I just shared the remarkable teaching of the remarkable Alter of Slabodka that emphasized the role of sensory experience in spiritual life. It’s such a good illustration of the gap that opened up when we became spiritually orphaned. This is exactly the kind of spiritual teaching that most of us never heard from a Jewish source in our early life. And wouldn’t our lives have been so different if we had.
Mining the rich vein of Jewish spiritual teachings and making them accessible to our generation has been my mission for the last 25 years. When I first explored Mussar, it was for my own spiritual needs and growth. I could have left it at that. But for a number of reasons, I felt that I should share what I had discovered. I know from long experience that so many people have been able to gain benefits in their lives because they engaged with Mussar, and if that is true, then how can I not put effort into giving as many people as possible the opportunity to benefit from what our wise and compassionate ancestors passed down to us?
The same is true for this blog. There is so much mishigas in the world, and here I am with access to very sane teachings. How can I not want to reach as many people as possible, who just might suffer less and who just might be more effective in the world, if they had access to Mussar?
I would like to ask you to help me in that mission by restacking my last post, or reposting it elsewhere on social media. You can help spread the wisdom of Mussar by sharing it with people to whom I am not yet connected. We can reconnect to our spiritual lineage and the people who inhabit it by enlivening their presence in our generation. It might just change the world. I’ll be very grateful.
Alan