Featured - American Mussar

How To Hold a Door Like a Mensch

May 2, 2019 By Greg Marcus Leave a Comment

Have you ever wondered if you are doing too much for other people? Perhaps you’ve felt taken advantage of, or felt like it is selfish to take care of yourself. Sometimes ordinary daily activities, like holding a door for another person, can provide insights to help you deal with more complex situations. For example…

I was on a collage tour my daughter and wife. As we entered a building, I held a door for one of the other dads. He was walking slowly, his head glued to his phone. I was filled with resentful and judgmental thoughts. “What a bad dad, “I thought. “Doing work when he should be focused on his family.” I felt a strong temptation not to hold the door for him.

Then, I thought, “A Mensch would not act on judgmental thoughts, and holds the door for other people.” In Mussar terms, holding the door for someone is a way to practice Honor, the soul trait that reminds us to notice the Divine Spark in everyone. So, I held the door for him.

A little while later, he was off phone and was in front of me as we exited a stairwell. He did not hold the door for me. “Hmmm,” I thought. “Not everyone thinks about these things, and makes the extra effort.”

As the tour came to a close, I was once again in front of him as we were going through a door. This time, I elected not to hold the door for him. I would have had to wait a few seconds, and thought “Tit for Tat,” This phrase is shorthand for a Game Theory approach to cooperation when you interact with the same person again and again. In short, you lead with generosity, but if the other person does not reciprocate, you do not reciprocate the next chance you get. Tit for Tat is considered a winning strategy.

Granted, holding a door for someone else is a small example. The other person did not notice whether I held the door or not. The person impacted by this exercise was me. And it provides a doorway to a Mussar Practice for all of us to try.

*Here’s the Mussar Practice**

Hold the door open more or less. Metaphorically, in your life, do you hold the door for others or allow others to hold it open for you? Holding the door for a stranger is a menchy thing to do. But if you are holding the door again and again for the same people and they do not reciprocate, you have an opportunity to examine whether this relationship is working for you.

Let me be clear: There are no right or wrong answers. Understanding this dynamic will give you more options in your life.

And if you never hold the door for other people, over the next week hold the door and smile whenever you get a chance.

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It says in the Talmud, “Whomever exercises mercy where strictness is required will eventually be cruel where kindness is required.” (Rabbah 7.33). This is an analogous situation – a limit is better than just giving and giving.

When I was in the business world, I tended to help others even when they were not helping me. I think it would have helped my career to say no more often. My coworkers would have respected my time more, and realized they needed to help me in return if they wanted me to go the extra mile.

How does this practice fit in with your life?

Want to see if Honor is one of the keystone soul traits in your spiritual curriculum? Take the Soul Trait Quiz.

Allow The Notre Dame Fire To Inspire You This Passover

April 18, 2019 By Greg Marcus 3 Comments

In the days before Passover, I was saddened by the Notre Dame fire. As I was busy feeling terrible, I found myself personally challenged by Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz’s Facebook post.

He argued that we as Americans should be less worried about the loss of a building, and more concerned about “the oppression of invisible people around the world.” Rabbi Shmuly cited a story from Leviticus Rabbah about the Romans giving better treatment to stone columns than to the poor. I was stopped in my tracks, and immediately stopped thinking of the fire as a “tragedy.” Instead, it became something I am sad about.

Then, I read about some of the backlash against the billion dollars pledged by the ultra wealthy to rebuild the cathedral. While some of the criticism is overblown, I personally agree with those who point out that if we can find money for a building, we can find money to deal with societal inequality and poverty.

Which brings us back to Passover. The story we tell every year is a central narrative of Jewish peoplehood. Throughout the Torah, we are asked to remember that we were slaves in the land of Egypt, as it says “You too must befriend (love) the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. (Deuteronomy 10:19).”

When we were slaves, we too were invisible.

This Passover, let us channel our emotions from Notre Dame fire to remember the forgotten and invisible people all over the world. When we see and remember, how can we not act?

What invisible people or person would you like to remember? Please reply below. I’ll repost your answer on Facebook. (Or if you are shy, you can email me here)

You might also like these other posts about Passover

Photo by Olivier Mabelly via Flickr CC

Do You See Esther As A Jewish Woman Of Color?

March 19, 2019 By Greg Marcus 11 Comments

As I was revising last Purim’s blog post Esther’s Mussar Humility Lesson, I had a shocking realization. Esther is a Jewish Woman of Color.

Could that be true? I asked myself. I’ve always thought of her as white.

She must have been. The story takes place in Persia, and Persian people have darker skin.

In the painting to the left, notice how Esther has white skin and the servants have dark skin. I absorbed a cultural transformation: We’ve turned a Person of Color into a white person.

I did some research online, and found this wonderful story that describes what happened when a young boy heard a description of Queen Esther as someone with beautiful brown skin and hair in braids. He started jumping up and down, saying “Like me! I have brown skin too.” This young Jewish boy with a white mother and a dark skinned father saw himself in the Jewish narrative for the first time.

And I got an inkling of how it must feel to be a Jewish Woman of Color. I’ve read articles about Jews of Color feeling like they don’t fit in because in the synagogue people automatically think they are a guest or worse. Or they are ignored and not seen.

I admit, I felt a little sick to my stomach. It was confusing as my body coped with the discord of wanting to be inclusive, and my unconscious “elevation” of one of our greatest heroes to whiteness. I did not see Queen Esther for who she was.

In the words of Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe, The ultimate value you can give a person is to treat a person seriously, to take notice of that person. When you treat a person lightly and you don’t acknowledge them, you sit at a table and talk to all your friends, ignoring the one person who sits by themselves you are stripping this person of their value in effect giving them a curse. – Alei Shor Chapter 8

This offers us an opportunity for a Purim Mussar Practice.

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

Name Queen Esther as a Jewish Woman of Color, especially if no people of color are around.
Whether or not you are Jewish, you are invited to participate in this practice. Please join me in this practice of Honor, going out of our way to make our siblings of color feel seen today.

I hope you’ll give this practice a try. When you do, be on the lookout for how it feels inside. Will you havec a strong somatic reaction like me, or something else?

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As it says in the Book of Esther, this is a time when we remember a day when great sorrow turned to joy.

This practice offers us opportunity to take people in our community seriously. It can turn their sorrow of being invisible to the joy of being seen.

When we do so, we add another inch on the road to the World to Come.

What do you think? Comment below and let me know.

Esther’s Mussar Humility Lesson

March 14, 2019 By Greg Marcus 4 Comments

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.

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

February 28, 2019 By Greg Marcus Leave a Comment

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.

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