This blog post will be a bit shorter than usual because all I want to do is introduce you to my grandfather – not my biological grandfather, but a very important spiritual progenitor of mine.
Hi Alan, I loved this one. I'm going to make a post-it of Rev. Yerucham's (z"l) gems. I am in your camp, Camp Spiritual Orphan. Even at Jewish summer camp in the 80s, I was too closed to feel the peace and love of campfire Shabbats. It just didn't make sense that God could be love when my survival seemed to require rejecting the idea. I'm glad I found Mussar, your books and I love these posts.
I definitely believe it’s true. In my case, I never heard of anything like Mussar until I was almost 70. However, by my studies over the last eight years I have begun to realize just how spiritual my life has always been.
I was born with several serious birth defects. I was operated on for one of them when I was only three weeks old; my parents were told not to expect me to survive. Well, guess what? Here I am!
Through the study and, yes, practice of Mussar I have come to realize that at age three weeks I faced my first bechira point, and I chose life! A very spiritual choice, though I never thought of it that way until very recently.
We all have a very spiritual path within us, but due to our lack of education on the subject (I.e. we’re spiritual orphans) we have never been able to appreciate it until recently.
And as you attest, Debbie, you are never too young — and I will add, or too old — to become conscious of the spiritual aspects of life. That can be true for anyone, but how fortunate is one who has access to the spiritual wisdom of previous generations, whose lives were not so different from our own, and then we are orphans no more!
Yes...I was born into the generation of spiritual orphans. I also lacked groundedness in all aspects of my life not only because of lack of spiritual experiences in the home but also because I had to leave my body to endure the craziness, abuse and unpredictability of the day to day.
Not unlike Debbie who chose life at the tender age of 3 weeks I can remember saying a prayer whenever I heard a siren. I was quite young and it just felt natural.
Alan, you are blessed to have learned from Rav Yerucham's teaching as I am blessed to learn from yours. Love to you and Bev.
It’s interesting how we look at the spiritual as the first expendable area when under stress — maybe we have Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to thank for that — whereas the truth is that it is spiritual practice and wisdom that equips us best to deal with the hard road called life. I hope you are compassionate and loving to the tender you who had to tough-up to survive. May the path ahead be illuminated and blessed.
I had the privilege of being introduced to Mussar by Reb David Jaffe - following an awakening of my Jewish path by Reb Moshe Holcer, of blessed memory. I think Reb Moshe was already in Olam Haba before I learned he was a student at a Mussar Yeshiva (he and the rest of his classmates were shipped by Stalin to years in Siberia)
So I.’d prefer respectfully, to think of us as Phoenix, rather than orphans.
To borrow from Chabad & the Rebbe - our Jewish souls were and are perfect diamonds - and the work of the Modern Mussar movement helps polish our brilliance which lies there waiting
Thanks, Ed. How fortunate for you to have encountered Rabbi Holcer on your path. I was curious as to which Mussar yeshiva he attended but could not find that information in anything written about him on the internet. If you know, I’d be curious.
Of course we have the divine image within us, inherently and purely. That’s at a deep level. But in the circumstances in which we were raised and live, the majority of us had no connection (i.e., were orphaned) from the individuals and the tradition that could have given us Jewish guidance for living a human life. If that severance had not happened, we would have discovered a whole lot more about our inner beings a whole lot earlier than many of us did.
Hi Alan, I loved this one. I'm going to make a post-it of Rev. Yerucham's (z"l) gems. I am in your camp, Camp Spiritual Orphan. Even at Jewish summer camp in the 80s, I was too closed to feel the peace and love of campfire Shabbats. It just didn't make sense that God could be love when my survival seemed to require rejecting the idea. I'm glad I found Mussar, your books and I love these posts.
Thank you, Jayne. Wishing you many illuminating campfires in the years to come.
I definitely believe it’s true. In my case, I never heard of anything like Mussar until I was almost 70. However, by my studies over the last eight years I have begun to realize just how spiritual my life has always been.
I was born with several serious birth defects. I was operated on for one of them when I was only three weeks old; my parents were told not to expect me to survive. Well, guess what? Here I am!
Through the study and, yes, practice of Mussar I have come to realize that at age three weeks I faced my first bechira point, and I chose life! A very spiritual choice, though I never thought of it that way until very recently.
We all have a very spiritual path within us, but due to our lack of education on the subject (I.e. we’re spiritual orphans) we have never been able to appreciate it until recently.
And as you attest, Debbie, you are never too young — and I will add, or too old — to become conscious of the spiritual aspects of life. That can be true for anyone, but how fortunate is one who has access to the spiritual wisdom of previous generations, whose lives were not so different from our own, and then we are orphans no more!
Yes...I was born into the generation of spiritual orphans. I also lacked groundedness in all aspects of my life not only because of lack of spiritual experiences in the home but also because I had to leave my body to endure the craziness, abuse and unpredictability of the day to day.
Not unlike Debbie who chose life at the tender age of 3 weeks I can remember saying a prayer whenever I heard a siren. I was quite young and it just felt natural.
Alan, you are blessed to have learned from Rav Yerucham's teaching as I am blessed to learn from yours. Love to you and Bev.
It’s interesting how we look at the spiritual as the first expendable area when under stress — maybe we have Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to thank for that — whereas the truth is that it is spiritual practice and wisdom that equips us best to deal with the hard road called life. I hope you are compassionate and loving to the tender you who had to tough-up to survive. May the path ahead be illuminated and blessed.
I feel like it already is. Thank you, Alan.
I had the privilege of being introduced to Mussar by Reb David Jaffe - following an awakening of my Jewish path by Reb Moshe Holcer, of blessed memory. I think Reb Moshe was already in Olam Haba before I learned he was a student at a Mussar Yeshiva (he and the rest of his classmates were shipped by Stalin to years in Siberia)
So I.’d prefer respectfully, to think of us as Phoenix, rather than orphans.
To borrow from Chabad & the Rebbe - our Jewish souls were and are perfect diamonds - and the work of the Modern Mussar movement helps polish our brilliance which lies there waiting
Y’asher Koach
Thanks, Ed. How fortunate for you to have encountered Rabbi Holcer on your path. I was curious as to which Mussar yeshiva he attended but could not find that information in anything written about him on the internet. If you know, I’d be curious.
Of course we have the divine image within us, inherently and purely. That’s at a deep level. But in the circumstances in which we were raised and live, the majority of us had no connection (i.e., were orphaned) from the individuals and the tradition that could have given us Jewish guidance for living a human life. If that severance had not happened, we would have discovered a whole lot more about our inner beings a whole lot earlier than many of us did.