American Mussar

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

Gratitude Mussar Practice After a Job Setback

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Journaling is a powerful gratitude mussar practice

This month I am consulting for the Judaism Unbound Podcast, helping them raise money through a Kickstarter campaign for their first book. It has been super fun! It is no secret that I am a big fan, (and a former guest) because they bring to the forefront ideas from many Jewish innovators. Unlike other podcasts, they don’t ask how many twitter followers you have when picking a guest – if they like your ideas, you are in. One of the particularly fun things I am doing is interviewing superfans and former guests. I was very moved by my interview with Sarah Lefton, who was the founder and creative director of BimBam, which to discontinue making its educational animations because it could not secure funding to continue.

I asked Sarah how she was post BimBam, and she said “I was sad but things are great in ways I did not expect. I spent a lot of time in 2019 focused on my own art making – mostly ceramics.” She went on to describe how she is reconnecting with her science roots, and is working on two incredible projects she never would have had time for had she continued her work at BimBam. She also offers some great advice for people who may feel embarrassed because they feel they don’t know enough Jewishly. And she closes advising all of us to tell our stories our own way. You can read the whole interview here.

It was a great example of multiple Mussar soul traits in action. Telling your story your way is all about Humility, feeling comfortable in your space, and inviting others to join your worldview. And so many of us have felt less than in Jewish spaces. I know I did when I was younger. The best thing I ever did was seek out opportunities to learn more, even though I was out of my comfort zone. But the Mussar Practice I’m inspired to share is about Gratitude.

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

Recognize the Good and give thanks in a negative situation. When things are not going well, the last thing we want to do is look for a positive. Sometimes when we are in truly horrible situations, or in grief, it might be something like an 800 number to find resources, or noticing the friend who sent you a text of support.

What can you be grateful for about something negative? Does that gratitude give you energy to take action in a way that could change thing for the better?

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The Hebrew word for the soul trait of Gratitude is Hakaret Ha’tov, which means recognize the good (as explained in this BimBam video.) Sometimes it takes time to get the perspective to find something to be grateful for. And certainly there is nothing inherently good about terrible things that happen. Yet gratitude offers a way to cope, and find a path through.

For tips on how to recognize the good and be grateful, check out the 15 minute Gratitude challenge  The 15 minute challenge is a great gratitude mussar practice.

image credit:Photo by My Life Journal on Unsplash

8 Mussar Miracles for Hanukkah

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Where ever you go, there’s always someone Jewish. Even in orbit!

It is with some irony that Hanukkah, one of the most secular Jewish holidays, is commemorating a miracle. Which miracle depends on who you ask. Like many Jewish ideas, there is more than one right answer. The original Hanukkah miracle was a military victory of Judah Maccabee over the superpower Greeks. Later, the story appeared of the oil that lasted for 8 days.

At this, the darkest time of the year, we all could use some light. Here are eight Mussar Miracles to help inspire us.

Mussar Miracle 1: You are enough. As I wrote last year, that first light reminds us that no matter what has happened, and whatever mistakes we have made, each of us is enough. The light of that first candle is beautiful, as is your inner light when you let it shine through.

Mussar Miracle 2: There is beautify in relationship. Rabbi Mel Gottlieb, Dean at my school AJRCA teaches that the Torah begins with Bet, the second letter because holiness forms in the space between two people. Who is most special to you in your life? 

Mussar Miracle 3: Generosity. If you have three, you have more than enough to give one away. Lets remember the terrible loneliness epidemic  that is endemic in our country, and reach out to those around us, and be generous with our time, attention, and vulnerability. 

Mussar Miracle 4: Curiosity. We are wired to be selfish. We are also wired to care for and nurture other people. Mussar helps us to choose the latter when our survival is not actually at stake. Curiosity, the ability to see and wonder about the world beyond ourselves is where it all begins. If Joseph had not been curious and asked his two fellow prisoners why they were sad (Genesis 40:7), he would never have met Pharaoh and become a powerful man in Egypt. It is only because he had been curious that he was in a position to welcome his brothers into Egypt, which set the stage for the Exodus and the rest of Jewish history. 

Mussar Miracle 5: Kindness is a great companion to curiosity. Our curiosity can make us ask “What in the world is that he is wearing?” or it can lead us to care for others as we see in the example of Joseph above. Lets remember how self-absorbed Joseph was at the beginning of the story, doted upon by his father and hated by his brothers for bragging to them. Yet an act of kindness, recognizing someone else’s pain, can overcome it all. 

Mussar Miracle 6: Honor. Honor is the soul trait that helps us remember other people exist, and guides us on how to treat them. Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe wrote the following in his masterpiece Alei Shor about Honor:

“The ultimate value you can give a person is to treat a person seriously, to take notice of that person. Even just a hello, I’ve noticed you, shows that person that they are valued.”

I learned this lesson years ago first hand, when a near stranger changed the course of my life by remembering something about me. I was out for a walk, deciding whether or not to give up writing my first book. I ran into another parent from my kids school, who asked about my book! I’d told her about it a year earlier. I was so moved that she remembered that I decided to keep going. You never know the huge impact you may have when you notice someone else.

mussar miracle

Mussar Miracle 7: Order. Things work. We live in a world of wonders, and natural laws. Stephan Hawking and other cosmologists made predictions about black holes, and low and behold we finally got to see one in 2019, thanks to the work of Dr. Katie Bouman at MIT. Applying curiosity to the natural world is critically important in an era when our personal choices impact the future of the planet more than ever. 

Mussar Miracle 8: Am Yisrael Chai, which means The Jewish people live in Hebrew. There have been many people who have tried to make us go away. I just finished a semester of medieval Jewish history – it is far more harsh than I expected. Yet here we are today, all over the world, and even in orbit. How did we get through all of the hardships over thousands of years? Together.

Whether you are Jewish, Jewish adjacent, or Jewish curious, you are invited to take inspiration from this amazing example of resiliency. 

Which of these resonates most with you this year? Which one will you take action on? 

Want to begin your own Mussar journey? Take the Soul Trait Quiz here. 

Why Gratitude is Not Enough This Thanksgiving: A Mussar Perspective

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Gratitude helps us recognize abundance, and to be Generous

“My son was volunteering at a homeless shelter. In walked one of his high school classmates. I’m proud that he ran into the kitchen and helped there so his classmate would not see him.”

A friend told me that story, right here in the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the most wealthy areas in the world. Everywhere we see earth shaking companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter and Apple. The downside of this wealth is astronomically high real estate prices. But that alone does not account for the high level of homelessness. People all over the country are struggling with financial and food insecurity, even as some of us become more financially secure.
While Thanksgiving is a holiday that is rightly associated with being grateful, Gratitude is not enough for those who practice Mussar. Gratitude bring confidence and peace of mind. When we recognize the richness of what we have, we have an opportunity to See those with less, and to fully recognize their humanity. It would be a shame if we kept the abundance we are feeling for ourselves. 
Rabbi Ira Stone defines Mussar as learning to bear the burden of the other. We don’t do this spiritual practice for ourselves, but to help us show up for other people. Judaism teaches that everyone should give charity (Tzedakah), even those who receive Tzedakah. If giving would endanger one’s life, then we are asked to give words of comfort.
For whatever reason, I don’t volunteer in shelters or soup kitchens, although I always contribute to the food drive. I’m looking for ideas on how else I can be Generous. I’d love to hear from you. What do you do to be Generous?
You might also like my post from last year Celebrate Thanksgiving Like A Mensch. Or if you’d like to rekindle your Gratitude to become more open to Generosity, try the 15 Minute Gratitude Challenge. 
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

How To Overcome Fear and Move Forward With Mussar

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american mussar starter packA few weeks ago, I started having very intense thoughts and memories of something that happened when I was in grad school 25 years ago. I did an elegant experiment, and got a hint of a major result. If true, it would have been a major find, the kind that can boost a career.

What did I do next? I talked myself out of it. I decided that it was a false positive artifact, based on a follow up experiment. What I remember most was how afraid I was. I was so freaked out that I didn’t push it. In hindsight, I should have grabbed that result with my teeth, and pushed the heck out of it to be absolutely sure it was wrong, before deciding to move on.
It wasn’t wrong. 2 years later, someone else published that major result.

Why did this surface for me now? I think I needed to process the experience. I never admitted that I blew it until now, and by allowing myself to feel a bit of sadness over it, I am healing a wound that I didn’t even know was there. Big opportunities don’t come along very often, and as I begin my journey in Rabbinical school, I don’t want to miss the next one.

And as often happens, the next soul trait for me os just what I needed to work on: Enthusiasm. It brings to mind a Mussar practice we all can try.

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

Don’t let fear delay you. Ask for help.
Enthusiasm is the soul trait that helps us overcome procrastination. And fear is one of the primary things that leads to procrastination. Fear of failure and fear of success are two sides of the same coin. Neither is rational. Enthusiasm can help us overcome fear.

I should have asked for help. My friend Neal was all over the promising result, and would have helped me think it through and figure it out.

While these big opportunities are rare, small opportunities manifest all the time. If you cultivate the habit of getting help, you’ll have both the practice and relationships in place when the big one shows up.

Some may turn to other people for help. Others may turn to the Divine. Wherever you turn, the more help you can get sorting through various challenges, the better you’ll be in the long run. 
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My life has been great, despite having missed a chance for a big discovery. But the scientific discovery was delayed a few years. Who knows what might have come of it if we’d made that discovery earlier?

This week in my Torah class, we were writing about the story of the spies in Numbers 13. When the Israelites first reached the promised land, Moses sent 12 spies to check it out. They came back with a report of giants in the land, declaring “we are like grasshoppers in their eyes.” As a result of our fear, we had to wander in the desert 40 years; a dream delayed.

What about you? Have you ever missed a big one because fear held you back? Did you wander more that you would have liked instead of taking the straight path? 

Want to know what soul traits might be making hard for you to overcome fear? Take the soul trait quiz. 

Prune Your Life For Growth: A Mussar Elul Practice

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Explosive growth after this bush was pruned

Three weeks into Rabbi school, I have just one thing to say: I can’t believe how much work it is.

My challenge is to remain a whole person while doing all this work. I don’t want to neglect my family relationships, nor get away from my spiritual practice. Studying Torah and Jewish history for 30+ hours a week does not in itself bring spirituality into my life.

One of the ways I have kept in touch with my spiritual side is through Elul Mussar practice. I never heard of Elul until a few years ago. It is the last month of the Hebrew calendar, and is traditionally spent in contemplation to prepare for the High Holidays. Both Elul and Mussar have let me to start practicing the Soul Trait of Order. I need to be organized and plan in order to get my work done, and to remain a whole person.
Then last night, I read something that touched me. In his wonderful book “This Is Real, and You Are Completely Unprepared.“ Rabbi Alan Lew of blessed memory, asked the following: What unfinished business is giving us a torn mind, “tearing our focus away from the present-tense reality of our experience, from the present moment, the only place where we can live our lives.” (p 84-85)
For me, this aligns with the teachings of Rabbi Marie Kondo, who teaches us to let go of things cluttering our lives. Which brings me to my first website, idolbuster.com. I wrote my first book as a serial on the idolbuster blog. I haven’t posted on that blog in years. Nor have I kept it up to date, meaning it is a security risk.
But more importantly, this website gnaws at me. Not in a big way, but at least a few times a month, I ask myself: What I should do with it. It used to mean so much to me. Can I just cut it loose?
Earlier in the year I got rid of the Dr. Greg Marcus Facebook page. And today, I turned off the automatic renew of the domain, giving me 5 weeks to archive it.
Which brings us to an Elul Mussar Practice.

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

Let go of something in your life. What are you holding on to that no longer serves you? It might be “stuff,” something virtual like my old website, or it might be something emotional, like decades long anger.
It is no easier letting go of something painful than it is to let go of something that was once positive but is no longer serves a purpose. There is always a nagging voice “it might get better,” or “it might be useful someday” or just a rehash of the past hurt.
Elul gives us an opportunity to spend a month working our way up to change. You don’t need to change everything, but one small and lasting change is priceless.
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The mantra I use for Order comes from Pirkei Avot 5:10 – First things first, and last things later. For this practice, we can modify it to “last things never.” I don’t know about you, but I am way too busy to get to the last thing on my list. I was even before I went back to school.
So, I’ll prune away a few things that no longer serve me, thanking them for their service, and composting them so that they may bring life to something else.
What can you prune from your life to enable new growth?
Reply below and let me know. I answer every  comment.
The High Holiday Mussar Workshop is a wonderful opportunity to identify something to prune from your life, and establish a practice with your freed bandwidth for personal growth. Scholarships available. Learn more here.