The first of these schools is predicated on the subjugation of the material
and demonstrating its unworthy crassness. This includes any improper
propensities one might possess, such as overindulging in eating and other
physical delights in common with animals. When a human conducts himself like an
animal, he debases himself even more than a brute creature. For lacking the
power of reason, an animal is unable to desire anything loftier than its own
physical gratification. A human, however, is endowed with intelligence enabling
him to aspire to something higher, to moral virtue, to intellectual values. When
he prefers physical pleasures he is more degenerate than an animal. This school,
which rejects the material by depicting the baseness of physical pleasures and
passions, and by describing their dire consequences, is the school of Musar.
The second school stresses the qualities of the spiritual, of morality and
intellect. It teaches the means of attaining these higher goals, exalting them
as the basis of perfection and the aim of Creation, making this world a fitting
fulfillment of His desire for an abode in the lower 1 worlds. This is the school of
Chakira, religious philosophy.
The highest school expounds the superiority of form over matter. It
emphasizes the value of purified matter (physical matter that is consecrated to
a higher, spiritual purpose, and that thus ceases to be merely physical);
and of form when embodied in matter (the spiritual that influences and elevates
physical matter, and itself is no longer merely ethereal), in an
inseparable and harmonious union. In this union there is no beginning or ending,
no superior or inferior; each is essential to the other; each is implanted
within the other. One G-d created them both for
the identical purpose of revealing His Holy Light, and only in perfect unity do
they achieve the perfection He desired. This is the approach of Chasidus.
LOGIN
ASK THE RABBI
