Struggling to find balance in a chaotic world? Everyday Holiness offers ancient Jewish wisdom to cultivate humility, patience, and purpose through the life-changing practice of Mussar.

SYNOPSIS

Mus­sar means ethics in mod­ern Hebrew, which means ethi­cism finds its bib­li­cal ori­gins in the word for rebuke or reproof, more gen­tly defined as cor­rec­tion. This can be mis­lead­ing, as the pur­pose of Mus­sar is to find spir­i­tu­al ele­va­tion through the prac­tice of Jew­ish ethics; ethics that have been taught for gen­er­a­tions in Torah and Tal­mud study and inter­pret­ed by the sages in clas­sic Jew­ish texts. 

The mod­ern con­cept of Mus­sar is root­ed in 19th cen­tu­ry Lithua­nia, when Jews found that the Enlight­en­ment pre­sent­ed seri­ous chal­lenges to the beliefs and prac­tices of tra­di­tion­al Judaism. Com­pet­ing schools of Mus­sar devel­oped but the Mus­sar move­ment is gen­er­al­ly rec­og­nized as found­ed by Rab­bi Yis­rael Salanter and his dis­ci­ple Rab­bi Sim­cha Zis­sel Ziv. 

What dif­fer­en­ti­ates Mus­sar from oth­er med­i­ta­tive tra­di­tions is that it asks the indi­vid­ual to work on the self, but for a high­er pur­pose of liv­ing in the world and par­tic­i­pat­ing in tikkun olam (repair­ing the world). Once one has trans­formed the inner life, one is pre­pared to assist in the trans­for­ma­tion of the out­er world. This is done by iden­ti­fy­ing eth­i­cal modes of behav­ior and infus­ing each with a sense of holi­ness that leads to a high­er spir­i­tu­al awareness. 

Alan Mori­nis writes beau­ti­ful­ly of his per­son­al jour­ney to Mus­sar after expe­ri­enc­ing sev­er­al set­backs in his life. He shows how Mus­sar gave him mean­ing and pur­pose to pur­sue a new path. He leads us through var­i­ous eth­i­cal traits such as humil­i­ty, patience, and com­pas­sion, and shows how one can find inner peace and tran­quil­i­ty by the prop­er prac­tice of these eth­i­cal behaviors.

This is a well writ­ten guide to a spir­i­tu­al prac­tice that indi­vid­u­als who are beset by the tra­vails of our mod­ern world would find mean­ing­ful and compelling.

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WHY WE LOVE THIS BOOK

During Covid, a member of our Reform congregation, Ohef Sholom in Norfolk VA, led a Zoom course on Everyday Holiness: The Spiritual Path of Mussar by Alan  Morinis. Reading and discussing 17  “soul traits”—aspects of ourselves such as compassion, patience, and simplicity—was one of the most illuminating and transformative experiences that many of us ever experienced. The point of the book is to explore “how we relate to others in daily life—to help us to heal and refine ourselves.” This self-help guide truly opens your eyes and soul to yourself, to others, and to the holiness inherent in each of us.

Elizabeth Clifford Murphy
Author of "The Faithful Harlot"

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bar­bara Andrews holds a Mas­ters in Jew­ish Stud­ies from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go, has been an adult Jew­ish edu­ca­tion instruc­tor, and works in the cor­po­rate world as a pro­fes­sion­al adult educator.