Musar Topics for School Report

Here’s a story I posted in the gedolim stories thread.

R’ Moshe was hounded by someone who disagreed with something that R’ Moshe had paskened. The man went out of his way to pursue his cause against R’ Moshe. A few months after the issue subsided, another posek (I think the book said R’ Tuvia Goldstein) came to visit R’ Moshe and he saw that antagonist leaving the house. He asked R’ Moshe if the man had come to apologize, and R’ Moshe indicated that the man had not. It turned out that the man had come to ask R’ Moshe for a letter of recommendation because he was trying to find a job. R’ Moshe had written the letter. R’ Tuvia(?) expressed surprise at the man’s chutzpah, and at R’ Moshe’s acquiescence. R’ Moshe said, “The gemara says, “yeish koneh olamo b’sha’ah achas. Maybe this is to be my sha’ah achas.”

(Story was in a book by Rabbi Frand An Offer You Can’t Refuse.)

Ideas

1. How a real ba’al mussar is someone who can walk down the street, see something, and see the mussar in it.

1a. and no matter how strong the mussar, if someone doesnt want to listen, they wont

e.g. Rebbe Akiva was able to see the mussar in a rock which had a hole, yet Bilam didnt take the mussar when his donkey started to speak with him (and Bilaam decided to start arguing with the donkey)

2. How in Pirkei Avos it says that if we claim that our nissayon was too difficult, Yosef will argue that our nossyonos werent more difficult than his. Discuss his nissayon, use some of the midrashim

3. Just go through a piece of davening, in English, ask if we believe what it is which we are saying? Take the 1st part of Benching as an example. Do we really believe that Hashem provides? That Hashem never withholds? Do we act accordingly?

4. Mon. The Torah was only given to people who ate Mon. What was the nissayon of the Mon? That Klal yisroel went to sleep everyday without having the next day’s portion in their possession yet. Those who tried to save a piece, didn’t succeed in doing so.

5. End of Sefer Bamidbar, Where Reuven and Gad choose money over religion (Better place to graze cattle outside of Israel) How they werent protected, were the 1st into Galus and how they needed more arei miklat, proportionally, than the rest of geographical Israel.

Hope this is a good start.

Good Luck and let us know how you did