An Assimilated Jew’s Connection With an Old Tradition

What’s a secularized Jew got to do to get a little bit of spiritual enlightenment? Alan Morinis thinks he has the answer in “Climbing Jacob’s Ladder.”

The only problem, however, is that the Jewish teaching that Morinis claims to rediscover, known as the Mussar Movement, was never really lost. It just didn’t exist in the world that Morinis knew.

Like many assimilated Jews of the mid-20th century, Morinis had come to a point in his life where the formality of the synagogue and the sterility of some of its services left him feeling that Judaism didn’t offer any particular path toward what Eastern religions consider enlightenment.

After a series of setbacks suffered in midlife, he wished to connect more deeply to his own spiritual tradition. It was a course that spurred Morinis to rediscover Judaism in a way that offered, in his mind, the same spiritual satisfaction he had encountered in Hinduism, which he had studied as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford. In his search he discovered the Mussar Movement.

Mussar has roots in medieval Judaism, but it enjoyed a revival in Eastern Europe during the early 19th century when Jews, granted civil rights by the Napoleonic reforms, faced the prospect of becoming secular and assimilated citizens.

Some in the Orthodox world responded by reviving the Mussar tradition in the hope of binding individuals to a more religious life.

A school of thought that emphasizes spiritual and ethical behavior in the spirit of halakah, Jewish law, Mussar prescribes a regimen of study, reflection and self-examination to subdue egotism and selfishness and to force into sharp relief the true self so practitioners can improve upon it.

Mussar is not a mystical tradition per se, but in Morinis’ eye, it offers a similar goal to that of Hinduism, conveniently placed in a Jewish package.

Morinis erroneously assumed that the Mussar Movement had all but disappeared in the flames of the Holocaust. It hadn’t. Mussar had primarily become a method for teaching children and had been incorporated into the educational fabric of many yeshivas, centers of traditional Jewish learning.

Mussar exists in the Orthodox world, but Morinis, raised on “gefilte fish and Milton Berle,” had never encountered it.

The steps he takes in order to attain spiritual fulfillment--to “climb Jacob’s ladder”--are thoughtfully detailed as a series of metaphorical gates. Morinis clearly wants his readers to discover, as he did, that the world is a holy place in every situation, and acts of tzedek, or lovingkindness, can be performed anywhere.

It is striking, however, that Morinis must go on a spiritual journey to discover the sweetness of his own religion.

Unfortunately, in embracing Mussar, Morinis romanticizes the Orthodox world as only a secular Jew who sees himself returning to his roots could do.

When he talks about bringing his wife, Bev, a doctor, to the home of his teacher, Rabbi Yechiel Yitzchok Perr, he observes the strict social separation of men and women.

“The women we met were anything but docile or cowed by the roles they had been assigned,” he writes. “Many of them ... were bright, educated, inquisitive, strong and even outspoken.”

If only that were the case: Though women do have a role in traditional Orthodox Judaism, they are considered inferior religiously to men, who are the only members of the community entitled to study some of the spiritual truths Morinis holds dear.

Much as Lis Harris did in “Holy Days,” her account of Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn, Morinis perceives the world of religious Jews as holding a meaning and warmth not found in many places in our modern world, and indeed, Judaism is an ethical guide for living that places an emphasis on community.

The Mussar Movement, however, is not entirely radical, and Morinis’ portrait of his spiritual growth, as deeply felt as it is, is less revelatory than sensible, if one is to live a life of meaning as an ethical and caring person.

But “Climbing Jacob’s Ladder” is a compelling portrait of the relationship between a student and a teacher, and Morinis’ journey--as an assimilated Jew entering the Orthodox world of yeshiva--raises important questions about the meaning of Judaism and the search for spirituality in this world.

The answers that Morinis finds with the help of Rabbi Perr form the cornerstone of the author’s transformation and the heart of his real story.

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Ruth Andrew Ellenson writes about religion, arts and culture for the Forward, People magazine and the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles.