Download or read book Rabbi Israel Salanter and the Mussar Movement written by I. Etkes and published by Jewish Publication Society. This book was released on 1993 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Israel Salanter was one of the most original and influential Jewish leaders and thinkers of Eastern European Jewry in the modern period. One of Salanter’s most striking innovations was the transformation of the issue of ethics from the domain of theology to the realm of psychology. Immanuel Etkes traces Salanter’s unique view of Mussar doctrine, especially his introduction of modern psychology to the traditional understanding of personal ethical development.
Download or read book Everyday Holiness written by Alan Morinis and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2008-12-02 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mussar is an illuminating, approachable, and highly practical set of teachings for cultivating personal growth and spiritual realization in the midst of day-to-day life. Here is an accessible and inspiring introduction to this Jewish spiritual path, which until lately has been best known in the world of Orthodox Judaism. The core teaching of Mussar is that our deepest essence is inherently pure and holy, but this inner radiance is obscured by extremes of emotion, desire, and bad habits. Our work in life is to uncover the brilliant light of the soul. The Mussar masters developed transformative teachings and practices—some of which are contemplative, some of which focus on how we relate to others in daily life—to help us to heal and refine ourselves.
Download or read book Modern Musar written by Geoffrey D. Claussen and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2022-04 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do modern Jews understand virtues such as courage, humility, justice, solidarity, or love? In truth: they have fiercely debated how to interpret them. This groundbreaking anthology of musar (Jewish traditions regarding virtue and character) explores the diverse ways seventy-eight modern Jewish thinkers understand ten virtues: honesty and love of truth; curiosity and inquisitiveness; humility; courage and valor; temperance and self-restraint; gratitude; forgiveness; love, kindness, and compassion; solidarity and social responsibility; and justice and righteousness. These thinkers--from the Musar movement to Hasidism to contemporary Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, Renewal, Humanist, and secular Jews--often agree on the importance of these virtues but fundamentally disagree in their conclusions. The juxtaposition of their views, complemented by Geoffrey Claussen's pointed analysis, allows us to see tensions with particular clarity--and sometimes to recognize multiple compelling ways of viewing the same virtue. By expanding the category of musar literature to include not only classic texts and traditional works influenced by them but also the writings of diverse rabbis, scholars, and activists--men and women--who continue to shape Jewish tradition, Modern Musar challenges the fields of modern Jewish thought and ethics to rethink their boundaries--and invites us to weigh and refine our own moral ideals.
Download or read book Sharing the Burden written by Geoffrey D. Claussen and published by Suny Press. This book was released on 2016-07-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines a fascinating and important figure in the history of modern Jewish ethics.
Download or read book Every Day Holy Day written by Alan Morinis and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2010-08-10 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The myriad events and interactions that make up our everyday life provide a rich opportunity for us to examine our impulses and actions and grow spiritually, according to the Jewish practice of Mussar. Mussar is an eminently wise, practical, and effective way to cultivate awareness, gratitude, personal growth, and ethical action on a daily basis. The path has its origins in Orthodox Judaism but it has become popular with Jews of all affiliations who are interested in a practice that can infuse daily life with more purpose and meaning. This daybook will be an essential companion to anyone who wants to experience this life-changing contemplative practice. Using a "soul trait" such as honesty, courage, enthusiasm, honor, and equanimity as a starting point, each practice page includes: • a teaching that illuminates the trait of the day • an affirmation phrase focused on that trait • a practical exercise to expand our experience of the trait • a space for journaling about experiences with the trait To learn more, visit www.mussarinstitute.org.
Download or read book A Responsible Life written by Ira Stone and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2013-05-14 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Love your neighbor" is the central obligation of Jewish life. Mussar, a late nineteenth-century Jewish renewal movement, focused on this precept as a means of self-improvement and spiritual growth. Through the practical applications of Mussar, one can learn how to awaken to a spirituality that is compassionate, moral, and generous. In this book, Rabbi Ira Stone provides a contemporary theological framework for understanding Mussar and describes how participation in a Mussar group can offer support and guidance for this powerful spiritual practice.
Download or read book Jewish Veganism and Vegetarianism written by Jacob Ari Labendz and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2019-03-25 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A multidisciplinary approach to the study of veganism, vegetarianism, and meat avoidance among Jews, both historical and contemporary. In recent decades, as more Jews have adopted plant-based lifestyles, Jewish vegan and vegetarian movements have become increasingly prominent. This book explores the intellectual, religious, and historical roots of veganism and vegetarianism among Jews and presents compelling new directions in Jewish thought, ethics, and foodways. The contributors, including scholars, rabbis, and activists, explore how Judaism has inspired Jews to eschew animal products and how such choices, even when not directly inspired by Judaism, have enriched and helped define Jewishness. Individually, and as a collection, the chapters in this book provide an opportunity to meditate on what may make veganism and vegetarianism particularly Jewish, as well as the potential distinctiveness of Jewish veganism and vegetarianism. The authors also examine the connections between Jewish veganism and vegetarianism and other movements, while calling attention to divisions among Jewish vegans and vegetarians, to the specific challenges of fusing Jewishness and a plant-based lifestyle, and to the resistance Jewish vegans and vegetarians can face from parts of the Jewish community. The book’s various perspectives represent the cultural, theological, and ideological diversity among Jews invested in such conversations and introduce prominent debates within their movements. “Whether looking at the pages of the Talmud, vegetarian poems written in Yiddish, lyrics written by Jewish punk rockers, or into a pot of vegan matzo ball soup, this book explores the many ways in which Jews have questioned the ethics of eating animals. Labendz and Yanklowitz achieve their stated goal of exploring ‘what distinguishes Jewish veganism and vegetarianism as Jewish.’ You do not have to be a vegetarian or a vegan (or Jewish!) in order to learn from, and indeed grapple with, the many questions, dilemmas, and readings that the contributors raise.” — Jordan D. Rosenblum, author of The Jewish Dietary Laws in the Ancient World “Jewish Veganism and Vegetarianism offers theological, pragmatic, ethical, environmental, and other ways to view non-meat eating as a viable, healthy, and holy Judaic strategy to consume the world. Anyone who eats or thinks about eating should take this volume seriously.” — Rabbi Jonathan K. Crane, author of Eating Ethically: Religion and Science for a Better Diet “From the Talmud’s ambivalence about human and animal suffering to the challenges of making a vegan matzo ball, Jewish Veganism and Vegetarianism offers surprising views of the many ways Jewish practice, Jewish culture, and individual Jews acted and reacted in their encounters with a vegetable diet. This important and overdue book does much to introduce a long-neglected chapter of Jewish culinary practice and to inspire and instruct future research.” — Eve Jochnowitz, cotranslator of Fania Lewando’s The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook: Garden-Fresh Recipes Rediscovered and Adapted for Today’s Kitchen
Download or read book Ohr Yisrael written by Israel Salanter and published by Targum Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 616 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A glowing treasure now available to the English-speaking public! The trail-blazing work of Rav Yisrael Salanter, and his disciple, Rav Yitzchak Blazer illuminate the darkness of our generation with wisdom and insight. This classic Mussar work focuses on attaining closeness with G-d and on ethical introspection. This volume is a compendium of four classics of ethical thought: The Gates of Light, The Light of Israel, Paths of Light, and Stars of Light. This extraordinary book, translated into lucid, flowing English, will enable all who read it to reach a new spiritual dimension. Contains English text only.
Download or read book The Yeshiva written by Chaim Grade and published by MacMillan Publishing Company. This book was released on 1976 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Yeshiva: Masters and Disciples is the second and concluding volume of Chaim Grade's masterwork. Continuing the moving story of Tsemakh Atlas, head of the Yeshiva, Grade re-creates the rich world of his native city Vilna in pre-World War II Lithuania. The now-vanished Eastern European Jewish community was inhabited by the pious and the heretical, the righteous and the sinful, the wise and the foolish. Religion was as crucial to living, and as much a part of Grade's people, as their daily bread. How they reacted to it - and, through it, to one another - formed the core of day-to-day life. Each problem, each experience was felt through the teachings of Tsemakh Atlas. Chaim Grade has brought his striking characters to full life, revealing them in all their glory and pain. The Yeshiva is a brilliant work that mourns, and finally locks into memory, a culture sadly lost in reality but eternal in spirit.
Download or read book The Spiritual Practice of Good Actions written by Greg Marcus and published by Llewellyn Worldwide. This book was released on 2016-09-08 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bring your everyday life into alignment with your aspirational values through Mussar, a thousand-year-old Jewish practice of spiritual growth based on mindful living. Perfect for anyone, regardless of age or experience, this comprehensive book presents thirteen soul traits—ranging from humility and gratitude to trust and honor—and the simple daily actions you can take to develop them. Drawing on universal principles and providing grounded instruction, The Spiritual Practice of Good Actions helps you explore soul traits through daily techniques and exercises, including mantras, mindful observation, and journaling. Nurture your spirit with inspiring stories and build a soul trait profile to better understand yourself. By dedicating two weeks of practice to each trait, you'll see major changes in how you approach the world and feel empowered to be your best self. Praise: "The Spiritual Practice of Good Actions opens wide the doors to a traditional Jewish spiritual practice that has the power to transform your life."—Alan Morinis, Dean, The Mussar Institute and author of Everyday Holiness "Weaving ancient wisdom with twenty-first-century circumstances, Greg Marcus beautifully presents how the teachings of Mussar can bring you a deeper sense of purpose and a better life."—Tiffany Shlain, Emmy-nominated filmmaker and creator of The Making of a Mensch
Download or read book Expanding the Palace of Torah written by Tamar Ross and published by UPNE. This book was released on 2004 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Expanding the Palace of Torah offers a broad philosophical overview of the challenges the women's revolution poses to Orthodox Judaism, and Orthodox Judaism's response to those challenges. Writing as an insider (herself an Orthodox Jew), Ross seeks to develop a theological response that fully acknowledges the male bias of Judaism's sanctified texts, yet nevertheless provides a rationale for transforming that bias in today's world without undermining their authority. She proposes an approach to divine revelation -- the theological heart of traditional Judaism -- which she calls "cumulativism." This approach is based on a conflating of strict boundaries between text and its interpretation, or divine intent and the evolution of human understanding. Book jacket.
Download or read book Climbing Jacob s Ladder written by Alan Morinis and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2007-05-08 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A compelling portrait of the relationship between a student and a teacher,” this spiritual memoir “raises important questions about the meaning of Judaism and the search for spirituality in this world” (Los Angeles Times) Jewish by birth, though from a secular family, Alan Morinis explored Hinduism and Buddhism as a young man. But in 1997, in the face of personal crisis, he turned to his Jewish heritage for guidance. In his reading he happened upon a Jewish spiritual tradition called Mussar. Gradually he realized that he had stumbled upon an insightful discipline for self-development, complete with meditative, contemplative, and other well-developed transformative practices designed to penetrate the deepest roots of the inner life. Eventually reaching the limits of what he could learn on his own, he decided to seek out a Mussar teacher. This was not an easy task, since almost the entire world of the Mussar tradition had been wiped out in the Holocaust. In time, he found an accomplished master who stood in an unbroken line of transmission of the Mussar tradition, and who lived in the center of a community of Orthodox Jews on Long Island. This book tells the story of Morinis’s journey to meet his teacher and what he learned from him, revealing the central teachings and practices that are the spiritual treasury and legacy of Mussar.
Download or read book Israel Salanter Religious ethical Thinker written by Menaḥem G. Glen and published by Yashar Books Incorporated. This book was released on 2005 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Menahem Glenn's classic study, Israel Salanter: Religious-Ethical Thinker, was a pioneering biography of one of the most creative and influential thinkers in the East European world of Torah scholarship. In his sober and carefully documented study, Glenn carefully described the life and ideas of R. Israel in their historical context as well as in the context of Jewish thought. By doing so, he opened the world of the East European Musar movement to the English speaking reader. Even after the publication of subsequent important works on R. Israel, Glenn's work remains a valuable resource and contains materials and information not available elsewhere.” -– Shaul Stampfer, Hebrew University “This volume is a classic in the study of the 19th century Musar movement and its leader Rabbi Israel Salanter. Not only is the reader presented with a critical study of the life and teachings of R. Salanter in English, but we also get a critical English translation of Salanter's major work the Iggereth Ha-Musar, the Epistle of Musar. The book fills an important lacuna in English for the serious student of the Musar movement. As this movement gains prominence in 21st century America, this classic volume gains new importance as a valuable tool in understanding Salanter and his teachings.” -– Zalman Alpert, Yeshiva University
Download or read book Between the Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy written by Marc B. Shapiro and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 1999-11-01 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Compellingly and authoritatively written, this biography illuminates the dilemmas that Europe’s Jews have faced over the past century. The discussion of the inner struggles of one of twentieth-century Judaism’s most enigmatic religious leaders—a figure who became a central ideologue of modern Orthodoxy despite his traditional training in a Lithuanian yeshiva—elucidates many institutional and intellectual phenomena of the Jewish world, and especially in pre-war Europe, that have so far received little attention.
Download or read book Imagery Techniques in Modern Jewish Mysticism written by Daniel Reiser and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2018-07-09 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyzes and describes the development and aspects of imagery techniques, a primary mode of mystical experience, in twentieth century Jewish mysticism. These techniques, in contrast to linguistic techniques in medieval Kabbalah and in contrast to early Hasidism, have all the characteristics of a full screenplay, a long and complicated plot woven together from many scenes, a kind of a feature film. Research on this development and nature of the imagery experience is carried out through comparison to similar developments in philosophy and psychology and is fruitfully contextualized within broader trends of western and eastern mysticism.
Download or read book The Palm Tree of Deborah written by Shelomo Alfassa and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2009 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Changing the World from the Inside Out written by David Jaffe and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2016-10-18 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE 2016 JEWISH BOOK COUNCIL AWARD FOR CONTEMPORARY JEWISH LIFE AND PRACTICE An inspiring and accessible guide, drawn from Jewish wisdom, for building the inner qualities necessary to work effectively for social justice. The world needs changing—and you’re just the person to do it! It’s a matter of cultivating the inner resources you already have. If you are serious about working for social justice and change, this book will help you bring your most compassionate, wise, and courageous self to the job. Bringing positive social change to any system takes deep self-awareness, caring, determination, and long-term commitment. But polarization, the slow pace of change, and internal conflicts among activists and organizations often leads to burnout and discouragement among the very people needed to make a difference. Changing the World from the Inside Out distills centuries of Jewish wisdom about cultivating and refining the inner life into an accessible program for building the qualities necessary to accomplish sustainable change. Through explorations of deep motivation, inner-drive, and traits like trust and anger, this book engages the reader in a journey of self-development and transformation, demonstrating that sustainable activism is indeed a spiritual practice. Jaffe offers accessible and meaningful guidance for this journey—with exercises, contemplations, and discussion points that can be used individually or in a group.
