Making I Really Make A Difference?
By Shirah Bell, Director of Everyday Holiness Program

There are so many huge challenges facing our world today that you, like me, may sometimes get discouraged. “I’m just one person studying Mussar. What impact can I make on the big issues—climate change, war, poverty?” Or, “I really would like to take on a project to improve life in my local community, but there’s just not enough time with all my other obligations.” I’m sure you can think of your particular impediment.

The Alter of Novarodok, founder of one of the three schools of Mussar, challenges the truth of these reasonable impediments and calls them “rationalizations for avoiding Divine service.” In an empowering little book he wrote, To Turn the Many to Righteousness, he poses 10 commonly held rationalizations and brings forth the deeper truth about them. I am finding this book, written in the early 1900’s, so relevant for today.

The question he poses that I would like you to consider today is “whether the individual is capable of exerting his influence upon society unaided by any spectacular devices, but by the genuineness of his life alone?” Here you are, studying Mussar, or reading Yashar, perhaps wondering if it will make any difference to the big picture. The Alter responds:

We thus see the power of self-commitment to be so great as to enable an individual with rightness of intent, genuineness of deed, and strength of spirit to be, as it were, like a locomotive which pulls many cars after it. In like manner, he, by whole-hearted “pulling,” can turn the whole world back whence they had strayed. This applies to every individual who would serve in this way. If he consecrates himself and his family to the cause of truth, he, too, though he be only one individual, can affect the entire world.

This is all provided that the individual remains an individual, and not one who looks back to see whether the masses are following him. His task is to cling fast to the fulcrum of truth and the masses will come of themselves.

There is no question, then, that the true individualist must strive to turn the balance of the world to the side of merit, and when one finds himself in a place of Torah, he must pay heed to all that transpires within it, for a single act may turn the balance in favor of the community or against it (G-d forbid).

One of the Everyday Holiness students commented to me recently that her friends are bewildered that she would want to study Mussar. “After all,” they’ve said, “you’re very nice the way you are. Why upset your life?” Perhaps you are experiencing something like this as you engage in Mussar practice. I recommend you follow The Alter’s guidance. Don’t look back to see who is following you. Cling fast to what you know to be true.

I would also add one other piece of advice– be prepared to be compassionate to yourself when you fail to act true to your ideals, or you feel forced to choose between two conflicting ideals. Seek support from the students in the course, share on The Forum, and put your trust in the Divine. You are doing sacred work.

I’d love to hear from you with reflections and questions: shirah@mussarinstitute.org.

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