INTERMEDIATE AND ADVANCED COURSES

To fulfill Mussar’s purpose, ideas are not very effective tools. Once the path is defined, the rest of the climb happens by means of a variety of experiential practices: meditation, visualization, journaling, and chanting.

- Alan Morinis

Level: Intermediate / Advanced

Open to: All

Modality: Independent Study

Modules: Recorded webinars, podcasts, readings, practices, optional chevruta study

Runs: 6/21/2020 - 8/16/2020

About Kedusha: Holiness

When seen through a Jewish lens, this world is primarily a spiritual place infused with divinity. And, you and I are souls making our way through this spiritual world in search of the wholeness and holiness that is the ultimate fulfillment of the soul’s mission.

In this course, we will explore and probe the primary Jewish teachings on holiness in order to strengthen our understanding of this elusive but crucially important quality. The goal is to internalize and awaken a vivid awareness that will guide our steps in life, which is that there is no other purpose for our lives than to be holy.

The study of holiness is important for Mussar students because no matter how you define it, in Jewish thought holiness represents that highest spiritual possibility to which a human being can aspire. It is the ultimate goal, the north star by which we can navigate our journey of ascent.

Join Alan Morinis for an 8-week course that includes three webinars, audio recordings and text, and study materials for chevruta and va'adim.

Tuition: Chaverim: $136; non-Chaverim: $180.00

Registration is open.

Level: Intermediate

Open to: All

Modality: Independent Study

Modules: Recorded webinars, podcasts, readings, practices

Runs: 6/21/2020 - 8/16/2020

Tools for Practice

Join Alan Morinis in a unique course that will deepen your understanding and practice of Mussar. Alan leads you through eight audio sessions and three video sessions. You’ll log your practice sessions, journal using Alan’s prompts, and participate in a moderated discussion board. If you wish, optional personal coaching is available.

You'll learn how to study Mussar texts, the importance of silence, meditation, chanting, kaballot, visualization, and journaling or chesbon ha'nefesh.

Study online at your own pace.

Tuition: Chaverim: $136. Non-Chaverim: $156.

Mussar Practice: Tools for Transformation Online Summer 2020 6/21/2020 - 8/16/2020

Level: Intermediate

Open to: Chaverim Only

Modality: Live Web Meetings

Modules: Live va'ad, readings, practices, chevruta study

Opens: 6/21/2020

Chaburah

Chaburah is an intermediate to advanced-level course that is open to TMI Chaverim who are interested in building awareness of middot with a negative valence as a bridge to the “positive.” Students cultivate a sharpened awareness of the play of inner traits in life. They report powerful transformations in their inner life and their relationships.

Chaburah focuses on one middah per month: anger, impatience, stinginess, ingratitude, worry, envy, laziness, judgment, falsehood, arrogance, stubbornness, sorrow.

PREREQUISITES: Season of Mussar I and II or Everyday Holiness

TUITION: Chaverim-only: $430

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Level: Advanced

Open to: Chaverim Only

Modality: Live Web Meetings

Modules: Va'ad and chevruta study, text & practices community service project

Runs: 6/21/2020

Mussar In Action

Mussar In Action supports you in answering the question: How can one sustain learning and put into practice what is learned? Rabbi Yisrael Salanter saw this challenge and spoke of it in the 19th century, as did Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto in the 18th. Both goals are reached through practice.

The source text for this 26-unit course is Alei Shur, the Mussar classic with original translations. Based on the text, students engage in personal practice, study with a chevruta and va’ad, and select a personal, real-world project to take on. MORE

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Level: Intermediate / Advanced

Open to: Chaverim Only

Modality: Lessons are emailed at the first of each month

Modules: Readings, practices, recorded chants

Opens: Ongoing enrollment

LEARN MORE

Level: Intermediate / Advanced

Open to: All

Modality: Live Web Meetings

Modules: Live and recorded webinars, readings, practices, optional chevruta study

Runs: 10/18/2020 - 4/18/2021

Widen Your Tent

Micha explores the worldview of Rabbi Shimon Shkop, a Mussar Master and leading figure in the world of the Lithuanian Yeshiva a century ago. Rabbi Shkop's vision of the purpose of Judaism, human life and the nature of holiness speaks to us today. Using Rabbi Micha Berger’s recently published translation and commentary, Widen Your Tent, you'll explore:

Why did G-d create us? And why did He give us the Torah? What is the purpose of this entity we call a “human being”?
What is the relationship between ethics and religion? Between our natural sense of morality and revelation?
Since it is so important to be giving human beings, why were we made with such a strong sense of self-interest?
How can I be happy with what I have? Or more even pressingly, how can I be happy?
How do I grow my soul? What even is the measure of a human soul

The course includes monthly live sessions and recordings, materials for chevruta study and practice, and an online forum.

Tuition: Open to All

Chaverim: $150. Non-Chaverim: $180.

Registration: The course is currently in session and is closed. Part 2 will be offered in the fall.

I'M INTERESTED. PLEASE NOTIFY ME.

Level: Advanced

Modality: Live Web Meetings

Modules: Va'ad and chevruta study, text & practices

Open: 6/21/2020

Path of the Soul

Path of the Soul is an advanced-level Mussar course that is available to Chaverim who have completed A Season of Mussar II or Everyday Holiness plus Mussar in Action.

How do you recognize and follow the path of your soul? Only by answering these questions—not in theory, but in the flesh of your life—can you discover and follow the track that leads to your most elevated spiritual destiny. Path of the Soul is a curriculum for wholeness, complete with assignments, learning, challenges, and tests. Each of us has his or her own curriculum, though not everyone is aware that his or her life-course is a curriculum, nor engages with it consciously. Mussar’s wisdom will be accessible to you, to guide a wise and successful traverse of this path. MORE

Level: Advanced

Modality: Independent Study

Modules: Optional chevruta study, text & practices

Open: 6/21/2020

Messilat Yesharim

Messilat Yesharim, an 11-session course, will begin in the Fall of 2020.

Have you struggled with ancient, classical Mussar texts and wished you had some real guidance for making the study relevant to your life? Have you been longing for a new advanced Mussar experience?

You now have the opportunity to study the classical Mussar text, Messilat Yesharim / Path of The Just, written by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (Ramchal) and first published in Amsterdam in 1740.

When Reb Zundel of Salant (the rebbe of Rabbi Yisroel Salanter) asked his rebbe, Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin which Mussar text to study, Reb Chaim replied, “Every Mussar text is good to learn, but Messilat Yesharim should be your guide.” In this six-month course, we will study the text line by line and in-depth from the original Hebrew and will cover the Ramchal’s introduction and first chapter of this most seminal work. MORE

Mussar emerges as unique area of study in 10th century

Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto writes Path of the Just in 1740 to develop Mussar into a path of practice

Mussar Movement begins in Lithuania in 19th century led by Rabbi Yisrael Salanter

Mussar Movement nearly disappears in the mid-20th century, in the aftermath of the Holocaust

INTERESTED IN BRINGING MUSSAR TO YOUR COMMUNITY? WE HAVE PROGRAMS FOR YOU TO LICENSE.

MUSSAR PROGRAMS FOR MY LOCAL COMMUNITY (1)

For Reform, Reconstructionist, Conservative, and Orthodox Congregations

TMI-Certified Facilitators also lead our programs at other Jewish organizations: Jewish Federations, JCC's and more.

LEARN MORE ABOUT COMMUNITY PROGRAMS

WE OFFER CUSTOMIZED CONGREGATIONAL PROGRAMS

Take your group through a Mussar course based on Everyday Holiness by Alan Morinis. At the end of the program, continue with the intermediate-level program.

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IN THE WORDS OF MUSSAR TEACHERS

The luxuries we indulge in eventually come to seem to be necessities as if we could not live without them.

RABBI YISRAEL SALANTER (1810–1883)

People search relentlessly for a city of happiness, not realizing that it can only be found in a state of mind.

– RABBI AVRAHAM PAM (1913–2001)

Modesty at a wedding means rejoicing fully in the singing, dancing, and feasting while inwardly striving to direct all of those activities for the happiness of the wedding couple, not for oneself.

INTERMEDIATE AND ADVANCED COURSES

Mussar emerges as unique area of study in 10th century

Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto writes Path of the Just in 1740 to develop Mussar into a path of practice

Mussar Movement begins in Lithuania in 19th century led by Rabbi Yisrael Salanter

Mussar Movement nearly disappears in the mid-20th century, in the aftermath of the Holocaust

INTERESTED IN BRINGING MUSSAR TO YOUR COMMUNITY? WE HAVE PROGRAMS FOR YOU TO LICENSE.

Send Me More Info!

IN THE WORDS OF MUSSAR TEACHERS

The luxuries we indulge in eventually come to seem to be necessities as if we could not live without them.

RABBI YISRAEL SALANTER (1810–1883)

People search relentlessly for a city of happiness, not realizing that it can only be found in a state of mind.

– RABBI AVRAHAM PAM (1913–2001)

Modesty at a wedding means rejoicing fully in the singing, dancing, and feasting while inwardly striving to direct all of those activities for the happiness of the wedding couple, not for oneself.

– RABBI NOSSON TZVI FINKEL, THE ALTER OF SLABODKA (1849–1927)