Soul Trait Studio: Sivan 5785
Practice guide for the Soul Trait Studio mussar practice for Sivan 5785 focusing on the soul trait of truth | emet.
Each month I host an open session called Soul Trait Studio, a mussar practice session focused on the soul trait of the month. The current month is available to all and previous months are available to subscribers at the monthly, yearly, or beloved levels.
Soul Trait Studio Sivan is on 6/1/2025 from 3-4:30pm ET.
Register for this or future sessions at devotaj.com/soultraitstudio
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
Is it true?
Is it kind?
Is it necessary?
Hebrew:
זה אמת? זה חסד? זה הכרחי?
Ze emet? Ze chesed? Ze hekhrachi?
Is it true?
Is it kind?
Is it necessary?
Yiddish:
איז עס אמת? איז עס גוט? איז עס נייטיק?
Iz es emes? Iz es gut? Iz es neytik?
Is it true?
Is it kind?
Is it necessary?
Ladino:
איז אמת? איז בואינו? איז ניסיסאריו?
Iz emet? Iz bueno? Iz nesessario?
We begin with the aleph and end with the tav. The mem holds all that is in between.
Emet.
Emes.
Emet.
What is true?
—
by Ketzirah, inspired by a line in Mussar Yoga by Edith Brotman.
Soul Trait of the Month
The Journey:
Last month: Iyyar | Moon of Healing | Savlanut (סבלנות) Patience | Meyaledet (מילדת) Midwife
Now: Sivan | Moon of Receiving | Emet (אמת) Truth | Neviah (נביאה) Prophetess
Next Month: Tammuz | Moon of Fullness | B’lev Shalem (בלב שלם) Wholehearted
More on Emet:
Mussar Practice eBook with guides to each soul trait of the year (Devotaj.com)
Week 50: Emet (Devotaj Mussar with Me archives)
Making Mensches: A Periodic Table (JewishCamp.org)
Every Day, Holy Day: 365 Days of Teachings (Chapter 24 & 50) by Alan Morinis
Everyday Holiness by Alan Morinis (Chapter 18)
In Search of the Holy Life: Rediscovering the Kabbalistic Roots of Mussar by Ira Stone and Beulah Trey (Middah 10: Truth)
Mussar Torah Commentary , Barry H. Block editor (Parshiot Vay’chi & Yitro)
Jewish Word: Emet (Moment)
Truth is also an exercise, a judgment, and a test. The goal is to live truth according to the guidance of your discerning heart, for the sake of the soul you are as well as the souls of others. … Truth involves not only speaking accurately, but even more important and earlier in the process, seeing accurately. And since truths are often multiple, so must be our perspectives.
Alan Morinis, Everyday Holiness
Cheshbon HaNefesh:
What does emet (אמת) truth mean to you right now.
What does it mean to act with emet she’be tiferet?
What does it meant to behave with tiferet she’be emet?
Text Study
Partnered text study. One per breakout room.
Explore what the text teaches you about emet AND how working with the correspondences and counterweights help to unlock emet:
Correspondences:
Summer
Neviah (נביאה) Prophetess
Counterweights:
Winter
Yirah (יראה) Radical Amazement/Fear/Awe/Reverence (soul trait of Kislev)
Baalat Ov (בעלת אוב) Spirit Vessel/Witch/Shamaness
Text 1:
Shammai would have us make our personal perceptions our guide to truth. On the other hand, Hillel says that we need to challenge ourselves to see truth not only through our own eyes but also through the eyes of another person who is tied into the situation. Surely every groom considers his bride “beautiful and gracious.” Hillel advises us to review the matter patiently until we can enter into the perspective of the groom, through which we will also come to see the bride as “beautiful and gracious.” Hillel’s position guides us away from our typical tendency to see things only from our own singular perspective. He encourages us to stretch ourselves to see things through the eyes of other people. Truth involves not only speaking accurately, but even more important and earlier in the process, seeing accurately. And since truths are often multiple, so must be our perspectives.
Source: Everyday Holiness: The Jewish Spiritual Path of Mussar (p. 169), Alan Morinis
Text 2:
According to conventional wisdom, we arrive at shared truth only by confronting and correcting each other in debate. But my experience suggests that we rarely change our minds and move toward mutual understanding in the heat of argument. Instead, we become separated from each other, and from the inner teacher, by our fear of losing the battle-and the energy we expend trying to make sure that we win leaves us with no resources for reflection and transformation.
…
Truth evolves within us, between us, and around us as we participate in "the eternal conversation."
Source: A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life by Parker Palmer
Text 3:
Emet v’Emunah
This is true and I believe:
Being and Becoming is what we aspire to,
Love is the covenant.
Being and Becoming is the path we follow
To bring Olam Habah into Olam Hazeh.
Source: Ketzirah haMa’agelet
Note: This is my interpretation of the prayer that directly follows the V’ahavta (and you shall love) section of the Shema in many prayer books, for the evening service. In the morning service it’s called “Emet v’Yatziv” (true and enduring).
Resources:
Romemu Shabbat Day Siddur (page 74)
Emet v’Yatsiv, a paraliturgical reflection by Rabbi Shoshana Meira Friedman (OpenSiddur.org)
Emet v’Emunah, interpretive translation by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (OpenSiddur.org)
Emet V’Emunah, Romemu Kabbalat Shabbat Siddur (pg 50)
Text 4:
Ramḥal uses the Hebrew term meforsam, “evident,” which refers to those ideas that are known to us by virtue of what we can call “natural wisdom.” These are truths that we recognize on the basis of our innate ethical sensibility and for which we depend neither on extensive logical argumentation nor on revelation. We refer to this type of “truth” as the constitution of consciousness, as opposed to the content of consciousness.
Source: A Responsible Life: The Spiritual Path of Mussar, page 45
Text 5:
Honesty is often very hard. The truth is often painful. But the freedom it can bring is worth the trying.
But what if I could know the truth
And say just how I feel?
I think I’d learn a lot that’s real
About freedom.I’m learning to sing a sad song when I’m sad.
I’m learning to say I’m angry when I’m very mad.
I’m learning to shout,
I’m getting it out,
I’m happy, learning
Exactly how I feel inside of me.
I’m learning to know the truth.
I’m learning to tell the truth.
Discovering truth will make me free.
Source: Mr. Rogers (aka Fred M. Rogers)
Resources: “The Truth Will Make You Free” (1985)
Text 6:
A deep story is a feels-as-if story—it’s the story feelings tell, in the language of symbols. It removes judgment. It removes fact. It tells us how things feel. Such a story permits those on both sides of the political spectrum to stand back and explore the subjective prism through which the party on the other side sees the world. And I don’t believe we understand anyone’s politics, right or left, without it. For we all have a deep story.
There are many kinds of deep story, of course. Lovers come to know each other’s childhood in order to understand how it feels to be the other person; they learn a personal deep story. Foreign leaders and diplomats try to understand national deep stories in order to relate more effectively to world leaders. They gather international deep stories.
Arlie Hochschild, Strangers in Their Own Land
Incantations*:
May I be aware of truth and the masks that we wear. Let truth be revealed and our falsehoods laid bare.
May my dreams be 1/60 of prophecy and my truth be 1/60 of the world to come.
Like a match reveals the flame, as I clap three times the truth I claim.
Pretty my lips but don’t soften the bite. Let me speak truth but nothing out of spite. (Found on tumblr years ago. Great for enchanting lip balm/gloss)
*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
Root emet (אמת) in your body through visualization, movement, chant, or drawing them on your body.
Try placing the Aleph (א), Mem (מ), and Tav (ת) in different places on your body. These letters are the beginning middle and end of the aleph-bet and in Jewish teachings the letters are the foundations of creation.
Where do the letters live when you need to speak truth? Where do they live when you need to protect yourself from someone else’s harmful truth? Where do you place them (or from where do they emerge) when you need to transform reality by reshaping old beliefs into a more expansive truth? Practice so you can use these when needed.
Mitzvah
I translate 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.
Hone your Bullshit Meter
In these times when powerful, powerful leaders are stating blatant lies as “truth” and even the media won’t call it a lie. Embody Charlie Cale or Lying Cat and call it out. Even if you can’t do it to them. Note it. Write it down. Bear witness to the lies and speak the truth, at least to yourself!
“Nah, I got this thing, uh, I'm like the.
The dog that can smell, uh, cancer?
Uh, sure. Uh, yes.
Uh, I'm like that, but with bullshit.”
~Charlie Cale, Poker Face
Keep a Truth Journal
At the end of each day, write down the moments you were less than truthful with yourself or others. Take it in as information without judgment . At the end of each week or the end of the month, examine where/why/when you chose to not be fully truthful.
[inspired by a practice found in Mussar Yoga by Edith Brotman]
Journaling Prompts:
WHAT does Emet (אמת) Truth mean to you?
What does it mean to act with emet she’be chesed?
What does it meant to behave with chesed she’be emet?
WHICH truths don’t you experience through your own life and need to work to understand through others’ experience?
WHEN have you easily told the truth, and when have you easily lied or shaded the truth?
HOW do you differentiate truth from fact and fact from truth?
WHEN is it more important to be compassionate than speak truth? When is the compassionate choice to share your truth?
Closing Chant
Is it true?
Is it kind?
Is it necessary?
Hebrew:
זה אמת? זה חסד? זה הכרחי?
Ze emet? Ze chesed? Ze hekhrachi?
Is it true?
Is it kind?
Is it necessary?
Yiddish:
איז עס אמת? איז עס גוט? איז עס נייטיק?
Iz es emes? Iz es gut? Iz es neytik?
Is it true?
Is it kind?
Is it necessary?
Ladino:
איז אמת? איז בואינו? איז ניסיסאריו?
Iz emet? Iz bueno? Iz nesessario?
We begin with the aleph and end with the tav. The mem holds all that is in between.
Emet.
Emes.
Emet.
What is true?
—
by Ketzirah, inspired by a line in Mussar Yoga by Edith Brotman.
Thank you