Rav Nosson Zvi Finkel, the Alter of Slabodka
In doing a mitzvah, R’ Nosson Zvi taught, one must be careful not to cause unpleasantness or harm to anyone to avoid forfeiting its rewards.
He never gave shmuses during mealtimes.
When he prayed with a minyan, either he finished Shemoneh Esreh with everyone, or he knocked on his shtender to indicate that he congregation should not wait for him.
From Sparks of Mussar by R Chaim Ephraim Zaitchik
Rav Yisrael Lipkin of Salant
Man can see very far. But the smallest coin blocks his vision.
From Tenuas HaMussar (The Mussar Movement)
I am always happy when I read something that makes me feel good about myself and what my potential is. This is one of the things at attracted me to mussar seforim. That knowledge of our potential also attracted me to the teaching of Reb Nachman of Breslov. While I own a number of Breslov seforim, I’ll be the first to say that I’m no where near the level of calling myself a chossid of Reb Nachman. I do, however, get a lot of mussar and chizuk from his teachings.
R Lazer Brody recently posted a fantastic essay on the importance of Believing in Yourself. It always amazes me that Hashem allows me to hear a d’var Torah or read something that happens to be exactly what I needed at that time. R Brody’s post was one of those things that I needed to read today.
Here’s a taste of what he says:
Observant Judaism is also like a war. The Yetzer, or Evil Inclination, has an array of weapons and forces at his disposal, to deter and discourage a person from making Tshuva, or to break the heart of a person who’s trying to effectively become a ben- or bat-Torah. If you believe in yourself, you’ll be able to wipe the floor with the Yetzer.
The whole essay in all of its glory can be found here.
Rabbi Yisrael Lipkin of Salant
The world is like a small cloth spread over a table. By pulling the cloth too much towards himself, one leaves the other end exposed.
From Tenuas HaMussar (The Mussar Movement)
Rav Yisroel Meir HaCohen, the Chofetz Chaim
I recently emailed a few questions to Modya Silver, the founder of madrega.com , “The online community for the Soul-full Jew”. His answers will give you a little insight into why I think his website is unique and fills a big void for those who are looking to grow in character development.
1. How did the idea of Madrega.com come into being?
A number of years ago I developed my life goal to bring together 1,000 people in some meaningful way so that I can provide a conduit for their measured growth. I have worked in technology and also have a passion for middot (character trait) development. Finding a way to combine the two was a natural fit for my passions.
I then thought about how every Jew around the world, learns/reads the same Torah portion each week (except sometimes in Israel where they are off by a week, or maybe the rest of the world is off and Israel is on). I thought about daf yomi, the schedule by which everyone in the world learns the same page of Talmud every day. It made me think of the power of community and collective learning. A light bulb went on that if we all explore the same middah at the same time, there would be a tremendous opportunity to share ideas and experiences and, through that, grow more than if we worked in isolation. Imagine for example that 1,000 people are all working on developing lovingkindness for two weeks at the same time – all over the world. Imagine if 10,000 are doing that, or a million people. Wow, that would shake the world off its axis.
2. You mention “middot” development and not Mussar. Is madrega.com not a Mussar site?
I learned from my uncle a long time ago that “’ism’ isn’t any good”. So, I’ve always been reluctant to hook onto one school, one ideology for risk of devaluing other ideas and ideologies. When I set out, I thought that madrega.com would be a Mussar site since my middot teachers are within the Mussar tradition. Then I started to learn with a Slonimer Chassid. I also would meet frum Jewish men who, when they heard that I was into Mussar, would literally cringe. They had gone through a yeshiva system and for them Mussar was simply rebuke for doing something wrong, not a path for spiritual growth. It became obvious that the Mussar focus was fraught with potholes and so I broadened the scope to include all authentic Jewish paths that have something to say about middot. In this week’s reading on generosity for example, I quote Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom. Other times I have quoted the Chofetz Chaim, the Malbim, the Netivot Shalom. Any number of sources, provided they offer useful and authentic teachings that are rooted in Torah.
3. How have you grown as a Jew since the web community started?
I’ve always had a strong sense of spirit and find it easy to do daily exercises that open my heart and soul to G-d. My difficulty has been in staying focused and staying the course in Jewish learning. I found that there are so many paths to travel down and often for me, those paths didn’t seem related to each other. I would lose my focus and stop learning. Writing a weekly piece for the madrega.com community and then thinking through all the comments that people post makes me traverse the many paths of Judaism and look for common threads. Last week for example, I was learning a piece of gemorra about when you reject myrtle for a lulav set. It seems like a remote teaching, because in practice, I buy my myrtle in a plastic sealed bag and to me it all looks the same. However, I asked myself how the teaching relates to me today and I found that the answer came through a middot view. There was something about whether I can affect change or whether it’s out of my hands and I need to “reject” my drive to affect change. That made me think hard about effort (hishtadlut) and when I have done all I can and need to let go and trust. I think that without the discipline of daily and weekly learning and reflection on madrega.com, I wouldn’t have seen the gemorra as a lesson for my life.
4. What obstacles have gotten in your way and how did you overcome them in creating the web community?
The middah that comes to mind here is anavah (humility). I had so many technical problems in building the site. I went through three development teams before we got it working. In the middle of all that I took on development myself (thank goodness I stopped that quickly). My question to myself all along was what was my role. I leaned on the way Alan Morinis so adeptly defines anavah as occupying the space that Hashem wants you to occupy. Nothing more, nothing less. My space was to create content and help build awareness of the community to increase our size and success. However, I kept wanting to step outside that role and do everything else. I overcame my drive to take it all on by constantly asking myself the question until I finally listened to the answer. It wasn’t easy to listen.
The second challenge which I still have is in community leadership. I know that in its early days I need to be the catalyst for activity and so I write and post and blog and discuss and create chants etc. However, I never wanted this to be the Modya Silver community. I wanted a more distributive, democratic community where everyone becomes equal participants and everyone’s voice is heard equally. I trust that we’ll get there within the next 12 months, but this remains an obstacle for me now and I find I bump up against my issues with anavah all the time because of it.
I’m feel very fortunate to have formed a nice friendship with Moyda thanks to many emails over the past few weeks. Madrega.com allows you to work on a specific character trait for two weeks and post comments regarding the middah and post blogs about your growth. It is “The online community for the Soul-full Jew“.
Rabbi Yisrael Lipkin of Salant
Just like one can not see without eyes and it is impossible to hear without ears, one cannot truly change without learning mussar.
From Tenuas HaMussar (The Mussar Movement)
This quote was suggested to me by R Micha Golshevsky
Rabbi Yisrael Lipkin of Salant
Like a bird, man can reach undreamed-of heights as long as he works his wings. Should he relax them for but one minute, however, he plummets downward.
From Tenuas HaMussar (The Mussar Movement)
Driving my kids to school is usually pretty a constant diet of deciding what music should be played or what “book on cd” to listen to. This morning, however, I attempted to show them that life lessons can be found everywhere.
Yesterday on the drive we saw a concrete mixer truck and it was full. How did I know it was full? Because the drum was turning around and around and around.
I asked the kids why the drum was turning and my uberson said that, “If the cement stops turning then it gets hard.”
My uberdaughter then said that, “If it gets hard then it is useless.”
I told them that each of us are like the cement and the cement mixer. If we are not constantly in motion trying to be better Jews doing Mitzvos like helping our friends and serving Hashem then our neshamos will get stuck like hard cement and it will be difficult to build ourselves up and be better people.
Did the get it? Sort of. My 4th grade son told over the moshul to his Rebbe and got a “zechus ticket”. My 2nd grade daughter told her younger sister that if she didn’t share then her neshama would get stuck like cement.
There are three links I recently saw I hope to be using for my personal Jewish growth in Avodas Hashem.
Third is The Mussar Institute, run by Alan Morinis. You can subscribe to their monthly mussar newletter here.
There are great interviews with Mr. Morinis as well as information about their distance learning programs.
