Soul Trait Studio: Sivan 5783
Soul Trait Studio: Sivan 5783
Practice guide for the Soul Trait Studio mussar practice for Sivan 5783 (05/21/23) 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. 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 Sivan 5783 is May 21, 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
I will believe the truth about myself no matter how beautitful it is
Oh oh oh…Yah Eloheichem Emet
Oh oh oh…Yah Eloheichen Emet
Oh oh oh…Yah Eloheikhel Emet
—
English and Melody by Kohenet Bekah Starr. Hebrew from inherited Ashkenazic liturgy, added by Kohenet Ketzirah.
Translation: Yah your Divine is Truth (in masculine, feminine, and non-binary Hebrew)
Note: non-binary conjugation of “your G!d/dess” via Inclusive Siddur Project
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 chesed?
What does it meant to behave with chesed 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:
Sivan (May/June)
Summer
Shavuot
Neviah (נביאה) Prophetess
Counterweights:
Kislev (Nov/Dec)
Winter
Hanukkah
Yirah (יראה) Radical Amazement/Fear/Awe/Reverence (soul trait of Kislev)
Baalat Ov (בעלת אוב) Spirit Vessel/Witch/Shamaness
Text 1:
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 2:
Most middot can be expressed in terms of a continuum. We strive to achieve a balance somewhere along the line. Instinctively, we would think that the spectrum of truth would have as its polarities absolute truth and falsehood. Indeed, Rabbi [Menachem Mendel] Levin describes truth as an absolute value.
By contrast, Alan Morinis teaches, “The Mussar tradition offers us more mature and down-to-earth guidance based on the recognition that in this complex life, different values can compete with one another in any situation, and literal truth isn’t always meant to be the victor. It is given over to us, in our humanity, to use our judgment to define truth and to decide how to apply it.” Morinis here suggests that the continuum may range from sharing to not sharing that truth with ourselves and others. We must consider when to share, when not to, as well as how to tell the truth while at the same time mitigating the consequences that sharing might cause.
Source: The Mussar Torah Commentary, page 75-76
Text 3:
EMET, there is no place where You are not; even in the wilderness there is Your word.
EMET, that pen strokes of lightning, white fire, black flame, stir the soul’s passion, guide our sacred way. True and enduring is Torah.
Your truth for us is certain and established, now and forever more. Like Moses, Miriam and all Israel, we sing out and rejoice!
—
Emet v’yatziv... true and enduring... We join the last words of the Sh’ma to Emet as a statement of ongoing commitment to the truth. G!d/dess’ word is the promise that we will survive evil and uphold the vision of freedom and peace. This prayer affirms that G!d/dess is the sole power in the universe and that G!d/dess has the power to bring about redemption.
Source: Mishkan Tefilah: A Reform Siddur, page 121
Note: this prayer directly follows the V’ahavta (and you shall love) section of the Shema in many prayer books, for the morning service. The text above appears as a poetic introduction to the prayer in Mishkan Tefilah: A Reform Siddur and the second part of the text is a note at the bottom of the of the page in the prayer book. In the evening service there is a similar prayer called Emet v’Emunah (truth and faith)
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
I wish we could stop the little lies.I don’t mean one hasta be brutally frank.I don’t believe we should be brutal about anything, however, it is wonderfully liberating to be honest.One does not have to tell all one knows, but we should be careful what we do say is the truth.
Let’s tell the truth to people. When people ask, ‘How are you?’ have the nerve sometimes to answer truthfully. You must know, however, that people will start avoiding you because, they, too, have knees that pain them and heads that hurt and they don’t want to know about yours. But think of it this way: If people avoid you, you will have more time to meditate and do fine research on a cure for whatever truly afflicts you.
Source: Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter (page 37-38)
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 believes into 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.
Holding the Multiverse:
When someone’s truth challenges your reality, pause, and make space to get curious about the roots of their truth*.
Keep a journal about the experiences. Is it based in fact or their lived experience? Is their’s based in love and expansiveness or rooted in fear? Does their truth negate your existence or simply offer them another way of being? Does your truth make space for theirs? Are you able to hold both truths? What does making space for both truths cost them — what does it cost you?
*If you have been harmed by racism, sexism, ethnophobia, transphobia, or homophobia — then use your judgement about whether or not this is a good exercise for you. If it doesn’t feel expansive then explore the the alternative practice.
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
I will believe the truth about myself no matter how beautitful it is
Oh oh oh…Yah Eloheichem Emet
Oh oh oh…Yah Eloheichen Emet
Oh oh oh…Yah Eloheikhel Emet
—
English and Melody by Kohenet Bekah Starr. Hebrew from inherited Ashkenazic liturgy, added by Kohenet Ketzirah.
Translation: Yah your Divine is Truth (in masculine, feminine, and non-binary Hebrew)
Note: non-binary conjugation of “your G!d/dess” via Inclusive Siddur Project