Orthodox and Non-Orthodox Judaism part 12

In my previous post, I outlined the birth of the Musar approach. Rabbi Yisrael Salanter wrote little, but urged the implementation of Musar study by scholars and laymen alike. Musar literature was a vast, largely untapped resource, that needed to be a part of everyone's consciousness. His students continued this approach, despite the objections of those who saw this as a dangerous departure from the classical Yeshivah tradition of study. In the next generation, two disciples arose with greatly differing approaches to the practice of Musar.
One was Rabbi Nassan Tzvi Finkel, the "Alter (Old Man) of Slobodka". His approach to Musar was to emphasize what is POSSIBLE. Man is created in the image of G-d. The Midrash says that when Adam was created, the angels wanted to sing praise to him as they do before G-d. Man's rightful state is nearly divine. If a person would study and live Torah, he could fulfill his destiny, being right with G-d, right with the world, and right with himself. What is keeping us back? Only our feelings of insecurity, a poor self-image, and depression. What about the traditional Torah emphasis on humility? That doesn't apply to the average person, bowed down with feelings of worthlessness. Arrogance, for those people, is merely a show; a mask hiding their negative feelings. Musar, in Slobodka, became an exercise in gaining a sense of self-worth, leading to a better sense of our importance, and encouraging us to serve both G-d and our fellow man. The Slobodka approach is the one that became most widely accepted, and is practiced today in most Lithuanian-type Yeshivot. Critics will say that this produces a cadre of egocentric scholars, basking in the glow of their own imagined self-worth. I tend to agree.
The other disciple was Rabbi Yosef Yozel Horwitz of Nevardok. His approach was exactly the opposite of Slobodka. Ego needs to be broken, in order to let the Divine shine within us. His students will do things designed to attract ridicule; for instance, going into a bakery and ordering a pound of nails. The baker, as well as the customers, will laugh at him and call him names. The student will experience shame, thus weakening, and finally breaking his ego. (It is rumored that some bakeries leave a pound of nails under the counter, in case a Nevardoker will come by). This is by far less practiced, but remains the approach of a few Yeshivot.
These schools of Musar have produced an entire literature of ethics and self-improvement. While positive, it has been argued that these works suffer from a very limited understanding of human psychology, and have not drawn upon the great advances in this field that have taken place in the last one hundred and fifty years.
Interestingly, in recent years, the Conservative and Reform seminaries have introduced elective courses in Musar. Also, a number of non-affiliated groups have remade Musar, including ideas of great psychologists who lived after the era of the rabbis of Slobodka and Nevardok. Some even encourage the study of Musar for non-Jews.
Today, in the "Yeshivah World" there are those who still shun Musar, but most have included it as a vital part of actually living that which we study. Personally, while I revere many of the classics of Musar, I am left unmoved by later Musar works. They read more like Dale Carnegie books for self-help, rather than as directions to find G-d. In my estimation, Hasidism is light years ahead of nineteenth and twentieth-century Musar. In my next post, I will show how the counter-culture movement of the late '60s and early '70s gave birth to two mostly, but not exclusively, non-Orthodox approaches to Judaism.