Soul Trait Studio: Nisan 5784
Practice guide for the Soul Trait Studio mussar practice for Nisan 5784 (04/14/2024) focusing on the soul trait of "simcha" | joy.
Each month I host an open session called Soul Trait Studio, a mussar practice session focused on the soul trait of the month. As of 5783, the Monthly Session guides are now stored here on devotaj.substack.com. The current month is available to all and previous months are available to subscribers at the monthly, yearly, or beloved levels.
Come when you can. All registrants for the month will receive the video the following day. The Soul Trait Studio for Nisan 5783 is March 26, 2023 from 3-4:30pm ET on Zoom, registration required - no charge but your time.
I consider your time to be the exchange for this offering, which is why I don’t charge money to register. While it is always an option to attend on your own time, via the recording I send out the next day, these sessions remain free of monetary charge because of those who do commit to attending in real time.
Learn More
Devotaj Sacred Arts: Mussar Practice eBook with guides to each soul trait of the year
Register for this and upcoming sessions: devotaj.com/soultraitstudio
Monthly Practice
Note: we rarely get through all of this during the 90 minute session, so consider the entirety of it to be an invitation for your personal practice this month. This guide will remain available to all until the end of the month. Previous monthly guides are available to subscribers at the monthly, yearly, or beloved levels.
Opening
LaY'hudim Haytah orah v'simcha v'sason vikar.
Ken tih'yeh lanu.
ליהודים היתה אורה, ושמחה, וששון, ויקר.
כן תהיה לנו.
~ Noam Katz (tune)
Translation:The Jews had light and joy and gladness and honor. So be it with us. (Esther 8:16.) Source: Ritual Well
Soul Trait of the Month
The Journey:
Last month: Adar II | Moon of Revealing | Zehirut (זהירות) Illuminated Awareness | Leitzanit (ליצנית) Sacred Fool
Now: Nisan | Moon of Speaking | Simcha (שמחה) Joy | Na’arah (נערה) Maiden
Next Month: Iyyar | Moon of Healing | Savlanut (סבלנות) Patience | Meyaledet (מילדת) Midwife
More on Simcha:
Mussar Practice eBook with guides to each soul trait of the year (Devotaj.com)
Simcha: Week 3 Mussar with Me (Devotaj Mussar with Me archives)
Making Mensches: A Periodic Table (JewishCamp.org)
Simcha - Joy: Find Pleasure in Life (Sefaria)
Every Day Holy Day by Alan Morinis
Pleasure Activism by adrienne maree brown
Inciting Joy by Ross Gay
Cheshbon HaNefesh:
What does simcha (שמחה) joy mean to you right now.
Joy is the inner feeling that emerges from an openhearted connection with an other or others in which the barriers of separation are dissolved. (Alan Morinis)
What does it mean to act with simcha she’be gevurah?
What does it meant to behave with gevurah she’be simcha?
Text Study
Partnered text study. One per breakout room.
Explore what the text teaches you about simcha AND what other soul traits it helps you recognize as being keys to unlocking simcha.
Text 1:
But making joy holy means being selective in the enjoyment of God’s gifts, not worshiping those gifts or those who own them. The first and foremost expression of this insight is to share the bounty and the joy. Gifts from the harvest were given to the poor: “You shall rejoice before the Lord. You, your son and daughter, manservant and maid, the Levite… the stranger, the orphan, the widow in your midst.”
Deuteronomy 16:11 (via Sefaria)
Text 2:
I think of Judaism as an ode to joy. Like Beethoven, Jews have known suffering, isolation, hardship, and rejection, yet they never lacked the religious courage to rejoice. A people that can know insecurity and still feel joy is one that can never be defeated, for its spirit can never be broken nor its hope destroyed. As individuals we may aspire to the goodness that leads to happiness, but as part of a moral and spiritual community, even in hard times we find ourselves lifted on the wings of joy.
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z”l (Essays on Ethics, p. 315)
Text 3:
Another part of the Puritan legacy is the belief that no one should have joy or abundance until everyone does, a belief that’s austere at one end, in the deprivation it endorses, and fantastical in the other, since it awaits a universal utopia. Joy sneaks in anyway, abundance cascades forth uninvited.
…
Joy doesn't betray but sustains activism.
And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated, and isolated, joy is a fine initial act of insurrection.
Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark
Text 4:
“Laughter is important. Joy is important. It’s not a guilty pleasure, it is a strategic move towards the future we all need to create. One in which our children are laughing, our children are free. They can go wherever they need to go. There are no borders holding them. That is what I am living and loving for.”
adrienne maree brown, from an interview on Truth Be Told
Text 5:
In trying to articulate what, perhaps, joy is, it has occurred to me that among other things—the trees and the mushrooms have shown me this—joy is the mostly invisible, the underground union between us, you and me, which is, among other things, the great fact of our life and the lives of everyone and thing we love going away.
If we sink a spoon into that fact, into the duff between us, we will find it teeming. It will look like all the books ever written. It will look like all the nerves in a body. We might call it sorrow, but we might call it a union, one that, once we notice it, once we bring it into the light, might become flower and food. Might be joy.”
Ross Gay, Inciting Joy: Essays
Incantations*:
I cultivate joy. I am still and at ease. I give myself permission to experience beauty, love, and all pleasures that truly please. (inspired by adrieene maree brown)
I tap into the underground union between I and we. Joy alight, ingite, and be free. (Inspired by Ross Gay)
I sob so I may smile. I weep so I may release. Let this be a time for joy and a time for peace.
*The term from inherited forms of mussar is “affirmations”. Feel free to think of them this way, if it’s more aligned and/or nourishing for you.
Embodied Practice
Commit to dancing 5 minutes a day. Dance to the music of now. Dance to the music of your youth. Dance to your “guilty pleasures.” Just dance.
(inspired by Kohenet Bekah Starr)
Mitzvah*
Practice "attention liberation" which is taking your attention away from what you cannot change and focus on the helpers.
Then, do an inventory of your life. Specifically, identify the spaces you feel in absolute alignment with yourself and out of alignment (i.e. “I say I care about food justice but I buy McDonald’s every time I’m at the airport”) “Joy is a practice.”
adrienne maree brown in an interview with Tonya Mosley, on Truth Be Told
Learn more the idea of “attention liberation”
*I use the translation mitzvah as “sacred connective action.” In other forms of mussar this part of the practice is often called kabbalot, committed practices to help you take the practice in the world around you.
Journaling Prompts:
WHAT does Simcha (שמחה) Joy mean to you?
What does it mean to act with simcha she’be gevurah?
What does it meant to behave with gevurah she’be simcha?
HOW do you differentiate between joy and happiness?
WHEN are you most aware of joy?
WHERE in your body does joy reside?
Closing Chant
LaY'hudim Haytah orah v'simcha v'sason vikar.
Ken tih'yeh lanu.
ליהודים היתה אורה, ושמחה, וששון, ויקר.
כן תהיה לנו.
~ Noam Katz (tune)
Translation:The Jews had light and joy and gladness and honor. So be it with us. (Esther 8:16.) Source: Ritual Well