Every Day, Holy Day: 365 Days of Teachings and Practices from the Jewish Tradition of Mussar is a recently published book by Alan Morinis (assisted by Rabbi Micha Berger). This book, Alan Morinis’ follow-up to Everyday Holiness, is designed to help one work on various character traits using an extensive collection on inspiriational and insightful quotes for each day of the year. I can’t even imagine all the work that went into collecting the quotes, but I can tell you that there are very few books written in English that give you such teachings at your fingertips.
The book unlocks the teachings of mussar in an easy to use and practical way. I’ve seen improvement in myself from just using it for the past two months. Each page has a saying that relates to the given character trait of the week, a phrase that summarizes the idea and a practice to help you make each character trait part of your daily life. In addition, each page has space for you to write notes or keep a small journal. Using the full year cycle, as suggested in the book, one will go through 26 (yes 26) different middos twice and there isn’t a quote/teaching repeated.
In Alan’s first book, Climbing Jacob’s Ladder, he took us on his own personal journey towards mussar that eventually lead him to Rabbi Yechiel Yitzchok Perr, the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Far Rockaway and personal examples of what he learned while spending time with Rabbi Perr. Alan’s second book, Everyday Holiness, allowed readers to grow from mussar teaching and focus on “soul traits” (just the collection of footnotes in the book makes it worthwhile reading). In Every Day, Holy Day Alan has moved from the arena of writing about his own growth and giving over those teachings to the reader. He has now given his many students and readers an opportunity to work on making themselves better people and make the tradition of Mussar their own!
For the price this book is selling for on Amazon, this is a worthwhile investment for yourself or a great “just because” gift for a friend.
A number of pages are available currenltly on google books, here.
It’s available for puchase here, here, and here.
A friend lent me Climbing Jacob’s Ladder a few years ago. Thanks for sharing his new book. I look forward to picking up a copy. This Yid has really introduced mussar to the lives of countless Jews and probably non-Jews alike who otherwise probably wouldn’t be exposed to sifrei-mussar.
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True, Alan has opened doors and introduced Mussar teachings to many Jews (and non-Jews) from all walks of life.
I think you’ll like his new publication.