American Mussar

21st century Jewish spiritual practice for an authentic and meaningful life

Esther’s Mussar Humility Lesson

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Esther's Mussar Humility Lesson
Esther stepping into her royalty

Esther’s Mussar Humility Lesson:

Have you ever been thrust into a situation where you were called to step outside of your comfort zone?  If so, did you have to choose between stepping up to bring some good into the world, or doing nothing and let something bad happen?

This is exactly the choice Queen Esther faced in the Purim story.

To recap, in the Book of Esther, a Jewish woman of color named Esther wins a beauty contest to become Queen. Then, an evil advisor to the King arranges to have the Jewish people annihilated. Esther’s uncle Mordechei asks her to go to the King to prevent this calamity.

At the time, however, to approach the king uninvited was an offense punishable by death. Esther could have been dissuaded by the risk; nevertheless she persisted. Now remember, Esther is Queen by virtue of a beauty contest. She could have fallen prey to the Imposter Syndrome, and decided that she was unworthy of the task at hand. The Megillah (5:1) describes what happens next.

“Esther donned [garments of] royalty and stood in the inner courtyard of the palace, facing the palace. The king was sitting on his royal throne in the palace facing the palace entrance.”
Notice how it reads if we eliminate the “[garments of].”*

Esther donned royalty.”

What does that mean to don royalty? This is Esther’s Mussar Humility lesson. She went before the King in a regal persona, and did not get hung up by the selection process that made her Queen. Esther had a right to be there, and made the most of her opportunity.

Have you ever been faced with a situation where you were called upon to do something outside your comfort zone? Do you ever get worried that you don’t belong and let yourself get paralyzed? Take inspiration from Esther, and just do it.

Thankfully few of us will have to step up the way that Esther did, where failure means genocide. At the same time, we live in extraordinary times, with political turmoil at home, and war abroad. Do you feel called on to speak out?

We should not simply read this story an an invitation for civic action. Who among us has not been faced with a trying situation at work, in our marriage, with a friend, or with the challenge of growing into full adulthood? How best  can we step up, to do right by the people in our lives?

Can we stand by and do nothing if our Alma Mater is turning a blind eye to rape on campus?

You are heartily invited to stop for a moment and consider how Esther’s Mussar Humility lesson applies to you. Read the following and then close your eyes.

Think of the people in your life. What challenges do they face?

What is one small step you can take to support your friends, family and community in a new way?

How can you occupy your space to take responsibility, and try to be part of the solution?

Or, perhaps you need to occupy less space. If you are a parent, do you let you kids fail and learn from their mistakes?

Please comment below to capture your intention.

Want to learn more about Mussar Humility? Click here for a free sneak peak at the Humility lesson from the American Mussar cycle.
*The brackets indicate  an interpretive translation as opposed to a literal translation. As my comment above suggests, I think this interpretation is incorrect, and undervalues Esther’s contribution as a strong woman of color.
Image credit: Esther Copyright 2013 Joe Goode
This blog post inspired a Niggun co-written by Greg Marcus and Jacqueline Rafii. Click here to see it on YouTube.  

Three Steps To Judge The Truth About Green Book Like a Mensch

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Truth About Green Book
What is the Truth about Green Book?

Spoiler Alert: Green Book won the Oscar for Best Picture. And some people are really pissed off about that. What is the Truth about Green Book that makes it so polarizing?

I loved Green Book, and I smiled when it won Best Picture. My smile faded a bit as I watched the producers acceptance speech. (You an watch it here on YouTube). I thought it weird that Vigo Morenson and Carrie Fischer got more praise than Mahershala Ali, who played the musical genius Dr. Don Shirley. And neither Shirley, the Green Book, nor civil rights were mentioned.

Then I read criticism of the movie by Spike Lee and others. I became downright confused. For some people of color, this movie win, and the silence about Don Shirley, became another story of marginalization. They saw what should be a black story co-opted by white film makers, with a white man put in the role of savior.

Many white presenting people share this perspective. On Facebook, the writer Peter Birkenhead compared Green Book to the story of Anne Frank, told from the viewpoint of “Miep Geis, one of the gentiles who helped hide her.” In this version, Miep is the hero and center of the story, and anti-semitism gets reduced to stereotypes. And when the movie wins best picture, not a single writer or producer accepting the award is Jewish.

How was I to square my reactions liking the movie with this true and authentic reaction from some people of color and their allies? And how could Mussar help me understand the truth about Green Book?

First, I stepped back and remembered that the screenplay was cowritten by Tony’s son Nick Vallelonga. It isn’t a movie about a black man dealing with racism in the South. It tells the story of a white man who took a job working for a black man and became friends with him. It is a story Nick is telling about his dad. If Miep’s daughter decided to write a movie that made her mom the hero, that would be ok with me.

Why do I say this? Because I had been telling people the movie was about Don Shirley. Yet there were no scenes with Don Shirley that did not also have Tony Lip in them. I was confused in part because I was trying to make Green Book a civil rights movie, which it isn’t. It is a relationship movie, between people of different backgrounds during the last days of the Jim Crow Era.

Second, we Americans have a long history of marginalizing and silencing people of color.  I interpret reactions against the movie from some people of color as “Here we go again. I’m tired of this crap.” That is the Truth from their perspective, and I  am trying my best to hear them and honor them.

As Rabbi Hillel said, “Do not judge your fellow until you have come to [their] place.” (Pirkei Avot 2:4). Since I have not been a person of color, I don’t know what they have been through. But I know enough to know they are not wrong for thinking this way.

Third, it is ok for me to like the movie, and have my own Truth. It was wonderful watching the movie with my father and 16 year old daughter. She had never seen what it was like in the South, when people of color used the Green Book to know where they would be allowed to stay and eat. My father shared that when Don Shirley came to Syracuse, NY in 1970ish, the hotel would not let him stay there. Dr. Shirley stayed with a Syracuse University faculty member.

Now that I’ve shared with you how I processed this movie in the Mussar way, I hereby invite you to try a Mussar Practice. After all, the point of Mussar is personal growth. I hope you’ll give this practice a try.

**********Here’s the Mussar Practice*********************************

See the Truth from another’s perspective. The people who dislike Green Book and I have different Truths. This is part of the human condition. Here are three steps to judge the comprehensive Truth about Green Book.

First, think about your own Truth about the movie. What leads you to that perspective? Have you seen it yourself, or are you reacting to other people’s reactions? What about you makes you have that perspective?

Second, pick a perspective different from yours. What is the Truth of persons of color who don’t like the movie? What about them makes them have that perspective. If their story were your story, would you be reacting the same way?

If you are one of the people uncomfortable about Green book, think about the Truth of the people who are annoyed with the backlash against the movie. Are they all white supremacists in the making? What about them makes them have that perspective. If their story were your story, would you be reacting the same way?

Third, integrate the truths together. Allow your Truth to evolve. Accept that it is ok to have a different Truth from someone else. You can both have different Truths and be in relationship together. After all, isn’t that one of the messages of Green Book?

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Mussar teaches that only the Divine sits on the Throne of Truth, meaning that humans are incapable of knowing the Truth from all perspectives. As humans, we need to do some work to see the Truth from multiple perspectives.

Finally, Truth is key for Tikkun Olam, repair of the world.

The world stands on three things: truth, justice, and peace. Truth brings justice, which results in peace.” –Rabbi Simeon ben Gamliel

Until we can acknowledge the Truth about historical and current marginalization, we will never have justice. If you are skeptical about marginalization, start with an academic description, like this one here.

At the end of the day, it isn’t about Hollywood. It is about the pain of our fellow humans.

How do you see the Truth about Green Book?

What steps will you do to see the Truth from another’s perspective?

Want to learn more about the Truth and Mussar? Start with the Soul Trait Quiz. 

What a Millennial Taught Me About Finding Your Meaning and Purpose

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finding your meaning and purpose
Photo by Frank Mckenna on Unsplash

Recently, a Jewish millennial came up to me when I was signing books after a presentation. He asked how he could find meaning and purpose. I didn’t know how to answer, so I asked a few questions.

Tell me about yourself

I know where I want to be in 40 years, but I don’t know how to get there.

Where do you want to be?

He went on to explain his goals, which were wonderful. He wanted to help Israel from America, and also to help IDF veterans.

Who do you want to be?

He looked at me with a blank stare.

Who do you want to be in 40 years, what kind of person do you want to be?

He explained how he wanted financial stability, to have made enough money so he was taken care of

He looked at me with wide eyes as he told me.

My heart just broke. Not because he said anything wrong, but because no one had told him there are more important things in life. Nowhere did he mention family or character.

And I felt admiration. In his early twenties, he intuitively sensed that just accomplishing things lacked meaning and purpose.

I was much much older when I figured that out.

Meaning and purpose is something we experience in the heart. 

What if each of us were put here to perfect ourselves, to heal what needs to be healed inside? When we heal we become whole, and meaning and purpose manifest.

Until we are on a path to wholeness, we will forever be held back in any effort, be it a career, a relationship, or repairing the world.

I say path to wholeness because we are human, and have certain innate drives that we need to channel through ongoing work. Which brings to mind a Mussar practice to help.

*********************Here’s the Mussar Practice********************************************

Take a break from accomplishment on Shabbat, and just be. Whether or not you are Jewish, or practice Shabbat in a traditional way, you are invited to take a day to rest and nurture the soul.

About a year ago, I got serious and stopped working on Shabbat. In particular, I don’t check email.

A few months ago, I stopped checking social media on Shabbat. Both were hard transitions, and both were rewarding in the end.

As Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote in his masterpiece The Sabbath

“There is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord. Life goes wrong when the control of space, the acquisition of things of space, becomes our sole concern.”

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Please join me in this practice. What is one step you can take to make Shabbat a day of joy and rest? Do you see how this can help you find your meaning and purpose?

Please share below. I answer every comment.

Want to give Mussar a try? Start with the Soul Trait Quiz.

Jewish Wisdom Says Find The Good In Anyone. But What About Monsters and Creeps?

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find the good in anyone
Find the good in anyone, especially yourself

The root cause of many issues in my life goes back to how I relate to others. It show up for me in judging others, respect issues, craving recognition, and just good old fashioned not thinking about the impact of my words and actions on others. In Mussar terms, this means that an Honor imbalance is at the core of my spiritual curriculum.

Before I go on, a side note about Mussar practice. I have been doing this for seven years, and part of the practice is self knowledge without feeling shame. I don’t write the litany above to beat myself up – rather it is a recognition of a reality of tendencies in me. If left unchecked, they would have gotten worse instead of better. More on that later.

So it is interesting, and not a coincidence, that three of my Mussar groups have independently converged on practicing Honor.

In the Mussar For Men men’s group, we discussed the assumption that we all have a Divine Spark occluded by our baggage. If you are unsure of the Divinity, think of it as the core of goodness in everyone, the common spark of humanity that we are all born with, and can never be taken away. The baggage are those hurts and societal influences that make it hard to see our own spark, and the spark of others.

Someone objected, asking “What about horrible people?” Later, the idea of “finding the good in anyone” came up. Here, the objections became even stronger. Someone said, “I need to find the good in a monster who harms children?” And many found it challenging to Honor parents who have been very hurtful in the past or in the present.

If you can’t find the good in someone because they are a horrible person, don’t beat yourself up. The Path of The Just, by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto outlines a path towards becoming a saintly person, a mensch among mensches. Finding the good in a child molester, or in someone who has harmed us terribly, may be beyond where we are today.

However, before you jump on this as a means to cop out of looking for the good in a “horrible” person you know, ask yourself why you think they are a horrible person. Is this person horrible because they have hurt children, or because they voted for or against the current President? Did they order genocide, or repeatedly torpedo your ideas at work?

It is critical to focus on a person’s behavior, and not to label them broad brush as a bad person. Most people have some good that we can find. When we do, it changes us. You’ll find your entire energy shifts, towards a calm that lets you choose an appropriate and measured response.

To help you find the good in anyone, I suggest the following Mussar Practice.

***************Here’s The Mussar Practice****************

Praise three people a day. The praise should be heartfelt, and not empty flattery. I learned this practice the first time I was working on Honor, as part of the Everyday Holiness class from the Mussar Institute. As I’ll explain below, it was anything but easy for me.

In fact,  I could not do it. I could praise my pets, I could praise people for their clothes, I could thank people, but I could not give praise in any other way. This was true for both strangers, and people in my own home.

It was the first time I came face to face with my spiritual curriculum. I realized that what I though was a Humility issue was actually an Honor issue for me. I felt bad, although more than anything, I felt shock that I just couldn’t do it. If I hadn’t tried it, I would not have known I needed work in this area.

Don’t worry too much about the people at the extremes. Start with people near you, and move towards more difficult people until you find where your limits are today.

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If you find it hard to look for the good in a monster, or a parent who has harmed you, that is ok. You may not be ready to go there.

The more important question is where you are today. Seven years ago, I could not Honor regular people by giving heartfelt and deserved praise.

In one of my groups, I shared the story above, and someone suggested I try the practice again. I quaked with terror at the thought, but I never say no to a suggested Mussar practice that fits with the soul trait I’m working on. Especially one that scares or repels me.

Good news: I have tried the practice again this week, and I am better at it!
Yes, we can get better. When you start to walk the path, you’ll be surprised at how far you can go.

I really hope you’ll try this Mussar practice to find the good in anyone . Taking action is the key to changing the heart.

When it comes to Honoring others, what is your biggest challenge?

You can read some excerpts about Honor for free from my book The Spiritual Practice Of Good Actions here.

Image credit: Photo of the original painting by Pablo Picasso: `Girl before a mirror`Zoltan Tarlacz | Dreamstime.com

Did You Lose Patience Over The Holidays?

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lose patienceDid You Lose Patience Over The Holidays?

I did.

I am throughly enjoying having my daughter home from college. The four of us took a last minute holiday out of town for a night, went to the movies on Christmas, and have enjoyed watching the Marvelous Mrs Maisel Season 2. We have generally enjoyed being together, except for when things got a bit… testy. Two teens and two fifty-somethings with strong opinions – lets just say things got heated a few times. Nothing to send us to family therapy, but …

A few times I got mad at someone else. Sometimes I lost my Patience and said something, which threw gas on the fire. Other times I found my Patience and stayed silent. What did those two situations have in common? I was challenged and upset each time.

There is this misconception that being patient means staying calm. This is not correct. Mussar teaches that when we are calm, we don’t need Patience. We only need Patience when we are challenged; when we are in discomfort of some kind. When we lose Patience, we act out and lose control.

Recently, I was talking to a student, another Mussar father, about what it is like to stay Patient when triggered by a family member. I’ll relate it here.
Imagine you and a family member are both standing in the kitchen. They are saying and doing things that push your buttons. They are not attacking you, just saying and doing things that really bother you. You want to tell them to stop; you want to walk out of the room; to throw up your hands in exasperation; to roll your eyes; to look away; to grimace; to say “what’s the big deal”…

Instead, you stand there, maintaining eye contact and just listen. Your heart is pounding, and you feel a rising panic. Inside, you are saying to yourself:

This sucks. This totally sucks. Don’t leave. Don’t say anything. Just stay quiet. This totally sucks. Just hang in there, it will be over soon. I don’t know how much longer I can take this…

You get the idea. There was no super bliss. In fact, I was suffering more staying silent than I would have been if I had acted out.

Let me be clear: This does not come naturally to me. A few years ago I would have thrown more gas on the fire again and again. The only reason I acted differently this time is my Mussar practice.

The Hebrew word for the soul trait of Patience is Savlanut, which shares a root for the word to “bear a burden.” Patience, then is really about bearing the burden of an uncomfortable situation until it is over. It is bearing with suffering until it passes.

This brings us to a Mussar practice we can try.

*****************Heres the Mussar Practice For When You Lose Patience*******************

Remember that this too shall pass. Each morning, as part of our Mussar practice, we recite a mantra. The mantra I wrote for Patience is “This too shall pass, and I have the strength to get by until it does.”

Rabbi Ira stone teaches a lesson from the mussar master Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv: “Bearing the burden of the other” is our primary task as people who practice Mussar.
In the example above, I was bearing the burden of listening, which is the bare minimum way to show up in a menchy way.
I practiced Silence and did not make the situation worse. I could have done better by practicing Compassion, and willingly jumped in with empathy for the pain of the other person. I might better have been able to give comfort and helped them more actively. Then again, trying to solve the problem for the other person isn’t always the right thing to do. It is very hard not to try to fix a relative or loved one. Sometimes we just need to ride it out. And when riding it out, it is super helpful to remember that this too shall pass.”
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Sometimes the holidays bring us together with that relative we just don’t get along with. As much as we wish it were different, the painful interaction just plays out again and again.

This too shall pass. January 2nd will come, and you can get back to the routine of life. Accepting those feelings, and giving yourself a break is important. As the same time, you might want to take action and instead of bearing burden of the situation.

What are some self-care activities you can take to bring yourself some comfort?

Who can you reach out to to bring you some joy?

What can you do other than look at other people’s holiday posts on Facebook? No one posts the moments I write about above. They are part of the picture too.

Maybe you can track down a college friend you haven’t talked to in years, or find a Meetup group to join in January.

Where ever you are is ok. Your Divine spark is still there, ready to shine through when you can peak around your baggage, or slide it out of the way.

If this post resonates with you, check out the Humility and Patience Mussar Workshop that starts in January. This is exactly the type of issue we will be working on. We’ll all be creating spiritual action plans to help us take one small step towards balance. Each of us has the capacity to grow and do better. What would your life be like if you did not lose Patience?