JewsByChoice.Org

This is just a quick FYI post to let interested parties out there know that "Tapestry" (CBC radio’s religion program ) recently re-broadcast a great interview on Mussar. For those of you who don’t know about Mussar it is a Torah inspired ethical training system. It can help individuals who practice it to develop their character traits in a positive fashion. For example it can help be impatient become more patient or those who hold grudges to become a little more forgiving.

Although I’m far from being a Mussar expert, I have dabbled both formally and informally in its study as a way of working on my own crankiness and speaking from personal experience I think it is a great hands on way to help people develop ethical speech and action in their daily lives. I won’t try to go into any detailed explanation of the how’s and why’s here in this post, however for those of you who want to know a little bit more about there’s tons of information online. For example here and here.

Anyhow without further ado here is the program synopsis as found on the Tapestry website.

The battle between good and evil is a story as old as humanity. And when it’s served up as entertainment - when good versus evil is played out on the screen or on the page - the setting is very often something exotic and unknown. The battles are epic in scope. Think Star Wars, or The Lord of the Rings.

But Alan Morinis says the battleground between good and evil lies in the little choices people make every minute of every day.

Alan Morinis is a follower of the Jewish spiritual tradition of Mussar. He embraced the ancient teaching when his own life offered up a tussle between right and wrong, and he opted for wrong. His latest book is Everyday Holiness: The Jewish Spiritual Path of Mussar. It’s published by Trumpeter Book.

Here’s a direct link to a downloadable podcast of this Mussar interview. I’m really not sure how long it will be available online, so if it’s something you’re interested in, you might want to download it sooner rather than later.

Lastly as always if you do listen to the audio please feel free to share any thoughts and/or feedback in the comments section below.

And on that note I would like to wish you all a pleasant and fruitful week.