my temper is to make it easier to get along with the people around me. Finally, I am succeeding in becoming more even-tempered, but the people around me do not acknowledge it or become more even-tempered in response. I think you’re implying that I’m likely to become frustrated and possibly drop the whole project if my underlying motivation is not fulfilled, and the only underlying motivation that is guaranteed to be fulfilled is that I’ll be closer to emulating Hashem.

-micha

Thanks for your encouragement. I have a feeling that there is more to say about this subject and I look forward to your questions to draw that ‘more’ out.