The Middot: Traits to Balance
Mussar teachings speak of balance. If I ask you when you’ve felt out of balance, chances are you can think of times when you felt a lack of control, perhaps confronted illness, or maybe when you just had a general feeling of being unsettled. This past year we can all point to times when events in the world around us upset our balance and pushed us back on our heels. Striving to restore balance, even in the face of personal upset or world affairs, is a central feature of Mussar teachings. As we seek to achieve that internal balance, our interactions with others are not only more meaningful, they are also more virtuous.
The teachers of Mussar identified traits, or middot, that they understood as being two opposing characteristics that we must strive to balance. Both must exist in tension, but when one or the other becomes dominant we’ve lost control; the self we wish to be in the world is out of balance. The purity of our soul is overshadowed by the dominance of the negative middah (singular middot).
Here are middot that stand opposite each other:
- patience / impatience
- generosity / stinginess
- gratitude / deprivation
- trust / worry or fear
- honor / judgmental
- enthusiasm / laziness
When a negative middah surfaces, Mussar challenges us to counteract it with its positive counterpart. Feeling impatient? Breathe and manifest patience. Caught in a spiral of fear? Focus on how you engage others with trust. Notice yourself expressing stinginess? Compensate by being excessively generous. By consciously redirecting ourselves, we align our actions with our ideals and reflect our pure souls to the world.
Challenge: Choose two opposing middot from the list. Throughout your day, notice when the negative side arises and actively practice its opposite. Share the light of your soul through these small but meaningful actions.
Share the light of your pure soul with the world!
–Rabbi Ron Stern
Source here.