Maggid - Motivation and Admonishment

Motivation and Admonishment

Elijah b. Solomon Abraham of Smyrna, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, published his "Shebet' Musar", which he divided into fifty-two chapters, one for each week. This book caused him to be known as the "Terror Maggid"; he preached moral and religious conduct as a safeguard against the terrible punishments of the day of judgment. Dante could not picture the horrors of hell and the punishments awaiting the wicked more minutely than did the author of the "Shebet' Musar". It established a new "fire and brimstone" school of maggidim. Musar ("Admonishment") is a thread in traditional Jewish thought that seeks ethical inspiration, integrity or admonishment to motivate religious devotion. Classic texts of ethical guidance from the Middle Ages articulate spiritual and psychological levels to righteousness. The later 19th Century Musar movement sought to incorporate spiritual introspection and self-analysis into the scholarly yeshiva curriculum. The Musar movement seeks to inspire spiritual advancement by discovering personal integrity and revealing the unworthiness of material temptations. Its spirituality does not always describe rewards and punishments, but admonishment can be a factor. It can draw ethical lessons from Jewish mysticism, but is often compared and contrasted with the mystical paths to inspiration of Kabbalistic dveikus (cleaving to God), and the popularisation of mystical fervour in Hasidism. Typically, Hasidism avoids rebuke of punishments, replacing it with shame and remorse from nullification of self-awareness, before the omnipresent Divine presence that awakens joy.

Judah Rosanes of Constantinople (d. 1727), in his "Parashat Derakim," combined the darshan with the maggid. He adopted a new method of harmonizing the acts of Biblical personages with the legal views of Talmudic scholars. For instance, Pharaoh, in refusing to release Israel from bondage, acted according to the contention of Abaye, while Moses insisted on Israel's release in accordance with the decision of Rabba. This farfetched pilpulism had many followers, some of whom asserted that Ahasuerus concurred in the decision of Maimonides, and that Vashti coincided with the opinion of RaBaD.