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The Difference between Mussar and Self-Improvement

By E.D.Becker at 3:38 pm on Saturday, April 26, 2008

What is the difference between Mussar and other forms of personal growth?

I’ve been asked any number of times how Mussar differs from Covey, Pransky, Positive Psychology and a host of other self-improvement programs and concepts. You may find yourself asking the same question and I’d like to save you the call.

Mussar, the Torah’s approach to personal growth has, at its most fundamental core, the call to utilize the entire physical world in the service of the transcendent, eternal world. The Torah calls upon every human being (both Jews and Gentiles in different ways) to recognize this world as the place to activate G-d’s Will through the use of the physical world of things, feelings, thoughts and actions. The Torah teaches us how to harness the material world in the service of transcendent connection to eternity.

By contrast, other forms of self-improvement are aimed at capitalizing on the transcendent aspect of a person in the service of the physical world. Being calmer, meditating, looking beyond the moment, understanding values, prioritizing and so on are all seen as tools in the pursuit of a better physical existence, whether that means a better marriage, friendships, a job or even a vacation. The point of self-improvement is to harness the transcendent world of a person in the service of his physical existence.

The difference is 180 degrees.

There are those self-improvement programs (notably in Eastern Religions) that have placed such a value on transcendence that they put the physical world at the service of their push for transcendence. If you push for the answer to why, the answer is because it’s a better way to live. Again, transcendence in the service of the physical world is the message.

Torah is the G-d-given recipe for being closer to Him, eternally. It is not about avoiding damnation nor is it about being redeemed from sin, though those are certainly included in the Torah recipe. Mussar is the arm of Torah that focuses on the specifics of how a physical, created, conflicted human being can transcend and utilize the limitations which are imposed by his base-physicality to become G-dlike, G-d-emulating and ever more closely attached to the pleasure of proximity to Him. The person doesn’t need to be redeemed; he needs to be activated.

Without the revelation of His Will on Mt Sinai all of the other self-improvement programs run just fine. With no directive from G-d there is nothing to do but try to improve your life here. With the revelation at Sinai the only program is Mussar. Everything else is abusing (sorry for the extreme term) spirituality in order to achieve a more blissful life in this world. Torah is about utilizing (indeed, abusing, from the perspective of one who is trying to achieve a blissful world here) this world in the service of His Will.

We are striving to become better and better servants of Hashem, using only this life and this world to do so, while self-improvement is about using all of the transcendence latent in a person to make our lives in this world better and better.

I cannot be a scrooge and say that I’m unhappy with the programs which help people have better marriages, more successful jobs, be happier, have less depression, etc. I’m not a scrooge and my service to and relationship with G-d includes my celebration of everything and anything which lightens the load of another person, Jew or Gentile. So I am happy when I hear that people go off to retreats and come back calmer, have a better marriage or get/keep a life-sustaining job. That’s great news. Period.

What all that does is give us more material to transform into service of Hashem. Don’t stop when your life is better; that’s not the goal; it’s a tool and its value is measured in terms of how it is used. Use your good marriage to emulate Hashem and His kindness. Use the peace of mind your improved job security affords to focus with more clarity on your Torah study, your performance of Mitzvos, on your freedom to live with honesty and integrity according to the Torah’s definitions of those terms, your ability to stay focused and undistracted by the myriad attempts of mischief to distract you. If you’re exercising regularly then you have more stamina to serve Hashem. If you are eating well then your body is less sluggish, less demanding and now you are freer to put your body to work in the Divine Misssion. Mussar is about the process of doing that.

Self-improvement may be included in the long list of tools to put to the service of the Divine Mission. However, failure to put them in their proper perspective runs the risk of leaving the person feeling like he/she has activated his/her transcendence without connecting Soul to Source. That is a terrible tragedy. I see it daily with people who get involved in Kabala, pseudo-mussar, and a host of other attempts to drain the wellspring of transcendence in each of us so that the Soul is fooled into serving the Body and fails to connect to the Source. I almost wish the person had remained in his/her hedonistic rut until ready to wake up to Sinai instead of having the Soul-craving slaked at a mirage fountain.

If I’ve not hammered it home enough here, please ask. From where I’m sitting, I’ve repeated myself more times in this article than I have in virtually any piece I’ve allowed to go past my screen.

I hope I’ve saved you a call.

Filed under: Introduction — 3 Comments »

Mussar and the Force of Gravity

By E.D.Becker at 5:45 am on Sunday, October 15, 2006

Human beings have always attempted to push against the limits imposed on them by their nature, but we seem to have few tools for doing so when the nature we are dealing with is internal. We try to build buildings which push the limits of physics; we create and play games which tax the limits of human intellect and others which pit us against the limits of the human physique. In fact, we get upset when folks do not play by the rules and accept the limitations imposed on them by nature, for example, by using a computer, taking drugs or using a bionic arm. We have accepted that there are limits which are inherent in our condition and we devise strategies to test those limits. When the limits don’t exist we create them. It would be rather simple, for example, to kick a small ball into a huge goal if somebody hadn’t put a goalie there to impede our kick. Yet we put the goalie there, and we won’t even ‘count’ the goal if it did not take place in the face of an opponent who was testing the limits of our ability to outwit him. Such is the nature of human striving. We find limits and we push against them. We don’t trouble ourselves with the fact that the long-jump would be far easier on the moon with near weightlessness, to say nothing of the fact that we could hit a ball into orbit with zero gravity. This is our condition and now we struggle against the built-in limitations.

Somehow, as the limitations get closer to our daily lives and our most intimate fantasies, they become harder to accept and work with. Frustration builds when I confront the fact that I cannot be in two places at once, nor have ‘enough’ balance in my bank account. I have to deal with the fact that the machine is broken and that the part won’t fit where it’s supposed to, when the train is late and the teller is slow. Here we are called upon to activate the human ability to work with the limits called reality; to utilize what we have rather than bemoan what we don’t have. The depths of depression follow if we focus on living life without these ‘burdensome’ limitations. Giving up, anger and frustration are really about not accepting the built-in realities which invite us to push against their limitations while accepting the existence of those limitations. What we are looking at is the need to recognize personal limitations and to devise strategies to push their limits. These are thought of as emotional/psychological limits which may, in a different light, be viewed as spiritual challenges or built-in limits. (Read on …)

Filed under: Introduction, Mussar — Leave A Comment »

Introduction to Mussar – the Real, the Ideal and the Process

By E.D.Becker at 1:58 am on Thursday, August 24, 2006

Mussar is the term for describing the lifelong endeavor to make a human being ever more Godlike. In order to facilitate that endeavor, Mussar employs many tools. The first tool is accurate description of the human being; his strengths and his frailties. Without such an understanding of the self, all growth is merely a fantasy or a wish. Mussar is, if it is anything, real and always starts from absolute, hardboiled reality.

As such, the first part of Mussar is the ‘real.’ To bring the real to light might involve studying how the Torah describes people, especially great people, whose flaws appear under the electron microscope of the Torah; the study of whom can help us understand the secrets of our own hearts. In this capacity, we are said to be studying Mussar when we delve into the descriptions of the human condition as they appear in the blueprint for the world, the Torah. The point of such study is to help us locate ourselves in reality; to know the strengths that we can draw upon and to identify the challenges we were created to overcome.

The next role of Mussar is to cull from the Torah what the human being is meant to look like – the ideal. For the ideal we don’t look at human beings but rather at the attributes of HaShem (G-d). While we may use human role models to help us in our efforts towards the ideal, we still always recognize the ideal as nested in the attributes of HaShem. Each person who studies Mussar, then, is meant to plot his position (his ‘real’) relative to the ideal. So far, all the person has are two descriptive points; the real and the ideal.

Rounding out the picture is the aspect of Mussar which places its focus on the ‘process.’ Here we are not studying Mussar in order to describe; but rather to prescribe. Mussar in the earlier senses is static. The real and the ideal are facts. In this sense Mussar is dynamic insofar as it addresses the process of change; of moving (often inching) along the path from the real towards the ideal. There could be many strategies employed here, some that have already been suggested by the masters of the Mussar process and some that are waiting to be discovered by you and I as we struggle to make our way from the real towards the ideal.

Each of these steps are necessary for real growth to happen. Without a clarity regarding who I am and what my strengths and challenges are (both within me and around me) I could live a life of self-deception. Without a clarity regarding the attributes of HaShem to which I strive I could be placing great effort in chasing a useless goal of supposed self-improvement. And without a process I leave myself living a life of fantasy. Here I am wishing that I were more like the ideal; bemoaning the fact that I am stuck in the real; and going through life remaining right where I am.

I hope that this ‘top view’ of Mussar is useful. I will leave it permanently on its own page (and perhaps add to it from time to time) so that we can each refer back to it to keep our ‘eyes on the ball’ and for those who are new to the story of Mussar to gain access to this central story of Jewish life.

Filed under: Introduction, Mussar, Beginner — 14 Comments »

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The Difference between Mussar and Self-Improvement

Mussar and the Force of Gravity

Introduction to Mussar – the Real, the Ideal and the Process