EXOD1021 "Compassion is an extremely noble trait. It is one of the thirteen traits attributed to the Holy One, Blessed be He, as it is written: 'Compassionate and gracious.' [this verse]. All that one can do in cultivating this trait, he should exert himself to do. Just as one would want compassion in his time of need, so should one have compassion on others who are in need." Orchot Tzaddikim The moral precepts of Judaism demand that we be compassionate to every soul. Singled out repeatedly as especially needing our compassion are the poor, widows, orphans, and others in need. The Torah repeatedly hammers away at our obligation to help those who are vulnerable and needy. The tradition is so insistent that we be living vessels of compassion that the Talmud asserts that "anyone who is not compassionate with people is certainly not a descendent of our forefather Abraham." Beitzah 32b

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

EXOD1032 We need to know how God does chesed in order to discover the signposts we are to follow in our lives. In the Torah, where thirteen attributes of God's compassion are listed [this verse], among them is "abundant in kindness." The medieval commentator Rashi explains that the phrase "abundant in kindness" tells us that God shows kindness to all those who are in need of sustenance, even those who are not deserving of this help. Here we find our model for chesed. When we act with sustaining generosity to others not because they deserve it but because we are being kind, beyond any calculation of what they have earned from us or what we can get in return, then we are doing kindness in emulation of God's way of loving-kindness. Don't worry about loving the poor; your job is to clothe them. If people you know are ailing in any way, don't just think or even pray for them-take your time to go visit them. Offer your comfort to the bereaved in a house of mourning. And burying the dead is the classic example of active loving-kindness par excellence; since a corpse has no capacity to reciprocate, caring for its needs is purely generous kindness.

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

LEV288 The starting point for understanding Mussar is the verse in the Torah that tells us: "You shall be holy" [this verse]. The Torah here reveals in no uncertain terms what a human being's job description is. In essence, we are here on earth for no other purpose than to grow and blossom spiritually--to become holy. Our potential and therefore our goal should be to become as spiritually refined as possible. It is interesting that when the rabbis combed through the Torah to seek out the commandments that are the backbone for living a Jewish life, none of the major commentators seized on "You shall be holy" as a commandment they told us we must follow. This omission is classically explained by saying that our spiritual pursuits are the overarching and all-encompassing goal of our lives, and so this injunction can't be brought down to the level of an ordinance on par with the other 613 commandments the rabbis identified in the Torah. (See, for example, Rambam's Sefer ha'Mitzvot [The Book of Mitzvot] (Shoresh 4), trans. Rabbi Shagra Silverstein (New York: Moznaim, 1993).

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

LEV626 [This verse]. Our Sages, z"l, said (Yoma 23a) that the prohibition for bearing a grudge applies only to [an offense] associated with money [and possessions] (I.e., he bears a grudge that the other person refused to lend him a spade, but not because he treated him haughtily, scornfully, or sought his harm); but regarding [an offense through another's] haughtiness, scornfulness, and seeking [his] evil, it is permissible to bear such things within one's heart. Concerning this, our Sages, z"l, said (ibid.), "Any Torah scholar who [when offended] does not take revenge and bear a grudge like a serpent is not a Torah scholar." Nonetheless, if they ask forgiveness he should overlook the injustices done to him.

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

LEV659 Honoring others… does not mean giving up the power and practice of exercising judgment, but puts the focus on moving away from unwise, useless, habitual, and even destructive acts of judgment. We start to move in that direction when we recognize the root of the problem lies in our own fears about our own inadequacies, of which we are only too aware, that make us fear that others will not give us the honor we feel we want and need. Our test is to recognize, internalize, and act upon the teaching of the sages: "The person who judges his neighbor in the scale of merit is himself judged favorably." (Shabbat 127b). The same Rabbi Akiva whose twenty-four students died in just over the period of a month because they did not give each other mutual respect was a great proponent of the teaching, "Love your neighbor as yourself," [this verse] calling it "the first principle of the Torah" (Sifra, Kedoshim 45. The Sifra is a collection of midrashic thought on the book of Leviticus/Vayikra. In this case, the commentary is to Parshat Kedoshim (19:1-20:27)).

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

LEV1101 In the Jewish view, the spiritual seeker is meant to be a servant of God. Our paragon here is Moses, who is called just that: eved HaShem, a servant of God. (Deuteronomy/Devarim 34:5). The first line of the book of Joshua repeats this phrase, again calling Moses eved Hashem. Psalm 36 begins: "To the chief musician, a Psalm of David, the servant of the Lord." In Leviticus God says: "For to me are the Israelites servants, My servants that I have redeemed from Egypt" [this verse]. That the proper attitude for spiritual living should be that of a servant is very counter-cultural to the modern mind. The French, Russian, and American revolutions that set the course for the modern era, as well as innumerable anti-colonial wars of independence, were all attempts to overthrow regimes that propagated servitude. So to the American Civil War. Not many national constitutions laud the value of being a servant. But the Jew is meant to serve. Our answer to God's commandment is "we shall do and we shall hear." [Exodus 24:7-AJL] Doing comes first. We will serve. … Being a servant of God means striving to align my will to that of the Master. I desire to unify my will with God's will within my own life and to delight in that unification. ... Being a servant who aligns his or her will with the divine will makes you very useful human being. In time, your efforts will be judged to have been right and good. Right alongside, the doors to personal happiness will be open wide to you. There is no long-term satisfaction to be gained by pursuing and even temporarily gratifying the desires of the little personal will.

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

NUM33 Self-Denial. As familiar as some of us are with overindulgence, others know its opposite, which is self-denial. The Jewish tradition has been very consistent in raising as much opposition to asceticism as it does to self-indulgence. (Aesthetic voices can be found in the Jewish tradition. Pirkei Avot 6:4, for example, says "This is the way of the Torah: you shall eat bread with salt, drink a measurement of water, sleep on the ground, and live a life of pain." The main stream has developed a virtual consensus, however, and is not in favor.) Neither is seen to be a positive value or a spiritual practice. Hence we find there is no tradition of monasticism or celibacy in the Jewish world. The closest we come is the tradition of the nazir [this verse], which is the name given to people who take a temporary vow of abstinence from wine, haircutting, and contact with the dead (of whom Samson is the most famous example). But the abstinence of the nazir is more permitted then it is condoned, as we learn from the fact that the Torah demands a sacrifice of atonement for one who takes on Nazarite behavior: "And make atonement for him, for he sinned regarding the soul" (Numbers 6:11). The Talmudic sage Rabbi Elazar Ha'Kappar extends what we learn from this requirement for atonement: "If one who afflicted himself only with respect to wine is called a sinner, how much more so is the one who aesthetically refrains from everything considered a sinner!" (Nedarim 10a). Similarly, the law states that whoever fasts excessively is called a sinner (Ta'anit 11a), and the Jerusalem Talmud and asks: "Is it not sufficient what the Torah has forbidden you, that you seek to prohibit from yourself other things?" (Nedarim 9:1). Though not condoning asceticism, the Mussar teachers do speak of a kind of abstinence that is good and valuable. The ability to restrain ourselves is a necessary soul-trait and the very one that is often invoked to guide a person who seeks to counter the tendency to overindulge. (This is the trait of "abstinence," or p'rishut in Hebrew. See chapters 13-15 of The Path of the Just.) But this capacity to hold ourselves back is distinguished from asceticism. Abstinence can maintain or restore the middle way, whereas asceticism rejects it.

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

NUM45 See [[NUM33]] Numbers 6:2 Nazarite MORINIS 179-80

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

NUM111 In traditional Jewish understanding, humility has nothing to do with being the lowest, most debased, shrinking creature on earth.… Mussar teaches that real humility is always associated with healthy self-esteem. Lack of self-esteem leads to unholy and false feelings of worthlessness. … Being humble doesn't mean being a nobody, it just means being no more of a somebody than you ought to be. After all, Moses, who is considered the greatest of the prophets, is described in the Torah as "very humble, more than any other men who were upon the face of the earth" [this verse]. If a leader as great as Moses was so humble, there is surely more to humility than the shrinking meekness we ordinarily associate with the term.

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

NUM199 Wanting versus Needing. Most of us could get by very well with less than we have and certainly less than we seek. Not only would we get by, we would actually be freed to give our time and energy to things that really do matter in this life. … A need is different from a desire. A need really is essential. A desire, on the other hand, is backed by an emotional force that turns it into a virtual demand: I have to have it. And it is our desires (The Mussar masters call desires ta'ava in Hebrew. They write much on the subject.) that create trouble for us. Desires can commandeer our lives on behalf of their fulfillment. And when they go unrealized, they deliver up anxiety, anger, frustration, and unethical behavior that we want to avoid. No one disputes that we need to satisfy our basic needs for reasonable comfort and safety. But the sages felt it so important to warn us against a life enslaved to gratification that they embedded their warning right in the daily recitation of the Sh'ma, the central affirmation of Jewish faith. The blessing cautions: "Don't stray after your heart or your eyes" (V'lo taturu acharay l'vavchem v'acharay aynaychem) [this verse]. The rabbis who set the prayers to melody made sure we understood that they were warning us about the allure of the world by accompanying this phrase with notes that rise and fall in a beckoning way.

SHOW FULL EXCERPT