What motivates you.
What motivates people to change? Why would one undertake the arduous, challenging, and often wrenching life-long journey of inner change, uprooting and reconstruction?
In older times, the answer was clear. One obeyed G-d for "kavod Shomaim", Glory of Hashem, or because it was right or because this is what is expected of a Jew. Fear of punishment or desire of reward motivated some but under that was the sense of obligation as a Jew and as a member of Jewish nation. However, as modernity intruded, this no longer sufficed.
The Messilas Yesharim in the 2nd chapter may have been the first to make the search for Sheleimus, or completeness, the motivating factor for Divine Service. While the careful reader will realize that the concept of Sheleimus for Ramchal is complex and tied intimately to performance of commandments and construction of a pure outer soul, basically a Kabalistic idea expressed in R. Chaim Vital's Shaarei Kedusha, Ch. 3, it provided a ready made principle for the Mussar Movement to use to counter the emerging world of modernity. In modern cultural frame of reference, G-d is distant and fires of Hell and delights of Heaven uncertain and remote. Individualism and the attitude of "what's in it for me" is the one that prevails. The Alter of Slobodke in particular sought for a motivational tool that would work within this mindset and found it in the idea of Sheleimus.
More than two decades ago, one of the assistant mashgichim at Lakewood shared an insight with me. He told me that there are some individuals who do right becasue it is right. In his words, "their tsitsis are long and tefillin are large because this is what Hashem wants". For others this is not sufficient. They must find within themselves the power that motivates them uniquely.
I have since seen a similar idea in Rav Kook's writings. He wrote that simple souls that find enough motivations in "because it says so" possess souls that are very high, so much so that the illumination of a simple idea is enough to sustain them. Those on a lower level must seek more luminous concepts for they need greater light. (Interestingly, many years ago I read the same idea in Leo Tolstoys' The Resurrection, lehavdil ben kodesh l'chol).
Does mussar appeal especially to those who are weaker? Such claims have been made by opponents of mussar but I think that this is an oversimplification of a complex reality. Each soul is different and what we need to wax greater is what we need to obtain, learn and understand. The Mussar Movement adapted many of Ramchal's ideas and Ramchal was a harbinger of the Mussar Movement which he preceded it by 200 years.
In older times, the answer was clear. One obeyed G-d for "kavod Shomaim", Glory of Hashem, or because it was right or because this is what is expected of a Jew. Fear of punishment or desire of reward motivated some but under that was the sense of obligation as a Jew and as a member of Jewish nation. However, as modernity intruded, this no longer sufficed.
The Messilas Yesharim in the 2nd chapter may have been the first to make the search for Sheleimus, or completeness, the motivating factor for Divine Service. While the careful reader will realize that the concept of Sheleimus for Ramchal is complex and tied intimately to performance of commandments and construction of a pure outer soul, basically a Kabalistic idea expressed in R. Chaim Vital's Shaarei Kedusha, Ch. 3, it provided a ready made principle for the Mussar Movement to use to counter the emerging world of modernity. In modern cultural frame of reference, G-d is distant and fires of Hell and delights of Heaven uncertain and remote. Individualism and the attitude of "what's in it for me" is the one that prevails. The Alter of Slobodke in particular sought for a motivational tool that would work within this mindset and found it in the idea of Sheleimus.
More than two decades ago, one of the assistant mashgichim at Lakewood shared an insight with me. He told me that there are some individuals who do right becasue it is right. In his words, "their tsitsis are long and tefillin are large because this is what Hashem wants". For others this is not sufficient. They must find within themselves the power that motivates them uniquely.
I have since seen a similar idea in Rav Kook's writings. He wrote that simple souls that find enough motivations in "because it says so" possess souls that are very high, so much so that the illumination of a simple idea is enough to sustain them. Those on a lower level must seek more luminous concepts for they need greater light. (Interestingly, many years ago I read the same idea in Leo Tolstoys' The Resurrection, lehavdil ben kodesh l'chol).
Does mussar appeal especially to those who are weaker? Such claims have been made by opponents of mussar but I think that this is an oversimplification of a complex reality. Each soul is different and what we need to wax greater is what we need to obtain, learn and understand. The Mussar Movement adapted many of Ramchal's ideas and Ramchal was a harbinger of the Mussar Movement which he preceded it by 200 years.
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