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www.detroitiewishnews.corn

4 / 5
2002

I

`Climb'
Jacob's
Ladder'

In Mussar, author
Alan Morinis finds
spiritual renewal.

SANDEE BRAWARSKY
Special to the Jewish News

A

major business failure sent
Alan Morinis on a dark,
downward spiral. The film-
maker was immobilized,
ashamed, angry, shocked by how far he
had strayed from his core values.
A friend lent him Arthur Green's nvo-
volume work on Jewish spirituality, and
he read straight through it until he
came to the chapter on Mussar, a move-
ment founded in Lithuania by Rabbi
Israel Salanter in the mid-19th century
He recognized a spiritual path that
spoke deeply to where he was at that
moment, which led him to further read-
ing and travel from his home in
Vancouver to Far Rockaway, Long
Island, to study at a yeshiva based in the
Mussar tradition.
Climbing Jacob's Ladder: One Man's
Journey to Rediscover a Jewish Spiritual
Tradition (Broadway; $23.95) is
Morinis' personal story of inner growth,
and it is also an introduction to the
study and practice of Mussar. When
asked to describe Mussar in a nutshell,
Morinis, who will speak at Temple Shir
Shalom April 10 and will visit with stu-
dents at the Hebrew Academy of
Metropolitan Detroit the following
morning, says it is "a discipline for the
perfection of the qualities of the soul.
Everything else is an elaboration."
Mussar is frequently defined as ethical
teachings, but the author explains that
it's much more than that. "Ethical train-
ing can be behaviorist. In Mussar, you
see that your actions mold and shape
your soul."
Nov 52, Morinis grew up in a nonre-
ligious but highly identified Jewish
home in Toronto; his parents were
refugees from Europe who arrived in
Canada in the 1920s.
While studying anthropology at
Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar,
he began traveling in India and studied
Hindu pilgrimage for his doctoral thesis.

`7522 constantly more
aware of no/ own
thoughts, words and
deeds, as if
installed fresh batteries
in my inner lamp,"
writes Alan M017.7th.

He also stud-
ied yoga in
India and
Buddhist medi-
tation in the
Himalayas.
When he felt like he had hit rock bot
torn, Morinis turned to Jewish tradi-
tion. "I had no real idea what I was
looking for, or even where to look; I jus t
hope I'd be lucky [or blessed] enough to
recognize it when I found it."
In compelling style, he writes of his
conversations with his teacher, Rabbi
Perr of the Far Rockaway yeshiva, weav-
ing in traditional Mussar texts, stories,
moments of humor, too. Each chapter
is followed by a practical exercise, such
as learning patience or "removing obsta-
cles that obstruct the flow of love."
Morinis maps out the terrain of the
soul according to Mussar, and explains
that it's the measure of qualities of the
soul, middot, that distinguish people.
Daily, he engages in formal Mussar
practices. Every morning he does
Heshbon Hanefesh, an accounting of the
soul, in which he reflects on a particular
soul trait and then at night records
impressions from that day — things he
might have said or done — that relate
to that trait.
His journey is still a work in
progress. ❑

Alan Morinis speaks 7:30 p.m.
Wednesday, April 10, at Temple
Shir Shalom in West Bloomfield.
Free to the public.
(248) 737-8700.

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