Rav Moshe Chaim Luzzatto is one of the most interesting figures of Jewish modernity. Born in Italy in 1707, he was broadly educated, a prolific author who wrote not only Torah, but plays, and was deeply controversial. At the age of 20 he was exiled from his native land because he claimed to learn Torah from an angel (a maggid), and died young with his family in a plague at the age of 39. His most famous work today is מסילת ישרים, The Path of the Just (though he has many more). The work was made famous because of interest from the Gaon of Vilna who is famous for having said that the first ten chapters do not contain a superfluous word (note: I heard this comment from one of my Rabbeim in Yeshiva more than once, and was surprised to find it in the Wikipedia post linked above), and later, by the founder of the mussar movement, Rav Yisrael Salanter.
I’ve chosen to write about this sefer having just completed learning it. I learned a small amount of it every day as the mussar part of my daily learning seder, so it’s taken me a few months to do so. However, as the author notes in the introduction, it’s not the kind of book you read once or in one sitting, but review it again and again. This is true mainly because of human nature, and the need to keep moral, ethical and religious values at the forefront of one’s consciousness in order to be impactful. I also think this is true because the parts of the sefer that speak to a person changes over time as life circumstances change and experiences grow. It’s the kind of book that even if you can only read a page or two at a time, you can get through it once or twice a year with great benefit.
The sefer is built on a midrash that discusses the qualities one needs to take in order to reach kedushah, holiness. Rav Luzzatto’s understanding is that the midrash is hierarchical, and so discusses each quality, or midah, in order. In each of the chapters, he explains the midah, how to acquire it, and how to avoid the challenges it poses.
Rav Luzzatto’s worldview is fairly binary. The spiritual world is the ideal, and the physical world holds us back from spiritual achievement. While this approach sometimes makes sense to me, other times it seems to not reflect my experience of the world, and perhaps speaks to the appeal the more holistic approach of chassidut has for me. Nonetheless, his detailing of each midah is helpful and insightful.
Perhaps my favorite passage is at the beginning. Towards the end of the first chapter he says that, “The essence of a person’s existence in this world is solely for fulfilling of mitzvot, the serving of Hashem, and la’amod be’nisayon.” This last phase has always had a hold on me, and surprises me each time I read it. First, a translation. In the Feldheim translation it writes, “the withstanding of trials,” which to my mind sounds more like tolerating challenges, when the word amidah, standing, has a more positive and constructive connotation. Second, why does it strike me so? I find it uncontroversial and commonly said in our religious world that our purpose is to learn Torah, do mitzvot, and serve Hashem. But la’amod be’nisayon is never in that top-5 list of what our purpose is (even if it has religious value). If taken seriously, this means a number of things to me. It means that my day to day life, what happens to me and how I respond to what Hashem has put before more, is an intrinsic part of my purpose. It means that history matters because I, like all people, live in history. It’s not just about Torah being done or learned, about mitzvot being achieved (though it is of course both of those things). It’s about every moment of challenge and choice, and how I respond to it. That is the third pillar of my service of Hashem. I find this deeply meaningful, and helps me see Torah as personal. It challenges the notion of orthopraxy (i.e. the doing of mitzvot, the ticking of the boxes, even if done well) as a sufficiently desirable expectation from Hashem.
There are lots of mussar books to choose from, but one can never go wrong with Messilat Yesharim.
Just Because I Liked it:
- You may have heard the kerfuffle around Rav Yizchak Yosef’s shiur from last motzei Shabbat about drafting yeshiva bochurim in the IDF. He is a tremendous talmid chacham and deserves our deepest respect. As does this challenge to his perspective by Rav Tamir Granot, whose divrei Torah I’ve quoted many times, and who lost a son in this war (you can find a clip of Rav Yosef and a transcription and translation of Rav Granot’s words into English here).
- Though much of this will be obvious to people at Netivot, this piece about why we can’t stop the war in Gaza from a famous (Jewish) French intellectual is clear and powerful.
- Read this moving and powerful story about a famous Hollywood writer who made a Holocaust movie, which became all too personal.