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is it me or is chofetz chaim the only yeshiva that actually LEARNS mussar.(mussar seder)
No, def you are the only one who actually learns mussar (mussar seder).
I’ll quote what I wrote in a different thread:
To quote R’ Chaim Brisker in reference to learning mussar “If a person is sick we prescribe castor oil for him. However, it is certain that if a healthy person ingests castor oil he will become very sick. If that vile wretch meets you, and if you are sound in spirit and soul, if your consciousness and character are still whole and intact, then occupy yourself with the Torah, drag him to the study house. This is the most effective and tried remedy in man’s ongoing battle with his evil impulse. However, if you are spiritually sick, if a fit of madness has seized hold of you, if some psychic anomaly has put forth its diseased tendrils in your inner world, then you must use more powerful drugs, those that are designed for the very ill – the remembrance of the day of death. We in Volozhin, thank G-d, are healthy in spirit and body, are whole in our Torah; there is no need here of castor oil. If the scholars of Kelm and Kovno feel compelled to drink bitter drugs – let them drink to their hearts’ content, but let them not invite others to dine with them.” (The Rav The World of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik)
Yah, I’m pretty sure kovno and kelm won that battle already.
The actual Chofetz Chaim wrote (Beis Yisrael perek 9):
??? ????? ?? ?????? ??????? ?????? ????? ????? ??????? ???? ???? ??? ?? ????? ???? ??? ???? ????? ???? ???? ????? ??? ??? ?????? ?????? ???? ??? ?????? ??????
His son wrote:
?? ??? ???? ???? ??? ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?? ????? ?????? ??????? ?? ????? ?????? ???? ??? ??? ??? ????? ?? ???? ?? ?????? ??? ???? ??? ??? ??? ???? ???? ?? ?????? ????? ??? ?? ?? ??? ????? ????? ???? ???? ??? ??? ??? ??????? ?? ???? ????? ?? ???? ?????? ??????
So you don’t want to overdo it.
PBA: Of course they did. YU has a Mussar Seder now (during Elul Zman).
?? ??? ???? ???? ??? ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?? ????? ?????? ??????? ?? ????? ?????? ???? ??? ??? ??? ????? ?? ???? ?? ?????? ??? ???? ??? ??? ??? ???? ???? ?? ?????? ????? ??? ?? ?? ??? ????? ????? ???? ???? ??? ??? ??? ??????? ?? ???? ????? ?? ???? ?????? ??????
That’s ok. I’ve never heard of a yeshiva that does it more than half hour a day.
Do you take your ????? ?????? for half an hour a day?
Depends on the type of sickness and how sick you are and the type of medicine.
The chofetz chaim was a fan of slabodka.
In Slabodka, they did mussar for a lot longer than a half hour. But as I quoted above, in Slabodka they were very sick. Having a mussar seder at all is really against what the Chofetz Chaim was saying. You think that every person in the Yeshiva is equally sick? Every person should grab a few minutes of mussar commensurate to the level of his sickness. Institutionalizing it defeats the whole purpose. Maybe for practical reasons they can’t follow my suggestion. I don’t know.
false joker: you have no idea what you are talking about.
And for blazes sake, why would you write “false,” and then end your sentence with “I think”.
mussar seder in CC is from 300 to 330 every day after mincha which is at 245. If you hang out in the coffee room, Rabbi Niman will grab you by the elbow and say “what about the mussar seder?” Then if you try to make excuses “I have a date in 14 minutes with a 22 year old nebach older single,” he will say “I have a one track mind, mussar seder.”
So here’s my advice to you: don’t tell people they are wrong about things you are clueless.
There is only one in Queens. And he’s been the mashgiach for like 60 years.
You really should quit while you’ve only made a 99% fool out of yourself.
There’s only Rabbi Niman.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people in the supermarket and thought, I can tell he didn’t learn in Chofetz Chaim.
You can always spot a Chofetz Chaim guy by his good middos.
“If that vile wretch meets you, and if you are sound in spirit and soul, if your consciousness and character are still whole and intact, then occupy yourself with the Torah, drag him to the study house…..However, if you are spiritually sick, if a fit of madness has seized hold of you, if some psychic anomaly has put forth its diseased tendrils in your inner world, then you must use more powerful drugs, those that are designed for the very ill – the remembrance of the day of death.”
Is that really how he put it?
Because, like, wow.
Putting that aside, I really don’t understand it. Why would it be harmful to learn how to be a better person?
If his point was that learning Torah is BETTER for you, then you could make a comparison to taking penicillin when you have a cold or something like that. But what about mussar could be bad for someone?
Nu, my rosh yeshiva used to say that the “torah tavlin” is actually talking about mussar.
So I quite think he argued substantively with what you’re citing from Rav Chaim
“Is that really how he put it?
Because, like, wow.”
Well I don’t think R’ Chaim Brisker spoke such an eloquent English or even English at all. I was quoting his grandson, R’ Yosef Dov Haleivi Soloveitchik, who was saying over what R’ Chaim had said, using his own eloquent English.
As to your second question:
The starting point is to learn Torah – “drag him to the study house”. R’ Yitzchak Blazzer, one of the prime disciples of R’ Yisrael Salanter, visited Volzhin (where R’ Chaim Brisker was Rosh Yeshiva) and tried to convince them to learn mussar via the following argument: The Gemara in Berachos (5a) says ????? ????? ??? ??? ??? ?? ??? ??? ???’ ???? ??? ????? ?? ???? ???? ??? ??? ????? ????? ????? ???? ?????? ?? ???? ???? ??? ??? ???? ????? ??? ????? ?? ?????? ?? ???? ???? ??? ??? ????? ?? ??? ????? ????? ????? ??? We see clearly that harping on the day of death (which is a major part of Salanterian Mussar [as opposed to Slabodka Mussar]) is more effective then learning Torah. R’ Chaim’s response was that granted it is more effective, but is a last resort. One can easily imagine how focusing too much on death can end badly. So R’ Chaim said that if you’re sick you have to utilize every possible cure, but if you’re healthy, then it’s not worth it. (This is all besides for the argument that it’s bittul Torah.)
The main point (which I’m not sure if I managed to convey in my long post) is that the mussar that R’ Chaim was against is significantly different than mussar as it is practiced today. Regarding today’s mussar, you might be right when you say “But what about mussar could be bad for someone?” (Again factoring out bittul torah.)
Well I don’t think R’ Chaim Brisker spoke such an eloquent English or even English at all. I was quoting his grandson, R’ Yosef Dov Haleivi Soloveitchik, who was saying over what R’ Chaim had said, using his own eloquent English.
He was paraphrasing the tana d’vei rabi yishmael “im pagah b’cha menuval, mashcheihu l’veis hamedrash.”
(As someone who learns mussar would know)
Even liShitas Rav Chaim, I don’t see the relevance to today:
“We in Volozhin, thank G-d, are healthy in spirit and body, are whole in our Torah”
Does anyone today feel the same about themselves that they can say that shita applies to them?
“He was paraphrasing the tana d’vei rabi yishmael “im pagah b’cha menuval, mashcheihu l’veis hamedrash.”
(As someone who learns mussar would know)”
Which did not say “if some psychic anomaly has put forth its diseased tendrils in your inner world, then you must use more powerful drugs, those that are designed for the very ill”
And who says I don’t learn mussar?
Which did not say “if some psychic anomaly has put forth its diseased tendrils in your inner world, then you must use more powerful drugs, those that are designed for the very ill”
That’s a poetic way of expressing the hemshech.
And who says I don’t learn mussar?
And who says anyone said you don’t? (And who says…)
“That’s a poetic way of expressing the hemshech.”
And it is attributable either to R’ Chaim (in Yiddish) or R’ Soloveitchik (in English).
“And who says anyone said you don’t? (And who says…)”
Popa implied it with his veiled barb which wasn’t actually so veiled. But I didn’t take it personally.
oops, I didn’t read the whole quote; I thought writersoul was only referring to the vile wretch.
I’m sorry. I’m sure you knew he was paraphrasing chazal. I don’t care to speculate whether you learn mussar.
is it me or is chofetz chaim the only yeshiva that actually LEARNS mussar.(mussar seder)
Is it you? Doubt it.
I know exactly what you meant. Duh.
What do people see in chofetz chaim that’s different in other yeshivas ( what they wear colored shirts?)
Personally, I notice that Chofetz Chaim guys are more mentschlich and mature than other yeshiva bachurim.
It’s one thing to learn mussar its another to live what you learn.
Agree with goq.
In Slabodka, they did mussar for a lot longer than a half hour.(mod pls italicize)
Im pretty sure that they only learned mussar for an hr day so doesn’t really seem like you know what your talkin about
and patur aval assur what exactly is your point?? the mussar movement won, that argument is long over so r chaims shitta doesn’t really have any relevance.
All Yeshivos besides the ones on the brisker mehalech have a mussar seder so clearly all yeshivos hold of it. the discussion here is whether other yeshivos take it seriously
My relative is in BMG and he said during Elul, r Mattisyahu was constantly stressing the importance of limud hammusar. I think he went as far as “without mussar you have no chance”!!!!
Baki in all things genai
In Slabodka, they did mussar for a lot longer than a half hour. But as I quoted above, in Slabodka they were very sick. Having a mussar seder at all is really against what the Chofetz Chaim was saying. You think that every person in the Yeshiva is equally sick? Every person should grab a few minutes of mussar commensurate to the level of his sickness. Institutionalizing it defeats the whole purpose. Maybe for practical reasons they can’t follow my suggestion. I don’t know.
BOLD- Everyone agrees that EVERYONE needs limud hammusar!!!!!!! what are you saying???
Chayav inish livisumay:
To address your first post, Joker Bar Daddy’s original question indicated that in all yeshivos besides for Chofetz Chaim, Mussar is not part of the curriculum (or at least that is his perception). I have no idea if that is true or not, but my first response was to provide a reason why a yeshiva would not have mussar – i.e. a possible defense for all the yeshivos that don’t have mussar. You can’t argue against me that R’ Chaim is irrelevant by virtue of the fact that all yeshivos learn mussar, if my whole usage of R’ Chaim was to explain the yeshivos which don’t learn mussar. If in fact all yeshivos do learn mussar, then that would indicate that R’ Chaim’s position was not accepted, or that the level of sickness has changed and my justification would be unnecessary and we could simply tell Joker Bar Daddy that it is indeed just him.
Your second post is addressing a different point that I made which is that the idea of an institutionalized mussar seder does not seem to jive with how the Chofetz Chaim viewed mussar. Even if everyone agrees that everyone needs mussar, that doesn’t mean that everyone’s mussar needs are the same. But I acknowledged that it might not be practical to have individualized mussar.
Personally, I notice that Chofetz Chaim guys are more mentschlich and mature than other yeshiva bachurim.
Absolutely!
Chayav inish livisumay:
I didn’t see your first post when I wrote my (not yet approved) reply. So when I wrote “first post” and “second post” it should be “second post” and “third post”.
PAA: Completely coincidentally, I actually read Halakhic Man over Sukkos and found the relevant paragraph. By the time I got there I was already so drowning in that sea of vocabulary-bee words that I barely noticed :).
And the book was translated from R Soloveitchik’s Hebrew by a third party. I want to read it in Hebrew as well just to see how the translation compares to it.
And I appreciated a lot of his points, but this particular one I didn’t really get so much. But I do see where he was coming from.
(There is definitely a distaste for death in that book in general- especially toward the beginning- maybe the two ideas are linked….)
Writersoul:
I commend you on the triplical impressive feat of picking up Halakhic Man, starting to read it, and actually completing it.
??? ??????? ????? ????????? ???????
I actually had not gotten up to that point in Halakhic Man yet (hence the above commendation). I was quoting from “The Rav The World of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik” by Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff. For some reason I did not notice that he says that it is an excerpt from Halakhic Man, and I therefore assumed that he was just quoting something that R’ Soloveitchik had said or written somewhere. So you are correct; the English phraseology was not the eloquence of R’ Soloveitchik but of Professor Lawrence Kaplan, the translator of Halakhic Man.
Here is R’ Soloveitchik’s original Hebrew:
By the way, what about this point is not resonating with you?
(I don’t know if this will help you but you can read the entire essay in the original Hebrew at http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=12866&st=&pgnum=195 )
“psychic anomaly” was R’ Soloveitchik’s term though – ??????? ??????.
I might add (perhaps this will clarify some things) that in the very next paragraph he points out (and I alluded to this earlier) that there are significant differences between Salantarian/Blazzerian Mussar and Slabodka Mussar. He writes: “In all truth and fairness it should be emphasized that when the Musar movement reached a state of maturity in the Yeshiva Knesset Israel under the directorship of R. Nathan Zvi Finkel and in the Mir Yeshiva under the spiritual guidance of R. Yeruham Levovitz, it assumed an entirely different form and approached the world perspective of the great halakhic men. The fear, the terror, the melancholy evaporated, and their place was taken by a powerful sense of the holiness and joy of life. The act of cognition in accordance with the Halakha, new, original halakhic insights, spiritual creation, all replaced that exaggerated sensitivity and impressionability and that despairing perspective that had at first taken hold of the world of the Musar movement.” [Emphasis added]
“There is definitely a distaste for death in that book in general- especially toward the beginning- maybe the two ideas are linked….”
See what he says immediately preceeding:
?????? ??? ?????? ?????????, ????? ?????, ????? ???? ?????? ?? ?????, ???, ?????????? ????? ??? ?????, ??????? ?? ???? ????? ?? ???? ??????, ???? ???????, ?????? ?????? ???? ?????, ?????? ????? ?? ???? ?? ????? ????? ???, ?? ???????? ??? ???????. ???? ????? ?????? ???? ?? ????? ?????? ??? ??? ????? ?? ?????. ??? ????? ???? ???? ?????,??? ??? ???. ??? ??? ???? ??? ?????? ????? ???? ??? ??. ?? ??? ??? ??? ????? ?? ????? ??? ?????. ???? ????? ??? ?? ????? ????, ?? ????? ?????? ?????? ??? ????? ???????? ?????. ??? ?????? ?????? ??? ????? ?? ???? ?? ???? ???? ??? ???? ????, ????? ???????, ?? ???? ????? ????? ??????. ??? ????? ????? ???? ???? ?????? ?????. ?? ????? ?????? ????? ??????? ?????? ???? ?????, ?????? ?? ???? ??
???? ???? ???? ???. ???? ?????, ????? ??????, ????
Chayav inish:
It’s not the mods who embolden or italicize.
Read this and you’ll be
fancyin no time at all :http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/just-testing-the-various-allowed-markups
Chayav:
I didn’t realize that you wrote “the discussion here is whether other yeshivos take it seriously”. My response is basically the same though, in that I was providing the justification for why it’s not taken seriously.
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