Reinventing the wheel

I get a weekly email from the Rhodes Scholarship people, and last week’s bulletin mentioned an offering from Wake Forest University called “Program for Leadership and Character.” I looked it up and according to their information, this program promotes “seven empirically tested strategies for developing character.” That’s interesting to me because Mussar is also very focused on character development. I’m wondering what science can teach us that might be an advance on what the ba’alei Mussar devised on their own in 19^th century Lithuania.

The “seven empirically tested strategies for developing character” that Wake Forest teaches are:

1. habituation through practice

2. reflection on personal experience

3. engagement with virtuous exemplars

4. dialogue to increase virtue literacy

5. awareness of situational variables and biases

6. moral reminders, and

7. friendships defined by mutual accountability.

They say that they developed these seven techniques through a process of rigorous synthesis of research across multiple disciplines, especially philosophy, psychology, education, and related fields. They reviewed and integrated evidence from:

• Classical virtue ethics (especially the Aristotelian tradition)

• Contemporary psychology of habits, moral development, and behaviour

• Educational research on learning and personal growth

• Case studies from university-based character education programs, particularly the Oxford Character Project and Wake Forest initiatives.

Not done yet! The researchers then tested and refined the framework through practical educational programs. Wake Forest describes these as evidence-based strategies and uses them as the foundation for its leadership and character curriculum.

Wow! So much work! But when we rephrase their list (“WF”) in terms of the practices that we have inherited from the Mussar movement of the mid-19^th century (“MM”), we find:

1. WF: habituation through practice
   
   MM: kabbalot, the Mussar practice of taking on specific practical exercises in order to work on a character trait or spiritual practice.

2. WF: reflection on personal experience
   
   MM: cheshbon ha’nefesh, the process of soul accounting that features in the 11^th century book Duties of the Heart that includes journalling.

3. WF: engagement with virtuous exemplars
   
   MM: a rebbe, a personal teacher; or a mashgiach, the name given to the Mussar supervisor in a yeshiva.

4. WF: dialogue to increase virtue literacy
   
   MM: the va’ad (small group) is an essential part of the Mussar process, and the discussions in that intimate setting are crucial to the work of personal change.

5. WF: awareness of situational variables and biases
   
   MM: hitlamdut; seeking and extracting lessons from every situation we encounter in our lives.

6. WF: moral reminders
   
   MM: hitpa’alut; the daily recitation of phrases to imprint awareness of our spiritual agenda.

7. WF: friendships defined by mutual accountability
   
   MM: chevruta; a committed partnership for the purposes of learning, companionship and accountability.

Very similar, no? And it is, as far as effective methods are concerned. What the Wake Forest people discovered through “a process of rigorous synthesis of research across multiple disciplines,” the Mussar masters discovered through experimentation and acute empirical observation. Or as the punchline goes on a famous Mussar story, the bottom line for them was, “Does it work?”

But a big difference shows up in terms of goals, the why of the programs.

The aim of the Wake Forest program is “to help students develop good dispositions (‘virtues’) that foster individual and communal flourishing and to avoid bad dispositions (‘vices’) that inhibit flourishing.”

This notion flies right in the face of both the Mussar tradition and common sense because both tell us that there are, in fact, no “virtues” and no “vices.”

Characteristics that make it onto the reviled list of “deadly sins” sometimes earn praise in the Jewish world. What’s so bad about envy, for example? When I pose that question to audiences, they immediately get that envy can have the positive value of being a motivator. The Talmud tells us that “The envy of the Sages increases wisdom” (Bava Batra 21a).

Or, to take another example, pride also makes it onto that blacklist, but the Talmud says, “A Torah scholar should have one-eighth of one-eighth of pride” (Sotah 5a). Many sources emphasize the importance of self-esteem to humility.

And on the other side of the ledger, is it possible to do harm with a “virtue” like generosity? Yes, of course it is, like spoiling a child, creating co-dependency or enabling destructive behaviours.

Or patience? Is there such a thing as too much patience? If your patience amounts to inactivity in the face of your responsibilities and the needs of the moment, then that patience is no virtue.

Mussar would have us pay attention not developing good dispositions but to calibrating and recalibrating those inner traits in which we have the potential to grow. We may be seeing the same practices in the Wake Forest program as we find in Mussar, but the paradigms are very different.

And the goals are even more different. The Wake Forest program elevates the humanistic vision of “flourishing” to be the ultimate goal of the work we do on ourselves. In its drive to be empirical and scientific, a university program is bound to ignore the spiritual dimension of life, thereby falling out of step with reality.

Believe me, I have nothing against flourishing; it’s a wonderful ideal. But the Jewish tradition would have us aim even higher than that, not just to flourish or to thrive but to be holy. For the Mussar masters, the reason to work on yourself is to fulfill the injunction the Torah lays out for us, which is to become holy people.

In a famous quote, the Alter of Slabodka cautioned: “Don’t aim to be better; aim to be higher.”

Or as we say in The Mussar Institute, “Working on yourself but not for the sake of your Self.”

I find it very validating that the methodologies developed in a scientific way correspond to Mussar practices that evolved through empirical methods practiced in real life. But we part company when it comes to the spiritual and divine. I don’t expect a university to be able to contend with an undefinable notion like holiness. But I can’t see the world through any other lens. Can you?

I would love to read your comments!