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Mussar Leadership

Contemporary Jewish Practice for Responsible Living

 

 

Va'ad Protocols


MUSSAR CLASS SCHEDULE
6:30 – 7:00   Rabbi Stone available for appointments
7:00 – 7:30   Rabbi’s Stone's Shiur (whole group)
7:30 – 7:40   Break
7:40 – 8:10   Seder (small groups)
8:10 – 8:55   Va'ad (small groups)
8:55 – 9:00   Kaddish d'Rabanan (whole group)
  1. Rabbi’s Shiur (7:00 – 7:30)
  2. Break (7:30 – 7:40)
  3. Seder (7:40 – 8:10)
    1. What questions/discoveries do you want to raise?
    2. Teaching from the text
    3. Discussion
  4. Va'ad (8:10 –8:55)
    1. Check-in
      • Cheshbon/Journaling/Middah
      • Torah Study
      • Hevruta
      • Mitzvah
    2. D'var Torah — The weekly parshah and through the lens of the middah
    3. Niggun — (See examples)
    4. Middah meditation
      5. [Narrate encounters they might have had around the middot.] You’ve come into this space. Go back an hour before you got here. Think about driving here. Did you cut someone else? Did you look into their eyes when you did that? —
      • Look at the other.
      • Look at the face of the other.
      • What do you see in that face?
      • What was the impact of your actions?
      First discussion is about what piece of your ego came into play in this particular encounter – how much of it was legitimate and how much coming from over compensation or defensiveness – and if you got rid of that part – what would fill the void – (the answer is the other).
    5. Discussion.
      1. Who is the other?
      2. What was the burden of the other?
      3. What in this middah (or other middot if this one doesn’t work) that is called into play at this moment? Did you notice a way that your mitzvah played a role in your struggle with this middah?
      4. How did your yetzer hara keep you from accessing the middah?
      5. What was the actual concern of the yetzer hara?
      6. Recognize that the yetzer hara had some real concerns. They are legitimate and affirmed. In the context of those concerns– what range of solutions would have honored those and allowed you to access your yetzer hatov for this middah?
        7.  Open up to other Va'ad members. What is their thinking about the other and the middah?
      7. What new understandings and/or intentions do other Va'ad members have of the middah after hearing this situation?
        8. [Intervene if it is about the va’ad member speaking and not about the story.]
      8. Then back to person . . .
      9. Madrich: Last words –
        • Was it kibush or tikkun?
        • Something to do in journal.