| Greetings!
This is one in a series of weekly middah emails that the Mussar
Leadership madrichim will be sending over the summer. We hope that
these messages will support you in your practice until we beginning
meeting again at Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel on Tuesday, September 8,
2009, at 7:00 PM.
With this edition we continue to call attention to the month of Elul, a month of preparing for the new year.
We appreciate hearing your comments.
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Steps to Practice
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Step 10 (continued)
Add one mitzvah to your daily practice. Last year, the
Mussar Pathways program focused on enhancing observance of three
mitzvot - saying the morning and evening Sh'ma, saying the blessings
before eating, remembering the Sabbath day and keeping it holy. 3. Remembering the Sabbath day and keeping it holy.
"He who wants to enter the holiness of the day must first lay
down the profanity of clattering commerce, of being yoked to toil. He must go
away from the screech of dissonant days, from the nervousness and fury of
acquisitiveness and the betrayal of embezzling his own life. He must say farewell
to annual work and learn to understand that the world has already been created
and will survive without the help of man. Six days a week we wrestle with the
world, wringing profit from the earth; on the Sabbath we especially care for
the seed of eternity planed in the soul. The world has our hands, but our soul
belongs to Someone Else. Six days a week we seek to dominate the world, on the
seventh day we try to dominate the self." - Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath, Farrar Straus Giroux (July 28, 2005), p. 12.
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| Middah |
Separation| Prishut| פְּרִישׁוּתIn Chesbon HaNefesh, Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Satanov writes of the middah of separation, "Strengthen yourself so that you can stop lewd thoughts. Draw
close to your spouse only when your mind is free, occupied only with
thoughts of fulfilling your conjugal duties and procreating."
Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto outlines a wider view of Separation. In chapter 13 of Mesillat Yesharim, he writes, "Separation is the beginning of Saintliness." He explains that the first step in Separation is to cease doing evil. The second is to do good. The purpose of the first step "is to keep oneself from that which is
forbidden, the understanding being that a person should withdraw and
separate oneself from anything which might give rise to something that
could bring about evil, even though it does not bring it about at the
moment and even though it is not evil in itself."
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| Psukim |
A pasuk (plural, psukim) is a scriptual verse. It is a good practice to find a pasuk that reminds you of your middah and repeat it (or sing it, if possible) to help in cultivating that character trait. Here are some possible psukim for this week's middah - Prishut (Separation).
Leviticus 15:31 "Separate the children of Israel from their uncleanness." וְהִזַּרְתֶּם אֶת-בְּנֵי-יִשְׂרָאֵל, מִטֻּמְאָתָם |
Torah Portion
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Ki-Tavo
(Deuteronomy 26:1-29:8)
(Haftorah: Isaiah 60:1-22)
In the third aliyah, we read, "You
have selected the Lord this day, to be your God, and to walk in His
ways, and to observe His statutes, His commandments and His ordinances,
and to obey Him. And the
Lord has selected you this day to be His treasured people, as He spoke
to you, and so that you shall observe all His commandments." (Deuteronomy 26:17-18).
Rashi's commentary here is, "has selected you [הֶאמִירךָ]: We do not find any equivalent expression in the Scriptures [which might give us a
clue to the meaning of these words]. However, it appears to me that
[the expression הֶאמִיר] denotes separation and distinction. [Thus,
here, the meaning is as follows:] From all the pagan deities, you have
set apart the Lord for yourself, to be your God, and He separated you
to Him from all the peoples on earth to be His treasured people."
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Mussar Leadership classes will resume meeting at Beth Zion-Beth Israel in Philadelphia on Tuesday, September 8, 2009. For more information about who we are, visit our website.
Sincerely,
The Madrichim
Mussar Leadership
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