Talk:Musar movement

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Luzzato[edit]

Hi Ezra,

You want to delete three alleged facts: that Luzzato

  • wrote romantic plays in Hebrew and Italian
  • claimed he was the Messiah, and
  • was considered a heretic by most rabbis of his day.

Are you saying these facts are wrong? Danny is pretty well-educated, and I am generally willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Do you know for sure that Luzzato did not write plays in Hebrew and Ialian? Do you know for sure that Luzzato never claimed he was the Moshiach? Do you know for sure that most Rabbis of the day did not call him a heretic? If you know for sure, of course, you should delete these claims. But you didn't provide any explanation or evidence, so it is hard to know why you deleted it, Slrubenstein

I would add that Luzzato had nothing to do with the Mussar movement. He wrote a book. Period. About 250 years after he died, Rabbi Yisrael Salanter founded a movement called the Mussar movement because he thought that many yeshiva students were acting unethically and justifying it by the fact that they were scholarly. He therefore decided that they should spend a set amount of time each day studying ethics from a religious perspective . The primary text that he chose for this movement was this long-forgotten book. Danny

they are your words, so I won't do it, but would you put the second and third sentences of the above into the article itself? Slrubenstein

Not every fact is equal. For one, these facts belong in a biography of Rabbi Luzzato.

yes, I agree with you. Do you want to create the link and transfer the text to that article?

Second the purpose of the presentation of these facts is to denigrate both Rabbi Luzzato and the Mussar movement, and that is not NPOV.

Do you really think that the fact that he wrote plays in Italian in Hebrew is a denigration? I sincerely apologize if I am misunderstanding your sensibilities and sensitivities -- personally, I could not plays in English, let alone Hebrew and Italian, so to me this particular fact sounds like praise. As for the "heretic" part of course you are right BUT does this mean we should remove that "fact" from the Kaplan article? For us to work together we need to achieve some consistency. In any event, I do agree with you about a linked article about Luzatto with the biographica information.
Danny knew very well that an Orthodox Jew would find it odd that Rabbi Luzzato participated in such activities. He put it in there partially to tease me, and I think he would agree with my evaluation. Ezra Wax

And third, all of these facts have rebuttals, and just sticking in facts in an article I wrote and then expecting me to do all the work to rebut every point is unfair. If you are going to put in facts that weren't there, then put in both sides of the story.

Excuse me, but I believe that this is EXACTLY what I did. I do not thik I removed any of the facts you included. I assumed that you put in facts that represent one side of the story, and that Danny's facts represented the other side of the story. Thus, but neither cutting what you wrote, nor what Danny wrote -- voila! -- both sides of the story. If you want to add other facts (here or in the linked bio) by all means do so; if they are facts I will not cut them. My only question is, did you originally cut these because they are not facts? If they are facts, we will never achieve "both sides of the story" by cutting them! Slrubenstein

The article as it was, was neutral, unless you consider a neutral description of the mussar movement non-neutral. It could use more facts, and I don't deny it, but like any initial article, it takes time to write.Ezra Wax

I will tomorrow. I want to check my sources first. It's been a while since I touched this stuff. There is a lot more to add too, but the truth is, I so wanna stay away from this kind of material. I do it at work all day and Wikipedia is chance to pursue my other, non-professional interests. Or at least it I wish it was ... Danny

What is Mussar?[edit]

Um, why do we have an entry on Mussar that contains no information at all on what Mussar actually is? It looks like Ezra Wax is just creating entry after entry to fill Wikipedia with his personal bias, irregardless of the fact that much of what is writes is useless, biased, racist or outright false. This is really getting out of hand. RK

Deletions[edit]

I put back one sentence Danny deleted, but the following links are questionable, because (A) they aren't in English & (B) they link to non-existent articles.

Ezra, try to bear in mind that Wikipedia's target audience is English speakers. A few foreign-language terms are okay, like Torah, because they have became part of the English language. --Ed Poor

I did not finish the article, it was a stub, so in answer to your criticism, I will provide more information about the books.
The addition of non-Orthodox points of view in this article is unacceptable. Orthodox Judaism denies the validity of non-Orthodox forms of Judaism as such, presentation of its views as valid without clearly pointing out that they are not accepted is not neutral. As the article was neutral, as it was although deficient in other ways, any additional information must be added from a neutral point of view. As such, I will delete such information, as I do not consider it my responsibility to refute non-neutral information added to an article that I wrote. Ezra Wax

Actually, Ed, didn't mean to erase that sentence, but it is wrong. I have the sources here now, and will rewrite the article tonite. Danny

It's easy to delete text accidentally, especially when working quickly. :-) --Ed Poor

Get this straight, Ezra Wax: you cannot claim simultaneously that the non-Orthodox view is not neutral, and the Orthodox view is neutral. You have to distinguish between facts and interpretations of facts. Facts are facts no matter what you personally think of them. It is also a fact that non-Orthodox Jews have certain interpretations of some facts, and you are right to say that such inerpretations must be identified as such. But it is also a fact that Orthodox Jews have certain interpretations of facts, and those interpretations must be identified as such as well. A good encyclopedia article will present a variety of views (identifying them and contextualizing them adequately). Do not delete a view just because you disagree with it. Do not think that just because a view is your own, that is enough to render it neutral. Slrubenstein

I do not give credence to the other views, and do not consider it my duty to provide them. In any case, I do not know what they are. As such, anybody wanting to add them fairly, is welcome. Ezra Wax

"Fair enough" -- as long as we agree that adding them "fairly" does not mean that they have to be your views, and only that they be properly contextualized and referenced. But the same goes for you: present your views fairly, meaning properly cited and referenced. Slrubenstein

I will admit that my views could use proper citation, but as I am writing what I know from memory, I do not always have a proper source handy. Upon request for a citation, I can do research to find a source. If the information is controversial, I would agree that it be moved to the talk page until a proper source is found. Ezra Wax

sounds good, Slrubenstein

Various points of view[edit]

A recent vandal on Wikipedia, Ezra Wax, just wrote this shocking admission that he intends to prevent every person in the world from working on Wikipedia articles of his choice, unless they are in accord with his personal Ultra-Orthodox views. This is VANDALISM by every definition of Wikipedia use, and I implore the moderators to stop allowing him to abuse this community. RK Ezra Wax writes : "The addition of non-Orthodox points of view in this article is unacceptable. Orthodox Judaism denies the validity of non-Orthodox forms of Judaism as such, presentation of its views as valid without clearly pointing out that they are not accepted is not neutral. As the article was neutral, as it was although deficient in other ways, any additional information must be added from a neutral point of view. As such, I will delete such information, as I do not consider it my responsibility to refute non-neutral information added to an article that I wrot"

Oh, get off the stage, RK. Just recast Ezra's views as Ultra-Orthodox Jews believe X. :-) --Ed Poor
And the other POV should be labeled Ultra-UnOrthodox Jews believe Y. :-) --StevenSchulman
Ed, I understand what you are saying but you miss the problem. Slr, Danny and I don't have a problem with presenting Ultra-Orthodox views; that has never been the issue. The issue is that Ezra Wax has proclaimed that articles he works on are his own property, and that he will forbid anyone from working on them, unless he judges that their writings are in accord with his own religious views. So the problem is not about finding a way for us to agree on presenting different points of view. Rather it is about an outright admission that he will refuse to work with the Wikipedia community at all. This, as far as I can judge, is vandalism. In contrast, take a look at the new article I just wrote on this subject. You will see that there are not polemics against any denomination of Judaism, or of any other faith. RK

Hey, RK. EJ, huh? Not bad. Couple of points: the Judaica spells musar with one s, which you followed, but the article title has two. Also, I am thinking that the name of the article should be Mussar Movement. Also, perhaps some of the people who were against the movement and why, the different schools (Slobodka and Nowordok), and the proper names of the towns in English. Whaddya say? Danny

Good points all; I fully agree. RK

"He founded a Kollel in Kovno." What's a Kollel? -phma

Good questions! Short answer is now given in the text, and a link to a new article has been made.

List of yeshivot[edit]

What is the basis for the list of yeshivot. Volozhin was around long before mussar. Danny

I found this list of yeshivot in an article in the Encyclopaedia Judaica; the article is unclear if a separate Yeshiva was founded there in addition to the original Yeshiva, or if a Musar disciple brought his teachings to the already extant yeshiva. RK

Almost definitely the latter. I would check for the other yeshivot as well, particularly Slobodka. Danny

Opposition to Mussar[edit]

Shouldn't there be something about the Misnagdic oppostion to Mussar, as well as Mussar's relationship to haskala and chassidus...and how it changed the dynamic of the Misnaged vs. Chassid vs. maskil complex? After all, why were the Netziv, the Soloveitchiks, and all the Volozhin and Brisk personalities so adamantly opposed to it?

Contemporary Mussar?[edit]

The article does not really indicate that the Mussar continues as a living movement. It might be well to indicate that there are living teachers, new developments, and expanding interest. Kwork 15:42, 10 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]


A section of the article briefly discusses the modern Mussar movement but the introduction and the scant information do not really reflect the breadth of the movement in the 21st century. It has broken out of the Orthodox tradition and is even practiced by many groups of non-Jews. See Alan Morinis in particular for more information. mussarinstitute.org would be a possible starting point. Information about women who have been important in shaping Mussar since the movement's inception would also be great, although I appreciate this is not easy to find. More about what practitioners actually do could be appropriate. The basic how-to of Mussar and its core values can be briefly summarized and there are many online descriptions of it. I am sorry I do not have time to take this on myself; please consider this a wish list. Props to the people who have been working on the page. Many thanks. Sainge.spin (talk) 05:51, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

New book[edit]

Sharing the Burden: Rabbi Simhah Zissel Ziv and the Path of Musar by Geoffrey D. Claussen, 2015, State University of New York Press Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 01:25, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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