"The Duties of the Heart" Gate 9, Introduction

"In Search of Spiritual Excellence"

-- A Reworking of Classical Mussar Texts

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman's series on www.torah.org
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"The Duties of the Heart" Gate 9, Introduction

Abstinence is probably the most demanding condition for spiritual excellence, since at bottom we all tend to indulge while abstinence demands that we withhold. It also asks us to hone our allegiances and declare which we favor: heavenly or earthly delights (of course the Torah allows for both at the same time, but we're talking about *favoring* one over the other).

The assumption is that since we'd learned all we had in our introspections about what truly matters and what doesn't, about what we already have and what we can do without, that we'd be more inclined by now to abstain from some earthly things than we'd thought we could. And indeed, the wise reader will come to that point, we're told, and will worship more deeply and be better off both spiritually and materially as a consequence.

We'll be explaining the difference between "conventional" abstinence and the kind that the Torah requires of us, and we'll examine the various sorts of abstainers, the criteria for beneficial and appropriate abstinence, how the Torah and the Books of the Prophets depict abstinence, and we'll discover the difference between the way our ancestors abstained from things and how we're to abstain.

(c) 2005 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman and Torah.org

(Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org )

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AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman's translation of "The Gates of Repentance" has been reissued at *at a discount*! You can order it right now by logging onto www.tinyurl.com/49s8t (or by going to www.rowman.com and searching for it). Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has translated and commented upon "The Gates of Repentance", "The Path of the Just", and "The Duties of the Heart" (Jason Aronson Publishers). And his new work on Maimonides' "The Eight Chapters" will soon be available from Judaica Press.
His works are available in bookstores and in various locations on the Web.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled "Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal".