BIBLICAL MUSSAR
BIBLICAL MUSSAR
The fifty lessons in this foundational Biblical Mussar course will leave you more alive, free, and happier than you could dare to hope. You probably want to see why right away, but why not read the backstory first?
In the last chapter I explained to you what Mussar means and then told you the story of the Mussar Center, including how I founded it back in 2020. I wanted to keep things as simple as possible and just create video courses, so I got started right away. It wasn't even three months later, in January 2021, that I released the first lesson in what I went on to call the 'Biblical Mussar' course. In that first lesson I introduced what these videos would be about, explained the ❦ symbol, and then finished with the three things I concluded each of these conversations with: practical assignments, a "mazal tov" celebration, and a special personal blessing.
After that I did something that had never been done before: I took the biggest words in Mussar, Hebrew words that are too big for English, words like mussar, tochacha, and tikkun, and I mined them to their very depths: digging down to their verbal roots, revealing further layers of meaning by exploring the etymological families they belonged to, and then showing how these words were used in the Hebrew Bible. And all of this in a warm, relevant, and gut-wrenchingly personal way.
I may have used a simple conversational style throughout these conversations, but that doesn't mean they were light on content. Every lesson was packed with information and applications that required days of research and prayerful thought to put together. On top of that, the Mussar Center wasn't a viable source of income, so I was only able to work on these videos on the side. This made it a source of even greater joy when, four years later in 2025, I was finally able to release the fiftieth lesson and complete the Biblical Mussar Course!
The fact that it took so long to complete this course doesn't mean I didn't take it seriously. Halfway through I even stepped back, took an audit of all my projects, and asked myself, "If I were to die young, which of these would I most want to finish before I went?" The answer was, this course, because even then I believed that it would be the most important thing that I would teach. I even wondered if this was divinely hinted at in Hebrew Quest where, at the beginning of each lesson, I lit my little clay lamp and then read Proverbs 6:23 which begins by comparing torah to the light of a lamp and then finishes by proclaiming that mussar is the way to life!
But why, you may ask, is this course so important to me? Well, for two reasons. Firstly, I believe that Mussar is what this world most needs - because changing the world starts with changing yourself. If you're sincerely working on yourself, wanting to learn and grow, and reaching out to God, then he's going to meet you there, grant you those desires, and take you on a journey of healing and renewal that will ultimately overflow into the lives of everyone around you. But if you don't want anything, then that's exactly what you'll get: nothing. And that's all it takes for the world to go to hell. It all starts with Mussar.
The second reason this course is so close to my heart is that I packed it with the stuff that I would most want to teach my kids: not only the basics of daily Mussar practice, but the skills they'll need to navigate life and do well. How to have strong boundaries and difficult conversations, how to be intentional about who and what gets their attention and emotional energy, and so much more. There is evil in this world, and we all get hurt at some point. I love my little people so much and I just want to shield them from it all, forever, but...(I'm writing this with tears in my eyes) I know I can't. What I CAN do, though, is what I've done in these conversations: prepare them for the challenges of life so that, no matter the trials, they'll have what it takes to come through with flying colours and be okay.
And not just my kids, either. I want every child and teenager to work through this course, because it really will give them what they need to survive and thrive. And for those of us who never learned these critical life lessons when we were young, it's not too late! Our parents may have failed to teach us these things, but we can teach ourselves, and even more importantly: we can allow God to parent us in the ways we needed but never experienced. That's what this Biblical Mussar course is all about.
How do I know there's a real hunger for this message? After finishing this course, in the summer of 2025, we ran our first 'Mussar Marathon' on YouTube by live streaming these fifty conversations, back to back, over and over. The response? Over the course of the next week over 20,000 viewers joined our live stream, racking up a combined watchtime of over 20,000 hours! Who would have thought that a course like this, focused on inner work and character development, and taught from a Biblical Hebrew perspective no less, would get that kind of attention? But that's the time we're living in.
Keep that in mind as you look over the titles and descriptions of these lessons. What is it about this message that our generation so wants and needs? And how could you be a part of it? Maybe not even just working through the course yourself, but inviting a couple friends to join you? And maybe that would just be the beginning...