Book Review: Everyday Holiness

From the very beginning, I must confess that I am not a big fan - at all - of books about spiritual memories and journeys, awakenings and various wake-up calls. I am trying to keep myself as much as possible on the rational side of the road, wherever it leads. In addition, given the huge mountain of books written by respected spiritual masters that is waiting for me on the left part of my writing desk, I would rather avoid to get lost in comments and stories originating from sources unknown to me other than by name. The motto of the month is: write the sources and know the basics and later continue with your meditations and speculations of various kinds.

On the other hand, as in the last 10 days I was relatively out of my daily routine - meaning reading a lot and learning even more each day - I decided to include this Mussar book on Everyday Holiness part of the process of readjustment to the "normal" life back home. In a way, it resumes partially some of my recent attempts of getting familiar with the Mussar, an area that I avoided for year because not considered myself "smart" enough to understand and follow the techniques correctly. My later immersion was made with a lot of humility and attention and still consider myself a perfect beginner. This book helped me to understand the practice and to keep in mind a couple of ideas to be used after further documentation and discussion.

The style is accessible, with lots of quotations, stories and direct experiences of the author, with a direct address to the ways in which Mussar techniques are a guidance in the daily life, its limits and what we can do in order to improve our results. The element that convinced me to continue reading the book was the honesty: in comparison with other similar experiences I'd read long ago, you are periodically warned that Mussar isn't easy and not something that you do by closing the eyes and forcing yourself to have a colorful dream. Mussar, we are told, is about efforts, self-control and discipline that you are practising every single moment of your day. This is a realistic description applied to everything we do as Jews. And, the author quotes the words of Rav Salanter, the father of Mussar, according to which if something looks as perfect and easy for sure we are missing something. Daily challenges are about putting yourself on trial, evaluating your actions and more often, taking decisions and acting accordingly with the Torah learning. We are stumbling, or hesitating or doing mistakes but this is how we are improving and developing your inner strength.

Step-by-step and page by page, this book brought me back to my world of learning!

Shavua tov!